Acting for Storyboarding

Every character is drawn with a specific expression that reveals their character, and advances the story. Once you've determined and drawn out the 'content' of your shot; the angle, the framing, the placement of all things - make a quick check for three things that will help the quality of your posing and positioning of your characters: Spacing - Gesture - Construction











When planning your shots, remember the fundamentals of composition:



Basic Shapes

Framing

Overlapping Forms

Clear Staging

Negative / Positive Space

Avoid the Center

Opposing Forces

Staging in Groups

Hierarchy / Visual Balance

Form Over Detail



There is much you can learn from studying the many styles of composition practiced by master comicbook/comic strip artists and illustrators...



The Main Principles:





























































































































































The purpose of all composition in comics, storyboarding, graphic design, illustration, or filmmaking is to achieve clarity in the visual layout and presentation of the static or moving image.



look at TV commercials for inspiration as how to tell a thirty-second story clearly and effeciently. Great commercials are made with a ton of economy, discipline and smart choices. Also, many times they start in a very familiar situation so that the audience gets oriented quickly and knows exactly where we are....then you can take a leap into "the fantastic", if that's what you want to do, or turn the everyday on it's head for comedic effect.



These four Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee commercials are good examples for Clarity.



















Let's analyze the importance STORYBOARDING a short film or commercial.



I boiled story down to three "C's". The first "C" is "CLARITY".



This one is particularly important for a storyboard artist in the process of visualizing a script or idea because you are working within a very small box, in both the length of your film and your "production schedule". When making a short film clarity is of the utmost importance because you don't have time to explain a lot. If you're trying to make a film about an exotic planet where all the rules are different from Earth, by the time you've acclimated the viewer to your world and explained all the rules, your film is over.



So I always suggest that short film directors look at TV commercials for inspiration as how to tell a thirty-second story clearly and effeciently. Great commercials are made with a ton of economy, discipline and smart choices. Also, many times they start in a very familiar situation so that the audience gets oriented quickly and knows exactly where we are....then you can take a leap into "the fantastic", if that's what you want to do, or turn the everyday on it's head for comedic effect.



Clarity is tougher than most people realize I think, even professional storyboard artists and film directors have a hard time with this. It's easy, once you've thought through your idea, to think that your drawings are explaining what's inside your head, but the viewer doesn't have the benefit of hearing your thoughts. The drawings (and eventually, the animation) have to carry it all. That's a very tough limitation, and you need to keep your "objective eye" in check, so that you can step back and look at your work once in a while and see it the way fresh eyes will see it. Or find someone you trust and bounce it off them once in a while.







Okay, the next two "C's" are CHARACTER and CONFLICT. You've probably heard all this before, but it's all vitally important, and it's basically what the directors, writers and story artists spend all their time talking about in the story room while they craft movies at Disney, DreamWorks and Pixar.



Basically, the "CHARACTERS" part means that you should always strive to create characters that are original, entertaining, appealing, and that the audience can empathize with...meaning that they like the characters and are willing to root for them to get what they want. Then the audience will care when your characters end up in....



...CONFLICT, which of course is the heart of all storytelling. Without conflict you don't really have a story. In general, the bigger the conflict, the more that is at stake in your movie, the bigger the odds against your characters, the more interesting the story.



So if you have characters that the audience is actually rooting for, and conflict that seems almost insurmountable that they have to resolve to get what they want, then you have a great story.



Also, one last thing: a great story is one that ends by resolving the conflict in an unexpected way that the audience doesn't see coming. But I don't know how to make that idea start with a "C" so piss off.



The main point here, start small, someday... write then storyboard a short 30 sec film, storyboard several times, several different ways. Cut these images together in sequence. You'll see what huge challenge it can be to clearly and accurately tell the story in an effecient and entertaining way.



Here is a pitch Exit 73 Studios created for Nickelodeon that was ultimately turned down, but it gives you a glimpse into their pre-production process. The entire storyboard/animatic phase is done completely in Flash, so we are left with very little guess work in the layout stage. The scratch audio and music in house.



If your interested you can download the pitch book here... exit73studios.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Market-WarriorsSmall.pdf







Observe the simple use of various angles and framing techniques in this storyboard:





Animator Hank Ketcham created Dennis the Menace, he began the comic strip in the 50s and there was always great staging and thoughtful designs.







Traditional animators often talk about "economy of line"; describing as much as possible with the fewest lines, since every line has to be drawn over and over again. The same can be said for storyboard artists, it takes years of practice to become very effecient with your pencil or stylus pen, to visually display a layout of a shot, the weight of a pose, the emotion in a posture, the basic shapes and forms that make up the clear and effective composition of a scene with as few lines as possible.























Applying Contrast and Tone Specifically to Storyboarding Contrast is useful in all aspects of your work, but when it comes to storyboarding it shines brighter than ever. Storyboarding is all about telling a story with one image and leading the viewer's eye to exactly what's important. It is normally just one part of a sequence, but an essential bit that the viewer absolutely needs to see in order to fully grasp the story being told. It may linger for a split second or much longer, depending on where in the story a certain board falls. Here then contrast through simple tone can do wonders. It can transform a line drawing with a lot going on into a simple composition that everyone knows the focus of instantly. Take a look at this amazing storyboard panel by Michael Lester who works over at Dreamworks: There's a HUGE amount going on in this subway car, with a large cast of characters, but thanks to tone and contrast your eyes are drawn immediately to the most important aspect (the dog in the hat) and then allowed the freedom to look over all the happy riders around him. The darker tone for the dog also plays nicely into the sad pose he's taking. (Truth be told we could study this image all day for a treasure trove of artistic goodness, but let's get back on topic for now.) Behold, like a magic trick, what happens when we remove the simple tonal contrast! Suddenly you notice a whole lot more lines than the partially filled piece. Where exactly are you supposed to look? Is the focus the large cat to the left? Perhaps the laughing character? Maybe the story is following the child to the right, off on his first subway ride? Eventually you might make note that the dog character has a nice aura of negative space (not touching any other characters) so it may be the story is about him. Without the tone, though, getting to that point takes a lot of thinking and a long time. Time storyboard artists need to keep moving along quickly. If you'd like to see more examples of superb use of tone and contrast in storyboards, Michael's blog Ninjerktsu does not disappoint. It's filled with storyboard-like-comics that are as hilarious as they are beautiful. (This one about a “Cat Lady” is one of my personal favorites.) Keep It Simple While it helps to use tone as shadow, you don't need to know advanced lighting techniques to add this aspect to your drawings. Simple blocking of three or four tones is enough to do the trick. Things you want to draw the eye to should have the highest level of contrast, while the areas that you'd like to fade into the background should blend in with less contrast. As an exercise, try adding in these five tones to a line drawing you've done (or add them to another artist's line drawings just to practice).

Bill Peet's storyboards for the 1952 Disney short "Susie The Little Blue Coupe":









Shot Progression Take a look at progression number one, six shots of a couple talking in a restaurant. It's a basic progression that starts far away and neutral and ends up in an extreme close up featuring one character. The script may start out with some chit chat between the characters, and intensify to where in panel six the woman makes an important statement (ie: "I'm pregnant," or "I'm leaving you", or even "oh crap-- I left the oven on" etc). For all intents and purposes, this is correct. The shots slowly intensify to a visual climax.







Now look at progression 2; same six shots, but they've been jumbled around. For the script we're using in progression one, this would be considered wrong. The shots are all over the place. Sure the woman could say "I'm leaving you " in the close up in panel six, but what impact will it have after the extreme close up in panel one? How is it building intensity if we're going to a wide neutral shot, then close up , then out to medium shots?







Now the tricky part. With a different script, the second progression could work. Say the woman gets a phone call (before this scene) from the man and he says "Sally, the money's gone; meet me at the cafe".



With that intro, the script for progression two may go like this:



panel one: (woman) "what do you mean the money's gone?"

panel two: (man)(looking around nervously and whispering) " I don't know, the suitcase was empty"

panel three: (man) "we've got to find that money"

panel four: (woman) "all right but being here is making me nervous, they could be following us"

panel five: (man) " what do you think we should do?"

panel six: (woman) "we need to get out of town"







The most important bit is the woman's reaction to the money being gone and the ECU opens the scene with a punch. The second biggest bit is "we need to get out of town", so that gets a close up in panel six although not as big as panel one. The lines of them talking about being scared of being followed are in wider shots to emphasize the people around them and that they're in a public space.



This is a simple way to illustrate that a progression like number one, (although visually solid) isn't always the right one. When you are storyboarding, keep in mind that your shot progression will depend on what is happening in your scene. Make sure your shots best emphasize what's transpiring in the story.







Thumbnails We use thumbnails to work through our ideas. To get past our first ideas (remember - your first idea is always the worst and most cliched idea. The first idea you think of is probably the first and most obvious idea that the audience will think of too!), and get on to the ideas that count. The later ideas will be the good ones. They'll be the most inventive ideas, and the most original. But to reach those ideas, you'll first have to work through the cliched ideas, right?



Thumbnails are, without a doubt, the fastest way to do that.

The quickest road to a great idea, then, is through thumbnails!

When you get a new scene, sit down and start doodling. Maybe it's just poses. Maybe it's working out full actions. Either way, you're quickly discovering what will work and what won't, and it's all on paper. Quick and dirty - that's the way to do it. Even use stick-man for your characters. Many of the best animators do their thumbnails with what is essentially a stick-man.



As long as you can see where the character's hips are, the angle of the hips, the angle of the shoulders, angle of the head, the position of the limbs, and the placement within the frame - that's ALL you need to know at this point, and you shouldn't be worrying about any other details yet, generally speaking.



Remember - They are SUPPOSED to look rough. They are not meant to be pretty pictures. Don't spend or waste a lot of time making each thumbnail look like a piece of art. Don't waste time shading it in, drawing all the little details, etc. They're meant to be fast and sloppy. The entire point of doing thumbnails is that it saves you time.



How does it save you time? Well, if you do thumbnails as part of your planning process, then you can work through all of your ideas BEFORE sitting down in front of the computer, and it's inarguably much faster to doodle a little stick-man doing a pose than it is to pose him out in the computer.



So, the first rule is to stay rough, and the first *use* of thumbnails is to discover the best ideas for your shot.



The second use of thumbnails is to get fast feedback.



You can save yourself days of work (and a great deal of frustration) if you run your thumbnails past your lead or your director before diving into the actual scene. Nothing is more frustrating than spending 3 days blocking in something that you think is great only to find out, once the director gets a look at it, that you're doing something he doesn't like at all. It's always a great idea to run your thumbnails past them first, so you can save yourself the headache (and heartache!) of hearing the dreaded "start over" words from your director.











Here's a few quick methods for producing fast and dirty thumbnails.

1. Keep the area you have to draw small. It allows you to draw much faster. The pictures become more like doodles than works of art. Remember the point is to get an idea of how things will look on screen. Ridley Scott (Blade Runner, Alien, Gladiator) is famous for his Ridleygrams - rough, almost indecipherable sketches that outline what he has in mind.

2. Copy up a set of storyboard sheets so you don't have to spend all night drawing screen boxes.

3. Sketch in pencil so you can make changes easily, then use markers for photocopying. Feel free to use any medium you are happy with - professional storyboard artists use everything from magic markers to charcoal.

4. Scribble down short notes about what's happening in shot and what characters are saying.

5. An overhead plan view of the location of the camera, actors and props can be helpful if you know the environment you are going to be working on.

6. Number your shots so that they can be quickly referred to on the shot list, during editing, or when you are pitching the boards to someone.

Drawing storyboards is an excellent way to keep motivated, to show you're organized and to let everyone else know what's going on in your head.

In Live-Action, storyboards aren't there to constrain you. Just like the script they are there to back you up during shooting. If everything starts flowing on set let it happen. In the real situation you may see a new angle - go ahead, shoot it. Get the shots you need by checking your storyboard and give yourself the time and freedom to experiment.



In animation, a good way to thumbnail out some ideas is by doing a 'Beat Board'.



Beat Boards are sketches for the storyboard artist made to help them with gags, posing, stage direction elements and in some cases even art direction & layout.



Usually these are sketches that help to explore ideas about how to plan out certain shots.



Beat boards by Bill Wray:







Storyboards can be very detailed or very simple, they can have lots of panels for every shot to map out and choreograph the movement, or they can be very general - made to only capture the angle and composition of the shot.

















One of the ways I like to study, is by printing out a picture I like. I then take the time and trace over it. Now at first this might sound like a big waste of time but it isn't. Sometimes the mind seems to trick us into thinking a certain line or shape is different than exactly what you see in front of you. We sometimes see what we want to. So with having the added sense of feeling, of going over the same lines that are there, you are able to see and feel the shape, length, direction, thickness, rhythm of each line. You will start to feel the design. You are adding another sense while studying.







It's kind of like what a blind person would do when they touch things. They are using the sense of touch to see. Well when I trace over a picture, I get that added help of seeing by feeling the drawing as well. My drawing skills grew when I started doing this. So don't be embarrassed to trace over things, you will learn a lot.



Animation Master Glen Keane, once said "if you are drawing a blank, or are having a hard time drawing a certain thing, then it is because you have not studied it enough". You can only draw what you know. Sadly there is no magical dust (believe me I have tried searching for the stuff) that will make you a better artist. The fruit of great art comes from the roots of studying, observation, and hard work.







So for people like me that have a hard time drawing hands this is the type of (great) artwork I would printout, trace, study, and observe.



Do this for all aspects of art that you have difficulty with. Plants, buildings, mountain landscapes, people's feet, cars, whatever it may be... find references, trace over it over and over again, this will increase your draftsmanship skills and thus make you a storyboard artist.



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For every Pixar movie, a color script is created, which is essentially a rough look at the color keys, palettes, and tones for the entire film. A color script gives you a good look at how the color arcs in a film relate to the story. Lou Romano created the color script for Pixar's Up. It's done after the screenplay and designs are complete and it's an overview of the entire movie.







"The Incredibles" Color Script:





Basic Staging Principles

I drew this layout the other day, and it just didn't sit right with me. I was happy with the drawing, but it didn't help move the characters and the story forward. At this point in the film, the masked men have elevated themselves to predator, and have become a menacing, horrifying force that are gorging themselves on the helpless "little dudes". So I redrew the layout to express this feeling. I placed the little guys lower in the frame, and I launched the masked man up high - utilizing a low camera angle - a classic and cliche way to make a character more powerful (just look at all the low shots of Darth Vader). A bonus to the scene now is that I can show some really frightened expressions on the little guys. The re-staging of this shot even influenced the style of drawing... I drew the masked man in the improved version with a lot more insidiousness and evil... whereas the previous version, the masked man comes off as a bit too cartoonish, and the overall composition improved as well. I suppose this is just a reminder to push yourself at every level... you just never know how you can improve your shot, so experiment with angles and depth.







