Fourth Wing Animatic: Looking into the Future

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How you plan to take your role project output and have it be an effective means of self-promotion for your specialist practice.

A few months ago, I had already described how I was going to post updates on my selected platforms. I’m going to do it the same way again but with a different flare. The best way for me to showcase my practice is by posting here as blog posts, and describing the process of my workflow. The next one is Twitter which has such a large art community now, I’ve noticed a lot of pages pinning their link trees, portfolios and demo reels. Instagram and TikTok doesn’t really give you the option of creating threads and explaining tidbits of what you have done.

Blog posts and Twitter are the best ways to show my specialist practice as an effective self-promotion platform. Discord servers are another great one if I want to receive some constructive feedback on my art and animatics, there are a few servers I am a part of like Ethan Becker’s for example. They include a WHOLE lot of artists, animators and industry professionals that I hope to receive some great advice from. Finally, any parts of my practice that feel complete I will update onto my Instagram and TikTok page, to try and gain some audience.

As my main specialisation is storyboarding, I take the responsibility of creating a visual shot-by-shot translation of a script and create the entire basis of the production. The process includes design, background and layout, animation, and post-production (Levy, 2006). In the early stages, I’m already onto the character designs. It is important to have a source of reference so I can keep the consistency of the characters going in the thumbnails, storyboard and animatic. I want to keep each of the designs individually unique as visuals are a major part of getting social engagement, it enables the audience to see what I’ve done differently in an innovative way. It shows them that I have put a lot of thought and significance into each of the characters, the more exaggerated they are in 2D; the more eye-catching. Gamble mentions that most people don’t run on much time, so a good way to engage them is with an easily digestible image so they can see the value quickly and understand what it is I’m trying to showcase. He also notes that we are living in a visual world, so the best way to gain media consumption is by posting to YouTube, social channels and blogs, competing for my marketplace’s attention with the same visual craft to enable understanding (Gamble, 2016). 

To keep the engagement flowing, I plan to keep posting updates on little snippets of the animatic, covering some action and dialogue between the characters. A lot of this will be done on TikTok, it may not be the most professional way but it is the platform that Fourth Wing is the most popular on. I hope to present it in such a way that excites fans of the book that know what chapters I’m covering, and newcomers that may be intrigued by what is happening in the animatic. I’m applying and promoting both my own specialisation practise and Rebecca Yarros’s story simultaneously. To the long-term and new-term consumers.



References

Gamble, S. (2016). Visual content marketing : leveraging infographics, video, and interactive media to attract and engage customers. Wiley. March 3, 2024, 

Levy, D. B. (2009). Animation development : from pitch to production. Allworth Press. 

Levy, D. B. (2006). Your career in animation : how to survive and thrive. Allworth Press. 

Maas, Jennifer (September 11, 2023). "From #BookTok to IRL: 'Fourth Wing,' 'True Blood' Authors Discuss Sold-Out Reader Convention and the Need for In-Person Connection". Variety. Retrieved October 11, 2023.

Scott, D. M. (2015). The new rules of marketing and promotion: how to use social media, online video, mobile applications, blogs, news releases, and viral marketing to reach buyers directly.

ScreenSkills. (n.d.). Marketing executive in the animation industry. ScreenSkills. https://www.screenskills.com/job-profiles/browse/animation/distribution/marketing-executive-animation/

Winder, C., Dowlatabadi, Z., & Miller-Zarneke, T. (2011). Producing animation (2nd ed.). Focal Press. 

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