Here's what I started with:

• Location scouting - finding the right buildings
• Set building - and the right props
• Casting - finding the right characters
• Staging - getting the characters in the right place for the action
• Camera placement, movement and usage
• Take planning - breaking the scene down in Antics takes
• Editing - shotline
• Post Production - music

This got revised, but more of that later.

Iterative is key. By this I mean start with a rough set, only necessary props and cut it quite rough. From doing this I quickly discovered that building a rough set and trying to build to the end result was not easy. Antics doesn't like you adding props or changing buildings once you have a number of actions in place.

There's also the debate about building the story in non-chronological order that is down to the director's plan. Certainly getting actos "on set" isn't an issue so the production schedule is more based on what I want to tackle and when. To start I was thinking too linear and I revised that.

A lot of time is spent choosing content - something that Antics will improve in version 3.0 - the library could do with a keyword search. I found an animation for reading a newspaper but no newspaper object! I tried out a few animations on my characters and then my focus turned to where to put the camera.

This was much harder work than I originally expected. OK, so I placed the first one really easy but as I walked through the action I realised I didn't know how to start or end the scene. When to cut when people move - before, after. Do I need a close up? Wow. I can imagine being on set and real people asking these questions and just freaking out. In a way I was just assuming that somebody (even the software) would pick the best angle and it happens! Of course it isn't, and every time you move that camera to try a new shot, getting back to the original isn't always easy!

Invaluable is the ability to look through the camera and manipulate it. Of course, I was learning how to do this in the software so that slowed me down as well. Often times I had done quite a bit of learning, but not much on the finished product which was frustrating. Also I started to realise what a MASSIVE job this is and it's easy to be disheartened - my trick was to constantly remind myself that I was learning and celebrate even mini successes.