MAKING "GO FETCH" Part 2: Storyboard
- David Gainey
- Oct 2, 2020
- 4 min read
Updated: Oct 18, 2020
You’ve been inspired. You’ve sketched-out a concept. You’ve developed the design, and as part of this process perhaps you’ve started on a quick storyboard, as well. You’re well on your way to making that short film a reality.
In further developing the story for Go Fetch, I’ll work through three stages: full pass boards, editing boards, and timing boards. Let’s take a look.
FULL PASS BOARDS
When creating animation we are often producing work that, by design, will be discarded. We are not carefully rendering what we know will be the final images, rather we are producing our best, rough draft knowing that it is only a stepping stone. Drawing storyboards is like this. You simply want to get your ideas on paper.
In your mind’s eye your story may play out perfectly. "This happens, then this. Then a character enters…" but in sketching out these ideas in a visual form, questions present themselves, "Oh, maybe this character should enter from the left instead of the right for better continuity. This beat with the ball in his mouth is too long..." You get the idea. You want to work clean enough for the image and characters to read, but fast enough to keep time and energy to a minimum.
Here is the full set of storyboards for this short. (There were probably a few more panels that found the “cutting room floor”.)
EDITING BOARDS
In the case of my particular boards for Go Fetch, I worked extra fast, small, and kinda messy because the drawings were never meant to be shared, or pitched, or posted on a blog. They were for my eyes only, a way for me to work out the story beats.
I like to work with pen on regular 8-½x11 copy paper. It’s there. It’s cheap. It’s easy. My computer’s not going to run an update in the middle of my drawing a frame and working on paper also allows me to quickly edit the work, literally cutting with scissors and taping. And it allows me to better see the whole sequence laid out.
Look at the first panels. There’s our beginning.
If I’ve done everything right I should be able to look at the last panel on the top row, and see a big turning point, a mid story climax. I’m in luck! The Dog is acting differently, not going for the ball, looking as if he does not know it has been thrown. It’s the moment that forces The Man off the bench.
And, I can quickly look to the last panels to see the final beats.
By having the whole story on small pieces of paper, I can see the film laid out on the kitchen table (or living room floor, as the case may be) and make adjustments to overall timing and structure. What’s that? I need an extra panel, an extra beat before the dramatic final shot? No problem. Sketch, cut, tape.
TIMING BOARDS
As a more final step in developing your story, the individual storyboard panels can be shot to video and edited together. Feature films are made in this way. Every scene is fully storyboarded, and then animatics created that include not just the story panels, but often some video transitions, full character audio (final or temp), and sometimes a temp music track. It is a fantastic way to see how the movie “plays” for an audience or individual.
As the process of making a feature progresses, this timed-out storyboard, or full animatic version of sequences, is steadily replaced by in-progress shots and final renders until the movie is ready for theaters.
This following timing pass for Go Fetch is a rough one and without any sound (so don’t bother fiddling with your audio levels), but helpful to review.
My initial reaction to the cut is that it feels very slow. This is common for a first viewing. With a little imagination I can visualize the characters actually moving through the screen space, and also know (and trust) that the action will play much faster once sound is added.
But, some of it works! Some of it feels like a film. In some brief moments I can forget that I’m watching a very rough animatic or timed-out storyboard, and I am lost in the story. This is a good sign. So, this version of the film is perfect. No changes needed, right? Wrong.
CONCLUSION
There are still a lot of adjustments to make. Some I can already see: I plan to have a different opening shot, for example, identifying The Dog as the hero of our story, and eventually making The Man more of a bad guy.
Stay tuned for those changes to be posted next in: MAKING A SHORT FILM, Part 3: Animatic
Many other, unforeseen issues will present themselves on the road to making this the best little short film that I can. The process is not linear. It is messy at times, organic. Each step, in theory, whittles away the excess until we’ve found a final form.
Having said this, everyone works differently and every project has unique requirements. I read an interview with the remarkable Paul Fierlinger in which he describes how he simply works through each scene beginning to end, without a completed storyboard to guide him. I thought this was very interesting.
I’d love to learn more about your process. Do you always work from a storyboard?
Comments