Animatics: The Moving Storyboards of Episode I

George Lucas first had his team generate their own original animatics for the snow battle sequence in The Empire Strikes Back. Hand-drawn sketches were roughly animated to give a sense of how the extraordinary battle scenes would flow, and many of these were later translated into live-action shots. The animatics assisted in the conception of the scene, and, like the WWII footage used in Star Wars, gave Lucas a way to communicate with his effects personnel, to say more precisely, "I want exactly this."

Visual effects are expensive, and it is not practical to film many variations and let the editor choose from amongst them later, as is often done with live-action photography. Animatics were one solution to making sure the effects artists were only creating what Lucas wanted and what would edit well into the film.

For Return of the Jedi, standard storyboards could not effectively convey the action of the famous high-velocity speeder bike chase, and so in order to mock up sequences of this chase, quickly-made models were videotaped and moved on sticks like puppets.

These sequences could be rough-cut together to test how well the scene was flowing, and again served as a guide to the people doing the final effects.A similar approach was taken with parts of Jedi's final space battle, using a mix of simplified models, explosion footage, and hand-drawn artwork.

The rough animatics of Empire and Jedi were helpful but only of limited use, because there were so many ways in which they did not actually match the final footage that would be shot: camera lens types, angles of view, and depth of environment, for example. Also they were not especially flexible media: they could be revised, but not with enough ease to make the work productive.

These sequences could be rough-cut together to test how well the scene was flowing, and again served as a guide to the people doing the final effects.A similar approach was taken with parts of Jedi's final space battle, using a mix of simplified models, explosion footage, and hand-drawn artwork.

The rough animatics of Empire and Jedi were helpful but only of limited use, because there were so many ways in which they did not actually match the final footage that would be shot: camera lens types, angles of view, and depth of environment, for example. Also they were not especially flexible media: they could be revised, but not with enough ease to make the work.