Summoners War

I storyboarded the opening sequence of a 'Summoners War' short film. 'Friends and Rivals' was directed by Paul Furmiger for Skybound North and produced at Axis Animation.

SONIC MOVIE storyboard: Portal Chase

Pro-Create Film Studies: The Color Purple

I cut together my film studies from The Color Purple made on the iPad as I was familiarizing myself with the excellent & versatile app ProCreate. I found every shot Spielberg uses has an idea behind it; there is meaning and progression of the story visually through composition, movement, lighting & depth. He expresses what the characters feel and changes our emotions as we watch...

STORYBOARDS

Studying BLADERUNNER 2049

On his blog Joscha van Deijk transcribed my notes from the videos:

Screen-grab the new trailer …
Make a template to match the screen ratio of the film
Don’t TRACE the images. Try to match the composition by EYE
Holding down SHIFT while drawing snaps your brush to the horizontal (or vertical)
Simple gradient to suggest atmosphere
GAUSSIAN BLUR filter to add depth
High angle- the extreme perspective distorts the ATARI logo
The perspective lines draw the eye to the moving element
The film-makers are not afraid to have the moving elements of a shot TINY in frame
Horizon line placed just below the center of frame
Many of the wide shots in this trailer are symmetrical while character shots are asymmetrical
Again, the point of interest, the figures, are TINY but read because they’re placed at the point of HIGH CONTRAST
Again, a symmetrical composition with the horizon line just below the center of frame
No need to draw EVERY step- just SUGGEST steps
Isolate background and ‘knock it back’ by blurring and reducing the opacity
Use light grey to highlight those figures
Use white for the highest point of contrast: the female figure
Blur background elements and bring down opacity so the character has the highest contrast values
Again, the character is framed off center, high angle and close
Off centered framing & minimal background focuses on the character
VERY minimal background; it’s all about the character
Symmetrical composition, horizon line on lower third of the frame. Surreal image; reminds me of Jonathan Glazer’s ‘Under the Skin’.
For perfect ellipses use the ELLIPSE tool!
Again, character framed screen right with VERY minimal background
High angle, over the shoulder, fore-ground figure ‘owns’ the frame
- - -
Rough in perspective lines as a guide
Establish foreground element (heaviest black)
Establish character (focal point of shot)
Elements in background are lighter
Always remember CONTRAST in values
Background elements should not be distracting
Distant lights can be simple
Sci-fi establishing shot! Amazing architecture
Rough in the perspective (high angle)
Block in tonal shapes
A suggestion of background buildings adds DEPTH
Blur gives more depth
Low contrast in this shot since it seems to be obscured by weather
2 shot but focused on foreground character
Background detail sparse and blurred
Block in the lighting simply
Insert shot, high angle- over the shoulder, close on gun
Focal point of shot is the hand and the weapon
Foreground shoulder & background blurred. Shallow depth of field
Deakins uses simple highlights to bring elements forward
Single shot, high angle and close
Very simple background elements
Block in simple tone
With linework think about drawing SHAPES and PLANES. Not overly detailed.
Keep lighting simple and clear
Establish perspective. Wide shot, low angle
This is a vertical camera move so the cropped holographic ballerina looks a little odd here
Use blurring and lower opacity for simple hologram effect.
Horizon appears to be almost on the actor’s eyeline
Also, a shot behind an actor’s head strangely puts us in their shoes
Deakins loves to use silhouettes!
Again, keep background elements simple.
Use shapes, contrast and overlapping forms to suggest DEPTH.
The BLUR tool is your friend- as long as it is used to contrast with something in SHARP focus
It doesn’t take much to SUGGEST figures. Umbrellas help too!
Wide shot. Horizon appears to cut the frame in half giving a symmetry to the shot
Rough in a perspective guide
Block in main planes: foreground, mid-ground figures
I tend to always use grey as a base color for most boards
Again, the background only needs as much detail to SUGGEST an environment. Don’t distract from the point of interest- the FIGURES
Adjust scale of figures. Deakins is not afraid to have tiny figures in frame
Notice all lines of perspective lead the eye to the characters
Same scene. Medium shot. Horizon central but technically a low angle.
Block in the shapes- it’s easy in silhouette!
Background can be loose. Focus is on the characters.
Linework just needs to communicate ‘two figures look at each other’
Silhouette but there is some detail in there; subtle light on the faces
Subtle highlights to bring them forward

 

Imagine FX

The new issue of Imagine FX magazine is an animation special. I put together an article on story-boarding. It's on news-stands now and available digitally. More info here . 
Storyboards aren't often published because of copyright issues and studio policy so I put together a personal assignment I set for myself to get me thinking 'outside the box' on a feature project.

Teaching Down Under!

I've just returned from a 2 week trip to Melbourne, Australia to teach story-boarding to a select group of industry locals. They were a dedicated, hard working bunch eager to learn and absorbed my lessons and assignments with aplomb.The enterprise was arranged by veteran animation director and producers Peter Viska and Colin South with support from Film Victoria.

We had a whole day of gesture drawing exercises which was exhausting for all!

(Photos from Jacquie Nguyen's Instagram)

One evening I did a 'live story-boarding' demo for an invited group of Melbourne animation pros. I was given a page of script fro ma 'Fatal Attraction' type scenario and talked through my process as I drew.

. . . and, of course, mean caricatures ended the affair!

The team made this terrific thank you card for me

A Monster In Paris animatics

I found some old animatics of my boards from 'A Monster In Paris' (2011). There are enough clips online to compare them to the final film. It's pretty lose to what I conceived but it's interesting to see where the film departs. Back when I did these I was working on paper with pencil and ink, scanning elements to composite them and heightening tone in Photoshop.

Here is sequence 3350 - the big musical number with Vanessa Paradis and Matthieu Chedid's song 'La Seine'.





I remeber Bibo had staged a workshop with dancers who worked out a routine for the animators to reference. Rightly the film focuses on the characters' motions and dropped the stage elements with cut-out 'flats' I proposed (background elements by Sasek!). Once they step off the stage and enter the fantasy realm then the decor becomes flat- smart decision.

Sweet Emotion

This is a very early rough pitch I did late 2010 trying to figure out the 'interface' between the Emotions and Riley. I placed the E's stationed at a central console, an emotional 'well' where they could control physiological responses and view memory balls. Even at this early point Joy, Anger (Ira) and Fear (Freddie) were pretty well defined as a yellow wisp, a red block and a skinny nerve. The green character was Hope and the purple one Pride (Preston). Sadness (Hap) was like a big, blue mattress and was still male at this point.

I cued off a scenario where Riley has been sent to her room after sulking at the dinner table. (I think maybe Ronnie had even done a pass on the 'dinner table' sequence by that point.) The E's are all doing their job making Joy feel left out.

This view was tricky: I figured Riley is looking in a mirror hence the E's can see her through her POV.

Thumbnails

Since storyboarding is now done digitally these days I have no production sequences saved on paper. In the flurry of activity that is the day-to-day race to draw sequences for looming deadlines thousands of drawings disappear into 'the system' never to be seen again. It's not really company policy to allow that material out of the building anyway. All I have are scans of paper thumbnail sketches I made when figuring out how to approach the staging and acting for some sequences. I did some early work on the 'Abstract Thought' sequence and you'll see below that the Train of Thought passed through it at one stage. Here Joy is separated from Sadness and, with Bing Bong, escapes Mind Construction Workers by hitching a ride aboard the Train of Thought . . .

After a briefing from the directors where I make notes directly on the script page I'll start scribbling down small thumbnail sketches of any visuals or staging that spring to mind immediately.

These are more like 'beat boards' exploring a Brainstorm, Abstract Thought and the Train of Thought.

BRAINSTORM

With 'INSIDE OUT' taking over the world I'm dredging the memory bank for some of the multitude of ideas that didn't get into the final version of the story. For every idea in the movie there must be a hundred that remained on the story room floor. These are a fraction of the visual thoughts generated not only by the Story team but the Art Dept. would follow up with countless designs and suggestions.

This is a VERY early visualization of 'Headquarters' (late 2010) where I was playing with the Emotions literally plugged into Riley's Mind as they monitor her physical state. That purple figure was Pride who was the fifth emotion before Disgust came into the picture instead.

 More early Headquarters beat boards where I was trying out the physiological controls and a control room similar to the bridge of the Enterprise in Star Trek.

This next one I called 'Emote Control'. You can see Anger was a blocky, little square from day one and Joy was always more humanoid with a wisp of hair like a flame. Sadness was much bigger, like a large, lumbering mattress. She gradually shrunk over the production and gained hair and glasses (and clothing!). Fear was always a slender, worm-like form. Hope kind of merged with Sadness while Pride was dropped altogether.

What would a 'flood of emotion' look like?

How does 'memory recall' work?

In the early days of story development we had Short Term memory and Long Term memory. Below I envisioned all 6 emotions encountering a clerk or librarian who organized memories and sends them up a vacuum shoot.

 Short Term was for sorting and Long Term was for storage. Long Term memory held deep, important memories from Riley's life. Here I was playing with floating memory 'boxes' or display cabinets.

In an early version of the story Joy and BingBong originally entered the film-set or 'Dream Productions' through a back door and passed through a warehouse where all the props that made Riley's dreams were stored.

 Joy and Bing Bong enter the 'Center for Boy Research' - my attempt to incorporate some Freudian symbolism.

 This must have been a riff on BingBong's 'bottomless' backpack. 'Core memories' started out in the film as 'golden memories' and BB was hiding them . . . somewhere . . .

In his earliest incarnation BingBong was more of a fugitive, on the run from 'Mind-Police'. I imagined his arrest photos.

Existential angst . . . 

Joy and BingBong being chased by the 'Mind' police.

Joy and Bing Bong disguise themselves to evade capture or sneak into different parts of the Mind.

Having retrieved all the golden memories Joy climbs out of the Memory Pit like Robert DeNiro in 'The Mission'!

The structure of 'The Mind' was constantly re-thought; should it be vertical, horizontal? Should Joy's journey be down or up? At one point it was depicted as a fantastic city.

Here I was thinking of multiple 'Trains of Thought' that might converge in a cerebral cortex 'Grand Central Station'.

There was some exploration of areas in the Mind that were more like natural environments; the Frozen Forest of Amnesia, the swamp of Inner Demons etc.

We considered musical instruments as a way of expressing emotion. Sadness would obviously have a harp or violin but I imagined Anger dwarfed by a giant percussive/organ instrument - like a one man band!

If I remember correctly this was an assignment to see if we could give the memory balls some of the attributes of the characters; big, HEAVY sad memories; skittish little fear memories, disgusting memories etc.

The Mind's Eye -a kind of mobile CCTV - 'always watching. . .'

Below: Doodles of Blue Sky Thinking, a Train of Thought and a Brainstorm.

I found Joy rather hard to draw, especially that elven hairstyle that was brushed down and up. She was more humanoid than the basic shapes of the other Emotions (even Disgust was a triangle in an early incarnation). The others artists like Domee naturally had great appeal in their drawings of Joy but I struggled. In an effort to capture her spirit better I once had one of our Gesture models assume poses that were relevant to the story and drew her (or him, I can't remember) as Joy.