What Are Cinematics?

[Brian Charles]

Do you mean animatics?

[Walter Soyka]

When I hear cinematic, I think of the cut-scenes in games or interactive content.

If it’s animatic, as Brian suggested, visualize an animated storyboard.

There are plenty of representative examples of both you can find with a quick search on YouTube.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Technically speaking, cinematics is a term that means “the art or principles of making motion pictures”. I suspect though that your client may want something in the line of an animatic – a pre-visualization of an idea before going into heavy production. It can be an animated storyboard or pretty complex 2d animation, 3d animation and even sometimes a small scale production with stand-in actors and low budget fx… I would ask the client what exactly does he or she mean by cinematics. Post back the answer, I’m curious to see what they say.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Ben G unguren]

I thought “animatic” as well. But I’m also suspecting that this is an in-house term that the client has, and assumes everyone else understands it. (I hate it when they do that….)

Ben Unguren
Motion Graphics & Editing
http://www.mostlydocumentary.com

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[Steve Brame]

Probably involves the use of many C-47’s.

Steve Brame
creative illusions Productions

[Thomas Leong]

Doesn’t sound anywhere near Cinemagraph – though a very artistic look, viewing their work.

[Lillian Young]

Thanks, Walter. I meant cinematics. And actually YouTube wasn’t very helpful in this regard. Of the two tutorials I found, one was very poorly instructed, and one covered so little that I didn’t grasp it.

Fortunately Lynda.com just came out with a tutorial on animating characters in AE, and I ‘think’ it’s the closest thing to what I need to know.

[Lillian Young]

I initially asked (before posting here) and they said “cinematics,” not animatics. If it’s as simple as this tutorial from YouTube where you mask out an image and animate stuff behind it, fine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBS13MFIv40

But if it’s more complicated than that, well..

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[Walter Soyka]

[Lillian Young] “Thanks, Walter. I meant cinematics. And actually YouTube wasn’t very helpful in this regard. Of the two tutorials I found, one was very poorly instructed, and one covered so little that I didn’t grasp it. Fortunately Lynda.com just came out with a tutorial on animating characters in AE, and I ‘think’ it’s the closest thing to what I need to know.”

Hi Lillian — sorry I was so unclear. I directed you to YouTube for examples of cinematics, not instruction on how to do them. Character animation is such a big topic that it’s hard to present in a 20 minute freebie Internet clip, but Lynda’s courses might cover it well.

I wouldn’t think of AE as the tool of choice for character animation, unless it’s a very specific style easily accomplished in 2.5D. When I think of cinematics, I usually think of some pretty elaborate 3D work, but again, it totally depends on the style.

If it turns out your client is using some in-house definition as others have suggested, I’d certainly love to hear how they’re using the word.

Good luck with your project!

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka]

I was thinking more like this:

https://www.youtube.com/user/WorldofWarcraft?blend=8&ob=5#p/u/0/k7Fq5gx2dmA

That’s the “making of” for a video game cinematic.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events