Week 7

We are now into color theory and tone. Tone first of all! I must completely agree with that as I now see that my paintings in the past have lacked from sense of tone. That is why my colors become confusing to the eye. Therefore, tone is number 1. Tone gives depth, gives a light source and directs the eye towards the important elements in a composition.

I really wanted to explore tone during my animatic assignment but I just got a little bit too frustrated with painting with the mouse so I gave it up after about a dozen panels. Nevertheless I am quite happy with the end product: I got to develop my skills in Flash, Photoshop, and composition.

Here are a few panels of my final storyboard.

Week 6

The storyboarding is going quite well. I really enjoy visualize a script and finding interesting camera angles to tell the story. So far, while drawing, I have tried to pay attention to compositional guidelines such as rule of thirds, angles, depth, etc...

The biggest problem I am encountering is painting with a mouse: what a pain in the ass! I am waiting patiently for Mark to order us some Wacom pens so I can start using the Cintiques. Hopefully it will be soon.

Also, Mark has asked us to try and create our Animatic in Flash. Too bad our brief intro to Flash has gone to bed in the darkest part of my brain, I can't remember much about the application. A little more support from the teaching staff would've been appreciated. Thanks to Rahul who took time teaching me certain tools that were helpful during my assignment.

Last of all, I decided to be responsible for the preproduction element of our CGI group assignment. I have included some images on this.

Week 5

I've been researching the art of storyboarding, not only for our next assignment but also because it is an area that I would very much like to specialize in. After watching the making of King Kong in class, I was astonished as to the new power of previz. I have therefore decided to make storyboarding my topic for my 2000 word essay in Animated Society and the Web.

2 books that I have found very informative have been Mark Simon's Storyboards: Motion in Art, and John Hart's 'The Art of the Storyboard". These books not only reiterate what Mark has taught us in class but they also explore the role of storyboard artists in the film industry: how to get work, what the average rates are, what producers and directors look for when examining a portfolio. I would, perhaps in the year to come, be tempted n knocking on a few doors to see if I can start storyboarding professionally.

Also the books talk about the different tools that are great for storyboard artists: a mirror, a camera, painting software, action figurines, the internet, art books, comic books. I feel like going on a shoppping spree and setting up a studio in my home.

Week 4

An image is worth a thousand words and that's because you have to take into consideration a thousand things when creating it.

Composition, composition, composition! Brad Bird's got the goods on this one. so much to know I don't know where to put anything in my drawings anymore! Just kidding, on the contrary, all these compositional strategies help us create drawings that are more cohesive and direct the viewers to what we want them to see. Also through composition one can create meaning in very subtle but powerful ways. Very important not to create lines that intersect characters' eyes, or chop their heads off. Oblique lines are so much more interesting than lines square to the viewer. There is so much to composition and if I can one day become a master of it I will be a happy man.

Ok, here's a couple of roughs and research drawings for our next assignment: the Animatic!

Week_3

Let's start storyboarding! Having done script breakdowns and shot breakdowns, plus some research for our visual elements, we now begin with thumbnails.

Here, we want to draw quickly so as to let our hand flow, and not get caught up on the same panel. Draw quickly, if it sucks, do another one. By seeing what doesn't work, we'll be able to draw what does.

We have to pay extreme atention to composition, and Brad Bird has some great suggestions on this subject. Look it up!

Ok, here are a few thumbnail drawings . I've cleaned them up a little, and yes, I'll admit it, I didn't do any research, that's why my sub looks awful.

Week_2

Onto Script Breakdowns! BREAK IT DOWN! As in most pre-production tasks, it seems quite tedious at first, but is meant to save you work and hassles for production. The first thing in creating a succesful film (or commercial) is a good SCRIPT. Without a good script, you won't get a good product.

Breaking down the script is the first step towards visualizing it. Sure, it's very tempting to just go ahead and storyboard, but without first analyzing the script, we might forget important elements in our drawings, which means that we'll have to trash them and we've just wasted our time.

Breaking down the script means to scan it for the elements that will need to appear on screen: main characters, secondary characters, clothing, vehcles, etc. By underline these elements ion different colors, we can quickly see what our scenes contain. We will also see how much time we need to spend in the design of these elements (main characters will be more detailed and researched than someone way in the background.

Another task to do with a script is to do a Shot Breakdown, and that is the step before doing our first thumbnail storyboards. By using cinematic conventions of shot terminology, we write down on the script what we visualize our scenes will look like. Basically, we want to see in our heads how particular shots will tell the story best before we begin storyboarding.

By the way, www.imdB.com, great place for scripts!