Fourth Wing Animatic: Why does this project exist?

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Continuing from my recent blog posts, my main goal is to create an animatic from the book ‘Fourth Wing’ by Rebecca Yarros. I’ve chosen a book that is new and yet to have a media adaptation (which one is currently in the works with Amazon Studios), this way I can have my own interpretation without being influenced by existing media.
Beside the fact that I am doing this from something currently popular in the romantasy (romance plus fantasy, seems to be what they are calling it these days) genre, I’m using this to hone my skills as a storyboard artist and go for something bigger. There are a lot of people that know Fourth Wing, I can seek them for any kind of given feedback on my work.

How does it fit into the larger media landscape of similar projects?
This project easily fits into the larger media landscape as storyboarding is used for most current media, including animation, film, and video games. It visualizes a selected scene from a script narrative or making on-the-spot thumbnail sketches for the preproduction team (Hart, 2008), storyboarding is important in that regard as it is the essential guide for the entire production. If I were to make a portfolio for a specific company, I should have developed the skills to match their style/aesthetic and showcase my best pieces. If I’m flexible enough, I should be able to fit into what is currently relevant.


Why would your project stand out?

If I were to talk about my Fourth Wing project, as I’ve said in my previous blogs it is currently very popular in the ‘romantasy’ genre from 2023 and currently 2024. If you’re into war colleges and dragons, this will be the reason why, especially if you were into the Hunger Games and How to Train your Dragon but for adults (Mendez II, 2023). I’m currently sitting in a hot spot for my project to stand out. If I were to post this onto social platforms, it would be the first piece of animated media before the Amazon version comes out. 

Fourth Wing French Special Edition
There is already plenty of fanart, but unfortunately these days I’m noticing a lot of it to be AI. This will be one of the traditional few fan-made pieces to come out which I can use existing artworks as inspiration to spark ideas. I’m hoping with the voice acting and music I have created with the other students, will carry it a step further to stand out amongst the tags and algorithm of Youtube and TikTok where it’s popular.

Relevancy
For my project to be relevant, I must exhibit my entire pipeline for my project so industry professionals can see my work ethics. Generally, I won't have to design the characters or the world itself, it's generally given to me by the production team. Disney and his conceptual artists refined the use of the storyboard as the essential method of pre-visualizing the story to be told (Culhane, 1983). With all the material given in front of me, I need to visualise the best way to convey a scenario in a scene. By doing this, I will be able to demonstrate my abilities to produce a series of panels of images to plan the shots and ensure continuity between them (Screenskills). I should be able to do this in such a way that does not require me to explain each panel, they need to convey solid information to the viewer to understand what is happening. If the viewer does question it, then I need to figure out how to take the feedback and improve on my storyboards to be a professional storyboard artist in the animation industry.

The relevancy of my project will be due to discerning eye to cinematography, composition, fluency in character actions and emotions, and my  artistic skillset in the industry. My best work will be displayed into my portfolio when I hand it in to studios and jobs that seek storyboard artists.



References:
Hart, J. (2008). The art of the storyboard : a filmmaker’s introduction (2nd ed). Elsevier/Focal Press.
Mendez II, M. (2023, November 7). How Rebecca Yarros’ Novels Became a Romantasy Booktok Phenomenon. TIME. https://time.com/6332608/iron-flame-rebecca-yarros/
Owens, K. (2024, February 15). Importance of the Storyboard. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/importance-storyboard-kevin-owens-jtq3e
ScreenSkills. (n.d.). Storyboard artist in the animation industry. ScreenSkills. https://www.screenskills.com/job-profiles/browse/animation/pre-production/storyboard-artist/
Simon, M. (2007). Storyboards : motion in art (3rd ed). Focal Press. http://site.ebrary.com/id/10151436
Yarros, R. (2023, October 31). Film News! Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/p/CzCTWnRvpfi/

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