Hello good webizens! Today I am showcasing my second storyboarding class, Animation 372: Storyboarding for Feature Animation. That’s right, this semester I am taking not one, but two storyboard classes. I am exceedingly pleased with this semester. As a storyboard major, I am finally taking the courses most interesting to me: STORYBOARDING. For FILM no less. Although both of my courses have to deal with storyboarding for feature animation, I am learning some different things in each one. And each of my excellent professors has their own unique way of teaching.

Disney, ILM and Pixar artist Tamara Lusher-Stocker teaches this course. Her filmography includes The Lion King, Home on the Range, Dinosaur, Treasure Planet, and Escape from Planet Earth.

On our first day of class she introduced herself, then the five of us (that’s right, only five students – stellar! Personal attention!) discussed our goals. Everyone in our class is a storyboard major and three of us will soon graduate, so we will be able to showcase our thesis project during the class.

For our first class, we discussed some of the similarities and differences between boarding for TV, live action and feature animation.

TV Animation

As everyone who has ever watched the credits of an animated program knows, most TV animation is not actually animated in the states. For this reason, storyboard artists must be extremely precise. The boards are often used by overseas animators as key frames for their animation, so accuracy is a must.

Live Action

Live action boards serve as a blue print for complicated shots. You want to make sure that the angle of that explosion looks just right before the truck drives under the bridge you’re going to blow up. The point is to give the director exactly what they’re looking for, to draw realistic characters, and often arrows are shown to where the action is going (although I hear this is starting to go away since most everything is put into an animatic now).

Feature Animation

You’re creating the entire film with boards and making a story reel, or animatic, that will show exactly how the movie will be played. No arrows here.

Most importantly one should draw loose and communicate quickly. There’s no time to noodle boards to make them beautiful. You’ll be drawing way to many of them to get attached to any one in particular.

Like in Kristen’s class, we also discussed Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey (seriously, read this book. It explains A LOT and you’ll find how many of your favorite films use the formula pretty accurately). We also discussed stereotypes, empathy, acting, and the importance of using a strong silhouette.

We practiced modeling and drawing each other in preparation for our homework.

Here are my drawings of my classmates:

Next we watched interesting clips from The Incredibles and Monsters Inc. in order to get a better sense of character design and structure. Then we tried our hand at drawing our own crazy creatures.

Finally, we took our last model and were encouraged to tell a story with the character, making the model into some type of creature.
Here are my three processes:

For our first homework assignment, Tamara instructed us to draw three life drawings of a single person from life, five drawings of them participating in an activity, three head studies, and one drawing of them on the phone. She encouraged us to pick someone fascinating, as our first storyboard will revolve around this character.
You’ll see who I chose in Week 2.

Bon Nuit!