Self Reflection
Learning the basics of Storyboarding, Layout and Animating Forms is very important for animation as it helps the animators to get a good understanding of ‘good animation’ and what makes it better.
Firstly, ‘Storyboarding’ / ‘Storyboard’ is a ‘visual representation of how a story will play out, scene by scene. It’s made up of a chronological series of images, with accompanying notes. It’s similar to a roadmap, guiding the journey of storytelling from the beginning to the end.’ Ref: How to Storyboard: Step-by-Step Storyboarding Guide (2023) | Boards
Animating Forms is all about drawing, and composition for visual storytelling. Learning the functions of storyboarding for example its staging, storytelling, layouts, and basic tools of line, shape, space and motion which expresses the visual language in your storyboard. This includes different shot types, angles and sizes, similar to Moving Images Arts.
We have also learned the do’s and don’ts of Storyboards. For example, every scene must have a purpose. If the scene didn’t have purpose the animation wouldn’t get far.
Don’t move the camera unless it’s necessary as it can make viewers dizzy/confused. Watch for jump cuts as if they aren’t done in a perfect alignment it can be a bit jarring to look at.
Focus on the character’s framing, how they are presented and how the camera is going to be placed. Make it convenient to the viewer.
Other than that keep in mind that your composition doesn’t leave any negative spaces as it will confuse the viewer.
For this week’s session, however, we had to create small sequenced storyboards to get used to using this technique for future animation as it helps the viewer to know where and how they are going to animate.
For our inspiration, we used a flour sack to draw and create participation, staging and reaction. The first one I did was unclear as I made the flour sack sleep near the edge of a cube but with the lecturer’s guidance that all involved the key factors. Staging, participation and reaction. After we were given a short sequence of an evil mage using the flour sack as our key concept design.
These are the results.
This week my team group 7 decided to create storyboards as we had already made the narrative and shot plan therefore it was easy to divide the shots into three parts. The Start of the Narrative is for Lauren to do, Amy however is doing the middle of the story and I’m doing the end. We also had to make sure we all animated for around 10 seconds each.
