How to Pursue Career as Story Artist

[Tony Lockhart]

Hi Ken, thanks for taking the time to compose such a good response. It's great to get some solid feedback.

To answer your question about the work I am applying for: I am currently trying to get into TV animation as a revisionist. While I try to send out a portfolio to ANY opening that appears, the ideal show would have some kind of comedic element to it. I really love drawing the action/adventure stuff (think Marvel characters) but I think that starting out with comedy will help me build the skills and a good sense of timing for the "dream job" in feature animation someday. But this does not mean that I'd pass up the opportunity to work with some action show like in KungFu Panda...beggers can be choosers. Gaming sounds good too, but I really have no clue what they're looking for. My strategy is to learn as much about acting, story flow, technical drawing, cinematography, directing while in TV and then those skills can easily be transferred over to some gaming company or on a feature film.


Thanks for posting up an example of your work. I really like the screne direction/camera information that you included with the tracking shot. It's good to see that tight rough is acceptable because creating drawings that are 100% on-model happens to be very time-consuming for me. The characters I draw look "close enough" and have good expression/gesture/silhouette/volumes however they're nowhere nearly as perfect as what an inbetweener can produce. And I'm finding that there's a balance between how much time I have to make it pretty and how much time I have to plan/think out a board to make it good.

Incidentally, I have been learning about all of the aspects of film that you have mentioned (180 rule, staging, composition, camera angles, psychology of a shot, script analysis, add infinitum). I almost feel like a director at times when thinking up all of the elements needed in a story beat!



Can I get your thoughts on including acting into your drawings? And by acting, I mean all of the subtle facial expressions, hand gestures, and body language changes that can correspond to one line of dialogue from the script. There are times where I am working with one line of dialogue where I can easily include 3-4 drawings to express the complexity of emotion that a character is feeling, but when doing this I feel like I'm setting up key-frames as opposed to concisely telling a story. In your experience, do you think it necessary to "pose out" characters that much? BTW, my gut tells me that I should include as many drawings as is necessary to convey a story point.

And finally (sorry, I just love talking about storyboard stuff), I liked your last comment about storyboarding being a tough job to get into. It is tough work because there is just so much thinking involved before you can even start drawing. It seems like there's 80% thinking/planning and then 20% drawing and that doesn't include the changes that need to happen. It's funny because my storyboard teacher says he can tell who's a "real" storyboard artist when he sees the pain in their eyes.

[Ken Davis]

Gaming sounds good too, but I really have no clue what they're looking for.

Sure ya do.

Look at the games.

There's your big clue.
What are they going to need storyboarding for in a game? Cinematics, of course.

The characters I draw look "close enough" and have good expression/gesture/silhouette/volumes however they're nowhere nearly as perfect as what an inbetweener can produce. And I'm finding that there's a balance between how much time I have to make it pretty and how much time I have to plan/think out a board to make it good.

There will NEVER be enough time to make it look both pretty and on-model, certainly not enough hours in the waking day unless you are very confident in drawing, or very fast. There will always be compromises. The thinking time is most important, because the board HAS TO READ CLEARLY.
That's its purpose.
Its not intended to be a work of art in itself, its a blueprint for other stages in the production, and the ASSUMPTION is that those following steps will plus the shots as they come to them.

Can I get your thoughts on including acting into your drawings? And by acting, I mean all of the subtle facial expressions, hand gestures, and body language changes that can correspond to one line of dialogue from the script. There are times where I am working with one line of dialogue where I can easily include 3-4 drawings to express the complexity of emotion that a character is feeling, but when doing this I feel like I'm setting up key-frames as opposed to concisely telling a story. In your experience, do you think it necessary to "pose out" characters that much? BTW, my gut tells me that I should include as many drawings as is necessary to convey a story point.

Here's some insight into modern storyboarding;
In most cases, 20 years ago 'boards for a 22 minute TV cartoon would have averaged out about 500 2-panel pages (at about the top end). Today, the average is about 600-1000+ 2-panel pages. I've seen of 11 minute sections topping out at 800 hundred pages--half a show only.
The reason for the increase is posing.
And the reason for all that posing is control.
Nowadays, storyboarding is akin to what layout used to be. Most of the key poses and expressions are in the 'board--but storyboarding is NOT layout.
Adding those poses is spelling out SPECIFICALLY what the actions are, a vital aspect if the animation is out-sourced overseas.
The storyboard, in essence, becomes a legal contract, a literal blueprint for the cartoon.
If the business is in the 'board, then its required to have that translated onto the screen--that is what the foreign studios have to do.
So, to that end, fleshing out the poses and action to fit the style and pace of the show, and the business conveyed in the script is usually a requisite. The more complication the action, the more poses it will take to explain it, same with with specific emotions or gestures.
If a character is emoting or gesticulating in a peculiar or specific way, then the poses will have to be there because no-one down the line is likely to be a mind-reader. Leaving this up to interpretation will always......always have a foreign studio take the "easy" path......meaning the one that involves less work.
For example; if you want a character to say a line with a funny expression on their face, you have to draw that expression on the board. The foreign studios.......heck, even most domestic studios these days will not show the wherewithal to plus the expression. They will plug in one of the A-B-C-D mouth positions onto a Happy/Sad/Mad stock face from the model pack and leave it at that.
That's a recipe for shitty cartoons, which we have all seen before.

If you want to see it funny, dramatic or cute, you HAVE TO draw it in the 'board first. You have control of the 'board while drawing it, so make sure the clarity of your drawing maintains that control. The term I use is called "idiot-proofing"-wherein the storyboard is SO CLEAR that a near-complete nincompoop can look at it and understand clearly what is going on. that is no denigrating to anyone else working on the show.......its a safety net.
I say that because you can never account for the competency of the next person down the production line. Take custody, responsibility of the material while you have custody of it--subject to the guidelines and notes from the director/producer.

So, yes, you need to add those poses....AND to address the story-points of the script. You have to juggle salient bits of business for time, and to address whether or not something will be entertaining or not.
My personal thing.....be ambitious with the ideas. If something is supposed to be grandiose in the script, make it epic. Push the grandeur, or the cutes, or the laughs. The end result is in the impact is has with the audience. All you have to do is please the director, and if they sign off on your work, then your job is done. If the foreign studios scream at how tough the drawing is.........well, c'est la vie.
You job IS several-fold......to entertain, to make things clear and easy to follow......to plus the work/bring something to it.........and to follow the guideline of the director(s)/producer(s).
Do your job right, as a storyboard artist and YOUR ideas are up on the screen.......which is really something kind of neat.

And finally (sorry, I just love talking about storyboard stuff), I liked your last comment about storyboarding being a tough job to get into. It is tough work because there is just so much thinking involved before you can even start drawing. It seems like there's 80% thinking/planning and then 20% drawing and that doesn't include the changes that need to happen. It's funny because my storyboard teacher says he can tell who's a "real" storyboard artist when he sees the pain in their eyes.

Pain??

Mere pain??
Peh, more like exquisite agony and torment.

Here's a secret: I routinely have less than 10% corrections on my 'boards. That is less than 10 pages to correct anything on out of 100 pages--which are considerably less than the 50% corrections average seen with most storyboards ( so I'm told).
Its not a boast, but rather the use of a specific method that gets me those results.
The trick is two-fold: one-- I take the time to visualize the show in my head, as if I were watching the completed cartoon on TV. Then I just reverse-engineer what I "see" into the storyboard. Its easier if I have a template to follow, a previous episode or footage to take my measure off of. Then everything from actions, to tempo, to business can be extrapolated and reverse-engineered as needed.
The second thing is that I KISS it......rather I "Keep It Simple, Silly"!
I try to stage shots effectively, move the camera only when necessary, linger on shots to slow time down, cut quicker to speed the pace up....and this address the needs of the story. Its not complicated........the script provides all the clues and cues, i just have to make the moments work.

A good story is made up of good moments--that is all we, as an audience, react to.....not the syntax or structure of a story......but to the moments. So I identify the key moments in the script and make sure they get the TLC they need--and sell those moments harder.

Alex Toth said that not every shot is going to be a keeper, that some are merely bridging scenes between key moments. With that in mind, not every scene needs to knock it out of the park--only the key moments really need that attention. There's other strategies that support these two ideas, but the core method I use is just that--and its worked well over the past 20+ years.

[Tony Lockhart]

Back again! So I was hoping that we could examine the differences between feature and TV boards in regards to “what” an aspiring story artist should put in a portfolio. Moreover, I am curious as to which type of formatting is perceived to better show off storyboarding skills.

From what I gather, feature boards are drawn loosely, typically do not have that much notation regarding camera movements/timing/slugging, and have multiple panels drawn out with different backgrounds as a function of camera movements. Also, feature boards will probably NOT have the expanded panels of tracking shots and truck out shots, rather they will have a sequence of shots that have the same aspect ratio.
ex.

Notice that each image has a different BG.



Conversely, TV boards WILL have all of the notations included as well as the expanded panels that almost look like layout work. Also, TV boards are a bit tighter and more on-model (but still not “perfect” in referring to comments from a couple of posts back). In order to understand this next image, it would be wise to have start/stop bubbles drawn in along with some information regarding how the camera will move.
ex.

Notice only 1 drawing with 1 BG, but information is missing.

**pardon the lack of technical quality in the images; these are ruffs





In how this relates to the topic of the thread, I’m wondering what types of images recruiters and directors more interested in seeing. I'd like to know what "reads" better when looking at both of these sets. Do TV recruiters expect aspiring artists to know all of the camera movements and notation? What about feature recruiters? Is it better to have storyboards as images sequences? Should we have all of the camera notation? (these are rhetorical questions)

I am starting to wonder if it would be best to only include one continuity board (all the camera movements, expanded panels, notation) in my portfolio. And perhaps all of the other storyboard samples should include a selection of images that only show the main story-points from your board. I suspect that recruiters will look at whatever you give them, but a small sampling of strong imagery would better help them decide if you're the right artist for the job. The rationalization for this is that recruiters do not have time to read all of the notes about hook-ups/(IN)(OUT) notations/BG references/etc. Instead, if you bombard them with your best images that show good staging, composition, technical drawing, etc. they’ll be able to ascertain if the aspiring artist is capable of studio quality work.




Ken, do you have any thoughts on this? I'm starting to think that it might be a good idea to dwindle down an 80 page storyboard to the best 12 images that tell the story. What do you think? Potential for disaster? Or perhaps a really concise way to show off your talent?

[Ken Davis]

In how this relates to the topic of the thread, I’m wondering what types of images recruiters and directors more interested in seeing. I'd like to know what "reads" better when looking at both of these sets. Do TV recruiters expect aspiring artists to know all of the camera movements and notation?

Yes, you'd better know your stuff backwards and forwards because your work could likely be forwarded to a director--who WILL know all of that stuff.
Idiot-proof the storyboard---its a never-fail method.

What about feature recruiters?

See above.

Is it better to have storyboards as images sequences? Should we have all of the camera notation? (these are rhetorical questions)

Show the storyboard as if you were doing the storyboard for pay. Notations, camera directions, etc. Without that stuff the 'board is just a series of images, and its worth shit.

I am starting to wonder if it would be best to only include one continuity board (all the camera movements, expanded panels, notation) in my portfolio. And perhaps all of the other storyboard samples should include a selection of images that only show the main story-points from your board. I suspect that recruiters will look at whatever you give them, but a small sampling of strong imagery would better help them decide if you're the right artist for the job.

A pretty board can sell better, but a CLEAR board sells best of all. ALWAYS go for clarity.

The rationalization for this is that recruiters do not have time to read all of the notes about hook-ups/(IN)(OUT) notations/BG references/etc. Instead, if you bombard them with your best images that show good staging, composition, technical drawing, etc. they’ll be able to ascertain if the aspiring artist is capable of studio quality work.

Recruiters can be idiots. Never forget that. They can just be a lower level executive hired to screen people.....they may have minimal experience in film production. The person you want to gear the storyboard for is a DIRECTOR. Impress them. The recruiter is just a person on the way to the director, and if your work is good enough, it'll end up under the directors nose.

Ken, do you have any thoughts on this? I'm starting to think that it might be a good idea to dwindle down an 80 page storyboard to the best 12 images that tell the story. What do you think? Potential for disaster? Or perhaps a really concise way to show off your talent?

Show continuity.
About 25 to 50 consecutive pages. Try to start with a good shot, and establishing shot....need not be the opening fame of the film. Something that showcases your drawing abilities. Then tell the story from there. Can be a vignette, a sequence from the film, but it MUST be sequential panels. 12 images, with no real continuity will not sell the story. Show the storyboard samples as if you are showing the completed storyboard itself to the director.
Short-change the 'board samples and you short-change your chances.

[Tony Lockhart]

Thanks Ken--dynamite advice.