Week 8 saw us introduced the discipline of storyboarding, which incorporates the elements of staging, character, background, framing and storytelling, which I will cover in more detail when discussing the making of my own animation.
The storyboard is the first visual version of the project, which tells the story in a series of key drawings, which form the foundation from which the animation is built (Byrne, 1999). The medium where experimentation can take place, and mistakes be made before animating starts, the storyboard should include a variety of camera shots and framing, and each panel should advance the storyline.
Our first class task, with my outcome seen below, was to create a short storyboard for the famous ‘flour sack jump’ exercise, which incorporates anticipation, jumps, and a reaction to the jumps. However, while originally happy with my outcome, looking back at my storyboard, I could have made the anticipation prior to the jump in panels 2 and 5 more pronounced, and have squashed the flour sack more before it springs forward.
Finally, we were asked to draw images into an empty storyboard frame to, using only the flour sack from the previous exercise, visualise the key elements of the following animation script. Again, my outcome can be seen below:
Overall, I really enjoyed creating these storyboards, and now understand the complexity involved in being a storyboard artist, and how they need to be a little bit of an animator, director, and cinematographer all rolled into one.
Our homework assignment was to then create a storyboard for our own scene of the final group animation, with mine found below.
References:
Byrne, M.T. (1999). The Art of Layout and Storyboarding. Leixlip, Co Kildare: Mark T. Byrne
Available at: https://archive.org/details/Animation_The_Art_of_Layout_and_Storyboarding