storyboading – movingpic

8th December 20208th December 2020

Storyboarding workshop part 2

As I’ve mentioned some posts before I took a storyboarding workshop during summer break. In the first part, I shared an overall impression and experience and described what we did during that day. Also, I slightly mentioned about the homework. So, in this part im going to touch this particular subject more.

So, the week before the actual course, I got an email with a homework assignment and a deadline it must be emailed back to the instructor no later than two days before the class, so he could review it properly. Also, there was a time limit for the assignment- since this task is developed only as a warm-up, it should be done no more than about 45 minutes.

The assignment was given to choose a favourite film, and by using only nine storyboard panels (sound pretty easy!), I should be trying to tell the story of the film. The film could be in any media or genre as long as it is something favourite and it is a story that I know well.

I did not think long and chose the Robin Hood (1973) by Walt Disney studio. This film is one of my all-time favourites, and I really enjoy to watch it from time to time. This is a joyful adaptation of classic English folklore about adventures of anthropomorphic heroic outlaw Robin Hood as a fox and his sidekick Little John the bear who are inhabitants of an animal kingdom in Sherwood Forest.

In the beginning, I truly believed that it would be an easy task. Just nine panels and favourite cartoon what could be more straightforward. That’s how naive I was.

Firstly, I decided to watch the film and break it down into a list of significant events in the story and then draw the storyboard. And right in the middle of the viewing, I started to understand that it is no that simple as it looks. In the end, my list went way beyond nine panels- I wrote sixteen ‘crucial’ incidents which I thought must be in the storyboard. I really wanted to introduce almost half of the characters, and include robbery, taxes, tournaments and all battles and actions. Additionally, a Love Story between Robin Hood and Maid Marian (how even possible to not have this in the boards!)

This was when my challenge began. I had to find a way to reduce the list to nine panels. I read through all notes a couple of times and made the first version of the storyboard. As I still tried to incorporate everything and everyone into drawings, my panels did not look like a coherent narrative, but more like independent illustrations without any sequential progression.

Honestly, I felt stuck. How it is even possible to force an hour and a half storyline into reduced version in nine pictures? At this point, I decided to watch the animation again and made marks in my notes. At this moment, I started to realise that I can divide my list into three several story workflows. One will be about Robin as a hero, another one could be all around Prince John, and another could entirely be concentrated about love and Maid Marian. And instantly, I started to realise what if I will focus only on one main character, I will quickly reduce and resolve my assignment!

So, I decided to concentrate on the main story about Robin, who helped villagers and about his bravery. And here you can see the final result.

And on the day of the workshop, Sam Horton, our instructor, reviewed and commented on everyone’s works.

Altogether, I genuinely think that this is a fantastic exercise that helps think critically about our own story, additionally, build it more efficiently. Moreover, I believe that this kind of activity should be acquired for the Central Saint Martins MA Character Animation curriculum.

24th November 202024th November 2020

Storyboarding workshop part 1

During summer holidays, I took several online courses, masterclasses and workshops to keep myself busy. One of them was a Storyboard one-day workshop from Aardman Studio.

Because the whole unprecedented situation in the country Aardamn moved all their courses online with all kind of classes available form time to time, from stop-motion to model and puppet making.

Since over the pre-production stage on our team project for LIAF, I worked a lot with storyboards; therefore, I decided to take this additional class to get more about this discipline. I wanted to know more about how it works in the real studio and how different it is from my own experience so far and to learn something new about storyboarding.

The course was taught by Sam Horton. He is an artist who behind such projects as Morph from Aardman, Go Jetters Blue Zoo, Denis and Gnasher Unleashed Jellyfish Pictures, and many more.

In view of the course only one day long, the schedule was very intensive.

Over the first part of the day, Sam introduced himself, he gave us overall about his experience, about projects he worked. Then we got a chance to introduce ourselves- all participants were from different backgrounds, with various drawing skills and with little or no experience in storyboarding at all. After that was a bit thrilling moment- evaluation of pre-course homework 🙂 (I will get back to it later).

Shortly after that, Sam Horton gave us behind the scenes in storyboarding from script to pitch to finished work. He provided a lot of tip and tricks like acting and exaggeration are the best friend of the artist, and perspective lines help enormously for staging and camera placement. More than that, you should always ask for references. And one, that I found really important, test your board on your friends or co-workers. It will help you to make changes before actual viewing with directors and get a better critique of your work.

Right after lunch, we were divided into teams of four and worked on a given script to produce a storyboard. The script was for one of the Morph episodes, and each team had 30 minutes only for work.

I would say it was challenging. Firstly, if you are not familiar with this cartoon, you might not know who are the characters and how they look like. For instance, we had Chas and The Very Small Creatures. So, we googled to find about them. Secondly, for no-English speakers, some specific names of objects were new. Like particular brands of cookies and specific kind of fireworks were mentioned in our script.

When we got back into one zoom-room, each team presented their work and Sam gave some constructive critique and comments. That was the most comical part of the day because we used funny noises while pitching our storyboards. Also, we watched the original episodes for every script to see how close we were with our boards. That was great.

We finished the workshop with a Q&A session and contacts exchanging.

Well, in general, I would say that as a one-day class, it was great and we got a lot of comprehensive information about storyboarding as a profession, about necessary skills and how-does-it-work. I also realised how much I still need to learn and improve my skills enough to work as a storyboarder artist.

To be continued …

11th June 202011th June 2020

Notes about storyboarding: visual tools

I’ve recently worked on storyboards for our LIAF team project (since my story did not get through, I was assigned to another project). I watched and read a lot of materials about the topic, and I found that all articles are about camera views and movements, compositions, character posing and terminology. Although that all are important, however, there not that much information about visual ‘helpers’ to build storyboards. I’m talking about lines, shapes, colour and tone. By using these simple tools, we can convey the story more precisely.

Storyboards are quick drawings that represent a frame of the film, and by putting them together in sequences helps us to visualise the movie before actual work on animation.

The right composition is one of the fundamental rules for storyboarding. It is the visually organised layout of elements in a scene. And the relationship between the lines, shapes, right tones and colour within frame should convey meaning and express emotions in the narrative.

I think every storyboard frame begins with the line. The striking thing about this visual tool is that it can have many different properties.

First of all, we use it to show the direction of movement or direction of the camera to point. The line can really force viewers eyes in the right direction.

Additionally, we can change the weight of a line. If one character or object is drawn thick line, it is essential in the current scene.

The line also can be used to show speed and quick movements. You can vary the shape to show emotions- zig-zagged line looks dangerous and angry, the curve seems calm. Sketching sharp and expressive lines help build a world and bring life, and even portray the emotions.

It is interesting that line also helps to create a sense of space. We can imitate the 3D space by placing lines in perspective- parallel lines appear to get closer together as they move further away.

Along with lines, the shape also helps us tell stories. For instance, the bigger something is in the frame, the more valuable it is. Or we can visualise the size of the character to the surrounding, like, a small person in an ample space also can illustrate how vulnerable it is, not only how big his world is.

Additionally, basic shapes can imply the characteristics of the characters. For example, triangles can show anger, speed, or tautness. Circles look very friendly, but squares seem strong and durable.

Although, as we add more details, by stacking two-three shapes together, we can convey more information, expressing, or emotion. The use of shapes can apply to everything.

Furthermore, if we place more massive shapes at the bottom of the frame and lighter shapes towards the top of the frame, it makes it look like they’re further away from each other. This simple trick mimics the illusion of depth—the position of elements and their size contrast within the frame, placing shapes higher or lower.

Not only lines and shapes but also tone (shading), or how dark or light something is in a scene, can make it stand out from everything else.

frame from SB for Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

By adjusting the light and dark values of all the elements in the frame, can lead your viewer’s eyes and even create a specific mood. Light value feels open, calm, while the dark value can add an ambience of mystery, sorrow, or danger.

By playing with these settings, we can control which information will be revealed to the audience, since our eyes naturally go first to the point of highest contrast.

So, altogether, these tools are like building blocks of visual storytelling that help can create mood, lead the viewer’s eye, and control what information gets unveiled to the audience.