Starting Storyboarding...

I’ve had the chance to take an Animation gesture drawing class this semester and it’s been a blast! Storyboarding is naturally the next step from animation gestures so I’ve begun to teach myself. Now up to this point I had never storyboarded before, so I decided to dive in head first and try my hand at Alice in Wonderland. 

It took a lot more thought than I expected, but it was also terribly fun! This sequence was just what I needed to get my feet wet and prime me for learning the basics. Also taught me the importance of simple post-its over neon pink one. My professor then suggested I start to do film studies to learn some cinematography, so I started with Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. I started with the opening sequence and learned so much!

First off the cinematography was brilliant! In just a few minutes the film had a strong feeling of place and atmosphere. The storytelling was also great because it let the audience know what is happening in each of the characters heads without any dialogue. At this point I still didn’t know the basic shots used to compose sequences so I decided to fix that…

Important to learn shots and the basics of cinematography because the way the camera interacts with the action has a tremendous influence on the storytelling of the sequence and the emotions created in the audience. Next, I tried to tackle Citizen Kane with a Griz and Norm film study approach.

I found out it’s easier to do tonal studies of old black and white films. Tone is super important because it masses shapes together and creates depth and mood that would otherwise be impossible with line alone, something that I struggled with when studying Indiana Jones. Citizen Kane taught me so much about layout and how important it is to storytelling.

Live action film is good to study but not the best for acting because only the shots are planned out before filming, thus relying on the actors themselves to bring their characters to life. Animated films on the other hand are very acting heavy with the acting often being planned out on a storyboard level.

That being the case I'm now onto studying animated films and will post up my finished studies soon.