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Storyboarding
keepcalm&haveacupcake
Registered User new member
Registered User new member
Hi all,
My name is Shannon Litt, and I have been slowly but surely trying to make it as a storyboard artist in the television, film, and print industry. I've (somehow...) managed to work with companies pitching films at the 2010 Cannes festival, fashion designers such as Laura Dahl looking to present their designs through film, music video producers, Podcasters, American product suppliers interested in showing clients a graphic layout concept in a store setting, comic book writers, and, of course, up and coming film directors. I’ve been working as a freelance storyboard artist and illustrator via the internet.
Besides being a primarily internet and e-mail-based freelance storyboard artist, I am a student in Ryerson University's 4-year Radio and TV Arts program which results in a BA. The program is tough to get into, accepting only 150 students per year through a rigorous interview and application process. I'm also a student in the Art Gallery of Ontario's Advanced Studio class, and am currently interning at Peace Arch Entertainment, a distribution company with branches in Toronto, Vancouver, Los Angeles, and New York City, so that I have a backup as an entertainment lawyer if storyboarding doesn't work out. >..<
If you want to take a look at some of my work, my site is:
www.outlittstudios.com
And my blog is:
www.outlittstudios.tumblr.com
ANYWAYS! The actual point of this post is to ask...
Are there any other storyboard artists out there in the Penny Arcade community? Do you use a digital or traditional medium? How do you get your jobs, contacts of applying online or both? Where do you get your best inspiration? Just how difficult do you think it is to finally make it in the storyboarding business?
I figure this would be a useful, easy and fun way to meet other storyboarders out there and chat about the industry a bit.
Cheers, yall!
My name is Shannon Litt, and I have been slowly but surely trying to make it as a storyboard artist in the television, film, and print industry. I've (somehow...) managed to work with companies pitching films at the 2010 Cannes festival, fashion designers such as Laura Dahl looking to present their designs through film, music video producers, Podcasters, American product suppliers interested in showing clients a graphic layout concept in a store setting, comic book writers, and, of course, up and coming film directors. I’ve been working as a freelance storyboard artist and illustrator via the internet.
Besides being a primarily internet and e-mail-based freelance storyboard artist, I am a student in Ryerson University's 4-year Radio and TV Arts program which results in a BA. The program is tough to get into, accepting only 150 students per year through a rigorous interview and application process. I'm also a student in the Art Gallery of Ontario's Advanced Studio class, and am currently interning at Peace Arch Entertainment, a distribution company with branches in Toronto, Vancouver, Los Angeles, and New York City, so that I have a backup as an entertainment lawyer if storyboarding doesn't work out. >..<
If you want to take a look at some of my work, my site is:
www.outlittstudios.com
And my blog is:
www.outlittstudios.tumblr.com
ANYWAYS! The actual point of this post is to ask...
Are there any other storyboard artists out there in the Penny Arcade community? Do you use a digital or traditional medium? How do you get your jobs, contacts of applying online or both? Where do you get your best inspiration? Just how difficult do you think it is to finally make it in the storyboarding business?
I figure this would be a useful, easy and fun way to meet other storyboarders out there and chat about the industry a bit.
Cheers, yall!
keepcalm&haveacupcake on
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this particular subforum is a place where you post your work and get constructive feedback from the folks around here
links are generally a no no
i see you have your own site, so take the individual urls of the images you want feedback on and post them between
thanks!
welp right off the bat your compositions are reading as kinda mehhh. You arent even using a basic 3 value set to establish mood which draws even more attention to the drawings themseleves. Which is not a good thing because your drawings are naieve. There is nothing wrong with that- story boards being about telling the story and not nailing the perfect drawing. But your portfolio has no examples of an actual sequence-- all of your chosen shots are very pedestrian- you havent exhibited much knowledge of storyboard/film language (push in, pan track blah blah blah.) (these terms and thing are not hard to pick up-I went to my library and checked out "from word to image" by marice begleiter- skimmed it in about 3 hours and now I feel somewhat comfortable with the language.
Forgive me if you acutally do have a sequence but I didnt notice anything in the short time I was on your site.
I think its pretty much standard that people work digitally on storyboards now. I believe theres even a program called pitch doctor or pitch pro whatever where the storyboards get viewed on screen with the actual cuts- pan track zoom happening. (presumably a big lcd tv if you are pitching to a crowd). - I heard about this on a pixar podcast. You can change things so much faster digitally that its not even comprable to working traditional.
The only danger Ive found working digitally is you can zoom in- and 45 minutes later realize you just finished drawing the toenails on a figure in the back of a crowd that no one will even look at.
I don't think this is true, outside of Pixar- Pitch Doctor is an internally developed Pixar tool that hasn't been sold to outside companies as far as I can tell. I think most storyboarding across the industry is still done on paper, pinned and pitched on corkboards, and scanned and maybe made into an animatic for pre-vis later. Dreamworks and ILM and such may have similar programs to Pitch Doctor, but there's a lot more films being made outside of those big companies.
In any case, that's just a tool thing, the bigger problem is the other thing- if you're going for a storyboarding gig, your job is to figure out how to tell the story as a film. A portfolio full of single panel images from storyboards presented outside of context isn't going to showcase your ability to do that. All that's going to do is showcase your drawing ability- which isn't what you're being hired for- and if you're grabbing individual panels out of storyboards, they're probably not going to be all that impressive.
Show employers what they want to see- storytelling. You've got one page of an actual sequence in there, on the second page, and it's difficult to read at the size presented. Your presentation of the ability to do the job at hand should be clear and upfront- and anything that doesn't present that should be cut or put in a different portfolio on a different page. I've seen what people are like going through a portfolio- having to go through 30 people's stuff for a position that needs to be filled in 2 weeks does not make people patient. If you waste their time with irrelevant things, they're not going to go to digging for the few relevant things- they're just going to move on to the next guy.
You say you've worked with a lot of people and done a lot of storyboarding, but I can't see that in what you're presenting- if you've got a lot of relevant stuff, show it off!
This is the Pixar storyboarding podcast Ken was referring to earlier, it goes over a lot of things as to how the story artists there approach storyboarding.
http://www.splinedoctors.com/Podcasts/Andrews_Mathot.m4a
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El coros massive black dvd, dan milligan and that podcast are what lead me to believe most everybody now works on storyboards digitally. Guess im wrong on that point to.. but yea just a tool.
And I do understand that all you are doing is storyboarding but I have seen a fair amount of storyboards from dreamworks and they are full of the correct anatomy for their characters and the lighting on the scene. Also as a storyboard artist you will have to be able to present your storyboards to possible clients which means you better be able to act the parts of the characters your reading. I watched a storyboard artist from deamworks show a slideshow of his storyboards for Kung Fo Panda and he voiced every character in his storyboard in a voice that would fit the character.
Beavotron, sorry about the forum purpose infringement- got it, no more social networking/too general storyboarding discussions. In the future I'll start threads just for feedback on specific pieces.
Kenny, what's a "basic 3 value set"? I do have two complete sequences there- one for a car advertisement and one for a short film called "Gabriel's Moustache". I'll go through my images and put them in a better order. Lol, I really have noticed that you get caught up in the details when working digitally, and try to have a good idea of what I want before starting.
Angel of Bacon, that's a great point- I'll put up more storyboards that exhibit the film itself rather than my style. Thank you very much for the linkage to the Podcast! I'll check it out right now.
Eugal, ah... a bit harsh, yes. I'll try for better-sized and more realistic shots!
Cheers, all- I'm finishing my internship mid-June and will be dedicating most of my time to storyboarding then! I'll need lots of feedback and advice from you, so in the meantime I'll contribute to other threads.
But it's still important to know the shorthand and be able to deliver them on paper
Which is why i recommend two books:
Prepare to board and setting up your shots
A basic three value set is just that. A light value say a 20% grey a medium grey about 50% and a dark grey 80-100%. Use them to quickly establish a foreground midground background seperation. Show rudimentary lighting/mood which is really a very important aspect of story telling- different lighting situations totally change the effect.
When I said that your shots are pedestrian- I meant that you tend to chose an angle thats normal person eye level. Use some bird and worms- extreme closeup pullback.. when necessary...
can you post your sequence in here? I still dont quite get which ones you are talking about..
also.. no rules only tools..
Huh, I probably should have done some more research then.
I guess my concern was- and I probably didn't get this across very well- that focusing on 'hey go digital/put in camera moves/put in a bunch of values/etc" shouldn't be given too much weight in terms of 'oh hey I gotta go learn all this stuff', because that all to me feels way, way less important than just developing the basic skill to be able to tell a story clearly and effectively in drawings, with whatever tool you're given. And the easiest and cheapest way to do that is just spending a lot of time working on that skill with pencil and paper.
I guess I can't speak with authority as to how companies hire, but if it were me, I'd rather take a week to train someone with a lot of on-paper storytelling experience how to set shot in and out points, rather than bringing on someone who's a worse storyteller, but knows the software.
I feel like I'm being a curmudgeon dogging on The Future here, but I'm not, I realize there are a lot of benefits and all that stuff is ultimately a Good Thing. I'd just say that where the focus and the brainpower needs to go are towards The Principles. What shots to use, why to use them, how to draw actions clearly, what the 180 degree rule is, what will show character, what's an eyeline, where to use the rules, where to break the rules, what makes a film work- that's what's important, and has nothing to do with being digital or not. What's important is being a great storyteller, so the focus should be on being and showing that you are a great storyteller, not showing that you know all the switches and buttons on a tool.
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I know you propably meant rendering but paying attention to silouhette is pretty key...and using just 3 values is pretty much all about silohetting
I'd say that value is necessary if the story deems how the shot is lit is a necessary storytelling element. Which a lot of the time it is, but a lot of the time it's not, or it may be just necessary enough that the first few panels of a sequence can be done with values, and then the rest can be done with pure line drawings because from there in it's purely character acting stuff with no lighting changes/story relevance.
So yes, a board artist should know how to use value; they just shouldn't feel it's necessarily a requirement for every panel they ever do, because if a lot of board artists did that they'd never get their work done on time.
My entire argument in this thread is about not confusing useful tools, like digital presentation/3 value breakdown/crazy camera setups/color/etc. with requirements.
If there was a board here to crit, I'd probably be right there with you with what you're saying- saying such and such shot doesn't convey this or in this panel it would be useful to show X character's intensity by pulling in close and putting his face in shadow- stuff that makes the story stronger, stuff that make the boards better. It's just hard to recommend anything one way or another when talking purely in the abstract, without knowing the requirements of any specific material- what I'd suggest for storyboarding a movie like Clerks, where they can't afford set lights or a lot of setups, would be wildly different from say, how to approach a movie like Blade Runner, where the budget is fairly high and lighting plays a huge role.
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