Unless you are in the habit of watching all the “Bonus Features” on DVD movies, you probably don’t see many “animatics.” And honestly, you aren’t missing much.

An animatic is a step in the production of a piece of animation, in which the storyboard is imposed on the soundtrack. The animatic gives a rough (usually a very rough) idea of the finished piece. It is useful for making editing decisions about timing and sequence, without wasting a lot of work in the early stages. It’s also a handy skeleton of the movie, that can gradually be fleshed out as frames are finished.

This, then, is the animatic of the 30-second commercial for The Fertility Wizard, “the free Internet gizmo that calculates your fertility!”