- [Voiceover] I want to stress that there's
no single way to create storyboards.
Different studios have their own methods and quirks.
Some are digital, some work on paper.
What I'm going to show you here are
the most common overall principles.
As you move through different studios,
don't be shocked if you see
different approaches to boarding.
But of course the general principles
of storyboarding are going to be the same everywhere.
Now I've already mentioned the differences in film
grammar terminology between live action and animation,
but it's also good to know a few things
about the similarities and differences between
storyboards made for animation and live action.
The live action storyboard person
primarily has to worry about continuity, staging,
and creating an interesting action,
like where do the actors go on the stage
so that when the shot's set up
we know where to put the different crew members.
In a live action board, it's not vital
to make the drawings look like specific characters,
as costumes and actors might change.
The live action board is a guide for the blocking
and set up of the scene, it saves the crew
a lot of time in rigging up the shot.
Arrows can be used to establish paths of motion
such as walk, you can have notes on it like this.
Live action boards only need one or two panels per shot,
unless it's really complex.
They don't necessarily need to be beautifully drawn,
but they have to be functional.
The live action crew is going to shoot this footage,
and they can shoot 10, 20, 30 takes,
which will later be edited into the final form,
as well as maybe re-timed.
In animation storyboards, in contrast,
the boards are a part of the script and editing process.
The animation storyboard artist's job corresponds
to that of the combination of cinematographer,
editor, and screenwriter as well.
It has a great deal of similarity to the skills required
to be a good comic book artist or a live action director.
So it's when creating the storyboards that the artist,
the story head, and the director are going to
determine the length of each scene,
cross-dissolves, fades, pans, the whole show.
Whilst the boards are drawn, they are assembled
into an animatic, an animated version of the storyboards
in which the essentials of the timing
of staging are determined.
This can also include camera moves, cross-dissolves, fades.
The animated film is edited before the animation begins,
whereas the live action film is edited
after all the footage is shot, it's completely different.
Animators don't have the luxury of animating
one scene from several directions,
or doing 20 versions, and then choosing between them.
There can only be one.
Now of course, changes can be made
to an animated film when it nears completion.
Scenes can be lengthened or shortened or cut,
but major changes like the ones you see happen
in live action all the time are extremely rare,
as that would be too expensive.
So one common way of doing feature of storyboards
is to do one story drawing per sheet of paper,
and then pin these to the wall and rearrange them
with notes, you know, for dialogue
and camera moves are written in here.
So these storyboards must tell the story and the acting.
And I said before, often they're drawn
before the character designs have been locked down,
so you end up kind of evolving the designs
and the story, and the environment
on the boards as you board the project.
But sometimes you will have the character models
designed before you board, so it varies
depending on what production you're working on,
what studio, and their style.
I personally love to design the characters as I board,
and to have the designs evolve along with the story,
but again, different studios have different ways,
so be ready for anything.
Now in this image, here's a typical array,
it's like a wall with all the feature-style story boards
on it, and as I said already, we have them on each,
one scene per one sheet of paper, and the beauty of it is,
if I want to move two of these around,
let's say I want to arrange this one
and move this one to here, all I have to do
is simply drag, and re-pin them to the wall.
If I want to delete a shot,
maybe this thing here is overkill, it's too arty,
then all we have to do is pull it off,
crumple it up and throw it in a bin,
and then we simply just rearrange all these,
move these four images over one to fill the gap,
and we keep going.
And so you can have bulletin board after bulletin board
as this work is evolving, as it's being created on the fly,
you and the other storyboard artists, the director,
the story head can try different combinations
and it's very fluid.
Now when I do my own storyboards for my projects,
I usually have a really good idea
of what the story is going to be.
So my preferred style is to do the sketches on the page
with four to six panels and do a little small one,
so this part you're seeing here would be like the size
of like a regular print-out letter like you would have
for like a resume or something, so it's pretty tiny,
and the beauty of that is I can fit it in the notebook,
take it with me, go to a coffee shop, sit down,
start doodling, and run through seven or eight pages.
Sometimes you might want to redraw a panel,
or rub it out, draw it again,
or if you find you have to rearrange things,
it's up to you if you want to scan it into Photoshop
and fix It in there, but again
it's a different process for different people,
I have a fairly solid idea of what I want,
so I'm okay with committing to a certain sequence of shots.
If you have a pan shot, there's no reason
why you can't extend that over two or three panels,
so for example if I wanted to I could have this be
like a really long pan scene I could draw,
just draw like a little line here and here,
and draw one big long continuous pan,
cover two or three panels if I want to do that.
The other way of doing it is to draw the pan,
so as you can see here we have the first panel of the pan,
and here's the second panel of the pan,
and I've even loaded it here, one of two, and two of two,
and notice as well since we're talking about this,
I have my sequence and scene numbers all written in.
So this is sequence five scene 150,
sequence five, scene 150.
And I have under my notes, "pan shot", so clear as crystal.
Now TV storyboards also are slightly different
from feature storyboards, because they serve
as the foundations of the final project,
so they're much closer to looking like the final project,
and they're drawn as cleanly as possible.
So the drawings really have to be more tied down
than our model, so the TV script is also more locked down,
whereas feature story creation tends to be more fluid.
So let me show you an example of a panel,
so this panel here, for my purposes is fine,
maybe it's a little loose for some studios,
but let me show you a better tied down version,
so a TV style board will look much closer to this character
style in the center with a committed black line,
and fewer drawings that look like,
you know, lightly sketched in, suggested figures.
So this style will be closer to a TV storyboard style,
whereas oftentimes, at least with secondary figures,
you can get away with this level of looseness with other
board styles, so you're going to run the gamut.
So I'll move on from that, and again I want to remind you
there are no hard and fast rules, different studios,
different productions, TV and feature have their own styles,
the adaptable and flexible,
and pretty much be prepared for anything.