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OKAY so even though this Orange and Blue "animatic" is really short and isn't even done as I'm writing this, I wanna do a little thread about how I tackle boards. First of all, if you're like me and if you're starting a really big project that you're making all on your own 1/?
try to start by writing! If you have poses or shots you want to include, definitely sketch them out! But try not to skip out on writing stuff. Write down dialogue, acting, all that stuff so you don't forget it. Since this thing I'm doing is tiny and I have audio to work with 2/?
I just jumped to my next step. Thumbnails! Make sure you draw your thumbnails super small!! Nancy Beiman said in her book, Prepare to Board, "Always work rough before going clean." Don't waste all your time rendering a thumbnail 3/?
that doesn't even work!! Thumbnails are meant to be a place for you to explore your ideas. If you don't nail things like your staging and acting in your thumbs, then there's no saving them even when you clean them up. So don't be afraid to explore with thumbnails! 4/?
Draw them tiny! Draw them quick! They don't need to be pretty! This phase is about exploring, so you should also try to get as many ideas for a shot out as you can. But you might be like me, and you might have like... 2 ideas and then you can't think of how else to tackle the 5/?
shot. If that's the case, why not show your thumbnails to your peers, or step away from the project for a bit. Clear your mind, do something menial and don't stress about it! Trust your gut. You have a wealth of film language knowledge since you consume media constantly so 6/?
if you really are set on having a shot a certain way, then don't doubt your intuition. BUT that's not to say you shouldn't study film language! Definitely study film language, and when you're working on a shot try to ask yourself: "Is this the best way I can show this?" 7/?
I don't think every single shot you do has to be SUPER dynamic (and flat staging works better for certain situations, like comedy, anyway) but try to really think about your staging and how to make it appealing for the viewer. Okay! So you have thumbnails, awesome! 8/?
Now what I'll do is I'll actually put my thumbs in the correct aspect ratio (with TV nowadays it's 16:9) and I'll draw them again, super messy. Also, I still like to work small at this stage, so as you can see by my note I'm working in 360p 9/?
I like to leave myself a note so I don't forget to change it later haha. Also! If you're curious, the solid line in the last images is the camera/stage area. The dashed line is your camera safe area. You want to make sure you don't cut off parts of your characters or their 10/?
actions, so try to keep your acting within the camera safe area!! Honestly this is something I really struggle with, because I personally really like to make the characters REALLY BIG on the screen. I think it's mostly because my own workspace/screen is somewhat small, so 11/?
I try to compensate by making the characters huge. TV and movie screens are HUGE so don't be afraid to pull the camera back and make the character smaller. Even if you like the framing of a shot, try to make the character maybe like 10% smaller... which is super easy 12/?
with digital tools like SBPro. Pulling back and seeing more of your character gives them room to move and act!! 13/?
Okay so here's my first pass at this thing! Like I said the clip is super short so if I really wanted to I could have made this thing 1 shot. But I wanted to accomplish 2 things by splitting it up into 2 shots. First thing, I wanted to give both Orange and Blue a moment 14/?
to act. Blue gets the first shot, Orange gets the second. Second, I really wanted to show you that Orange is short, so I wanted to do a down shot. Also I think splitting it up helps make it a little less monotonous. BUT ALWAYS REMEMBER you need to cut for a reason! 15/?
Every shot counts and should have a reason. An important part of being a board artist is knowing how to self-edit, so really think about your shots and try to determine if you really need a particular shot, or if you just like it. The thing about boarding is it's a process 16/?
that you have to do over & over again. It's never a "draw this 1 time and you're done" kind of process. In feature, story artists are constantly drawing and scrapping their work. Sometimes they work on a sequence for months and it doesn't even get into the movie. But that's 17/?
your job as a board artist, you need to draw and draw and draw and figure out what works and what doesn't work so the people that come after you in the pipeline can get their own work done! Don't be precious with your boards. Even if you really love your work remember that 18/?
it's okay to scrap it and try again. If your boards are thrown out or reworked don't ever think that it's a reflection of you or your art. It's not! It's just a part of the process and your ultimate goal is to tell a story, and tell it in a visually interesting way! 19/?
Also on the topic of shots, when you're setting up your scene try to be economic with your shots. You as the board artist have the ability to put the camera ALMOST ANYWHERE, but cutting to a bunch of different shots/angles makes it more difficult for 20/?
other artists down the pipeline. And tbh it makes it tough for you too! Do you really wanna have to draw the same background from a bunch of different angles a bunch of times? You want to make your shots visually interesting, but try not to go overboard with the amount of 21/?
shot choices you have in a scene. A mentor of mine told me recently "Pretend that every shot you do costs 100 bucks." So think about that when you choose your shots. Make a fake budget, and challenge yourself to tell your story within that budget! 22/?
...As I'm writing I realize that I should say this isn't the be all end all when it comes to storyboarding, these are just things I try to think about when I'm working. I know I mentioned this is how I do things at the beginning of the thread but I just wanna reiterate haha! 23/?
OK SO back to the boards! So I've got my key poses and I'm gonna go ahead and start cleaning it up. As the board artist it's not your job to animate. That's the animator's job!! BUT that doesn't mean you don't need to pose out your boards. Really think about your 24/?
character's acting, and those poses you need to draw to convey that acting. Things like characters walking, turning, coming in/out of screen, can be shown through arrows so you don't have to draw EVERY frame, but make sure that your acting is clear, readable, and posed out. 25/?
As a quick aside, when I first got into boarding (which was 2 years ago when I was learning how to animate) I initially thought "huh, I like this! You don't have to draw in betweens! I'll be a board artist!!" But baby board artist me didn't realize that boarding comes with 26/?
a WHOLE NEW SET of challenges that you have to face. As a storyboard artist you're an artist, an actor, an editor, the cinematographer, the director... you gotta know a lot of stuff!! And even though I tried it at first thinking it would be "easier" I found that I really did 27/?
find that boarding was something I was really passionate about and wanted to keep doing. Anyway, I can't think of anything else that I'm absolutely dying to say, so I wanna wrap it up by giving you some other reference material if you wanna know more about boarding! 28/?
Here's a moment I'm currently putting together of boarding references:
https://twitter.com/i/events/1308831757123432449?s=20
Also here's my big google drive full of boarding references:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/18NsC3VxznnIOmd-CUEOWI5bkl-tYaltP?usp=sharing
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https://twitter.com/i/events/1308831757123432449?s=20Also here's my big google drive full of boarding references:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/18NsC3VxznnIOmd-CUEOWI5bkl-tYaltP?usp=sharing29/?
When I'm done with my little animatic I'll post it to the thread, and if I think of anything else that I absolutely need to shout at you about I'll keep talking about it! But man oh man this thing is already so long ahh! Thanks for sticking with me!! 30/?
OH one thing I just thought of! Shorthand! Orange and Blue are pretty simple characters so their shorthand looks pretty much the same as their character designs. Nic Parris has this awesome tutorial (and many more) on the topic you can check out here:
https://twitter.com/NicParris/status/1253710231781036043
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https://twitter.com/NicParris/status/1253710231781036043
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Also it's a few hours later now and I just wanna say I wrote most of this thread between 3 AM and 5 AM so I apologize for any mistakes or if I'm all over the place. I just REALLY wanted to get my thoughts out there haha. 32/?
