All last week, I’ve been working on a 2D animatic for our little piece. Here’s the progress so far:
Scratch audio I got for free from soundsnap.com (I’m one of their oldies, so I get 5 free downloads a month).
Everything else was done in Photoshop CS5 and AfterEffects CS4.
Another Chance 
It looks really good! I’m excited.
I was a bit confused though at the first shot, It took me too long to figure out that it was a shot from above. This will likely be more clear in the final stages but it might be something to reconsider.
This is potentially complicated but my vision was to start as a foot level shot, we see the door open–her walk in– close it– then walk towards the camera as the camera dollys back to maintain distance from her feet, then rotates out of the way to let her pass where she turns on the bath– then booms up her backside (as you did) when stops at the sink to reveal her entirety.
This would be one shot, no cuts until we see her face. By showing how just her feet move as she goes from task to task would be a neat juxtaposition between that and how she will be dancing in the clouds. (heavy heeled walks compared to light footed dancing) I could make an animation if this is confusing.
Also I agree with Romina that I think her sinking into the tub was going to be a birds eye view.
I think following her feet is a great idea! And would be a really good juxtaposition. With the shot though, I wonder if it would be better to keep the camera rotating all the way up. Maybe it doesn’t encircle her entirely, and the camera moves less than 180*, but keeps moving in that arc the whole time until the reveal? So then it doesn’t have any awkward direction changes that would disorient the viewer… Unless there’s a way to do it that wouldn’t? What do you think? I do feel that a consistently moving camera would be more interesting and would contrast the stillness of her staring at herself in the mirror nicely.
I think for the first bird’s eye shot of the entire room, we had that idea because we liked the idea of ending where we began, where the last shot would be the same. Maybe it will be clearer with more detail, or maybe we just scrap it? If we implement the bird’s eye shot of just her face as she descends into the water, than we can mimic that shot at the end again as she emerges, and then maybe just dolly back with a resolve.
Overall though I think the timing of the animatic is great so far!
Good points!
I think I way to make the camera movement up her back seem less disorienting is if the camera was simultaneous moving backwards and rotating slowly around her, from the bottom of her left heel, to pulled back to the height in the animatic where it is showing her from the backside. If it happens slowly then it wont seem to crazy.
It might be worth exploring if the camera–instead of stopping on her back–follows through to complete the 180* but at the height to above her shoulder, showing her at a ~3/4 shot. So there is a rotating reveal of her face versus the boom reveal of her face (which is 1/2 obscured by her head in the current animatic)
This may be a good setup for the full frontal face shots since it will be coming after a cut to her hands in the sink. Although I’m not sure how good that will work, since what we are seeing is technically her reflection in that first reveal.
Also I am a bit fond of the idea of the birds eye as she sinks into the dream, but the view of her face as she emerges–dolly back with a resolve.