Not Storyboarding

[largento]

I was watching a retrospective documentary that was an extra on the final Clone Wars release and part of it was dedicated to something I found interesting.

 

At a certain point, Lucas realized that in order to keep on schedule, they needed to forego the storyboarding stage and go straight to pre-viz. Lucas went to his guys at ILM and a team was put together to create a piece of software called "Zviz" that would make it easy to create a pre-vis version of the episode first. The tool would not only allow you to import and animate assets, but you could create assets and most importantly, shoot and edit the material. Using Zviz on a laptop, directors could set up or change camera movements, change timing, etc. All so that they end up with a finished pre-viz that's basically the final cut of the episode in less time than it took to do it the normal route.

 

Some seemed skeptical of the process, but they said once they got on their feet, not only did Zviz save time, but it freed the director to be more creative. They could look at doing things more cinematically, because they could move everything around and change the shots.

 

Here's an interview Animation World Network did when it was being developed. It says that the directive from Lucas was “Directors should be able to sit on the couch watching TV while they mock up their shots.”

 

Here's a story from 2009 that has a screenshot of it.

 

Anyway, it's interesting to consider going this route with a project. Especially if you've written a script first. If you use simple, generic objects for your assets, you can quickly set up all the shots and render out sequences to be edited together. Find out in advance how many frames of finished animation you'll actually need to render.

 

I know, personally, I've found it helpful to set up a cho for every storyboard I want to make. With storyboarding, unless I'm just doing some rough thumbnails for a specific sequence, I just sit there and stare at the empty frame, not sure where to start.

 

 

[Rodney]

Thanks for that Mark.

A great subject to ponder.

 

A few thoughts of my own....

 

To date most systems haven't been able to skip the storyboard stage because...

 

From the AWN interview:

A director would probably have a world that’s already pre-built

 

 

The interview goes on to say in the same paragraph how they were dealing with the issue when assets weren't immediately available for use:

 

Another important aspect is support for sketching and annotation. The system has interactive tools for drawing primitives, so if you’re missing a prop, you can sketch it in 2D. The 2D sketch becomes an animatable asset in 3D that you can use as a proxy. You can also sketch a note on an asset in 2D — say you want something brighter or taller — and it lives in the 3D world. You can draw facial expressions on characters and flip through them.

So, if the director can’t express what he wants with the world built for him or the library of assets, he can make a note or draw a sketch within the system to tell everyone exactly want he wants.

So in the end, they don't set aside the storyboard process so much as assimilate it with the next stages (blocking/animatics).

There is another aspect of this that keeps me going back to the drawn storyboard and that is the ease of placing/refining a concept. It may only take a few seconds to draw that idea but finding something similar/acceptable might be nigh impossible.

It's been said that there are two primary factors in creating anything that is revolutionary; time and distance (timing and spacing anybody?). When either or both of the two are drastically reduced the stage is set for innovation.

For the lone wolf production (such as Wannabe Pirates and the like) where the vision is held by one person it may be adequate to temporarily place a sphere or cube in the place another object will eventually occupy. This helps us better envision (in context) that thing that will eventually exist in virtual reality. Although showing that rough draft is sure to get confused looks, "What is that throbbing cube?". "That's not a cube that's Deek Feeder darkest lord of the universe!"

[largento]

With it being easy to construct basic models in A:M, you don't have to go to the level of using rudimentary shapes to represent things. For instance, I tried to do storyboards for Paul's bear cartoon (turns out I have a mental block trying to do storyboarding. And don't say, "You can do it!" I can do a lot of things ...but not everything. This is one of the things I can't do.)

 

So, in an attempt to try to find another way, I quickly mocked up a substitute model for the bear that could be easily rigged and posed and creating simple background elements is also fairly easy in A:M.

 

So, without an inordinate amount of work, I was able to create models and setups like these:

 

 

 

So, imagine you go straight into pre-viz, putting in camera moves and figuring out timing. Do very quick renders that give you the files to bring into your editing software. You can work out what shots you need and the timing of each one.

 

If you can and want to do storyboards, that's fine for you, but if, like me, they cause you all kinds of stress and frustration, then it is possible to skip that step.

 

Of course, I'm talking about for our do-it-ourselves projects, but even in a team, the director can get people to provide the models for each setup.

[Rodney]

I'm sure it helps if the story is fairly locked down. If it has a script even better.

And... okay I won't say 'You can do it!" but... hehe...

 

As someone who can draw you've surely got to know how easily a few lines on paper (or in a computer program) can be to put into place.

Believe me, I'm trying to skip the storyboard stage but am too easily distracted by elements of the story that aren't nailed down.

As an example, I recently started to work on a 'story' for the mascot contest.

This story will result in a still image... should be easy enough... and it was going well at the very beginning as I roughed out the essence of the main character with splines in A:M.

I *should* have stopped at the initial stages of where the character was still drawn in 2D. He looked exactly what I needed him to look like at that moment from from the camera's perspective.

But then... I started to think in terms of the final scene being in 3D and away I went into the realm of detail that didn't need to be worked on at that stage.

 

When I finally took a break and sat down on the couch I grabbed one of my trusty (empty) sketchbooks and decided to draw the story-scene as if it were a comic book cover.

In no time at all everything fell into place, and as changes occurred I adjusted the drawing.

Then I scanned the drawing into the computer and did a color comp so that I'd know (basically) what the final scene might need for lighting and texturing.

All of this took very little time as well because I wasn't spending a lot of time trying to perfect anything.

(Disclaimer: I did get distracted and decided to make a decent comic book cover with logo... so that did take more time than necessary)

 

Now, the big plus that I see of the approach you are talking about is that once you've previs'd your shots you've already got a great head start on breaking down and animating the story.

You don't have to go back in and do those basic steps because you've already accomplished them.

That is a great time savings!

 

So, what am I saying here? I'm not entirely sure.

Maybe its that I'm not disciplined enough to refrain from delving into too much detail too early in the process of previs?

That's surely part of it.

I think more than that is that many of my ideas aren't fleshed out enough to begin with and therefore are still back in the initial brainstorming phase.

 

An example of this is what I would call my 'superhero story' that begins with the introduction of a team of superheroes facing off against their number one enemy. In continuity, they've fought him many times before although those are battles the reader has never seen. Almost immediately, the villain brings down a skyscraper on top of the team crushing them beneath tons of steel and concrete.

In comic book page time we've only got to (maybe) page 4, maybe page 6 or 8 if more exposition is needed. What happens from there? Well, for a lot of that I've only got bits and pieces. I know who dies. I know the effect of the event on everyone to include the villain. But that is just the initial setup. It isn't the main story which still needs a lot of work/brainstorming... pre-viz.

 

Now we can note that what I've described as the into to that story can be previz'd pretty straightforwardly.

Need parts (or proxy) of a city.

Need a building (or proxy) that will (eventually) collapse.

Need (at least proxies) of all the team members.

Need (at least a proxy) of the villain.

That all can be previz'd in A:M.

 

But I can't previs the next few sequences because they haven't been formulated. I'd have to skip ahead and grab bits and pieces that are currently disconnected from the underlying continuity.

And diving in to previs without at least an outline/skeleton of a plan is probably not the best way to formulate those sequences.

Not at least when a few words or doodles hastily scratched on paper will work better/faster.

 

Of course those words can be typed into a program such as Premiere or (fill in the blank with your favorite software for such things) almost as easily as they can be put down on paper.

That's where experience and such come into play.

 

This is a lot of words from me to basically say, "I'm working toward what you are suggesting but am not there yet!"

And In case you can't tell, I'm enjoying the exploration.

[largento]

And yet, at some point, you're going to have to work out every shot and beat. I did mention that this was especially applicable if you had a script. But even a script is only a beginning. You have to be open to whatever is best for the story. And you aren't telling the story to the audience with a script or storyboard. You're telling it with the film. Why not concentrate on it?

 

Let yourself explore the possibilities. There are happy accidents where you can discover solutions that make your story telling better.

 

I can still see the use of doing quick thumbnails to work out the shots in a sequence, but I view that more as scribbling a grocery list on the back of an envelope.

 

Believe me, if I could create wonderful storyboards, I'd be showing up on the door of every studio and advertising agency in the country and be living the good life.

 

I can't be the only one who gets "stuck" at that point of the process. I'm pointing out that you don't have to.

[Rodney]

I get stuck at every point of the process but then again I enjoy the process. Apparently more than the completion.

 

Attached is a quick down and dirty previz of a shot from the superhero story I just outlined.

It just took a few minutes creating a few cubes (without tops/bottoms even) and adding a sphere.

If not clear it's a shot from street view at the first appearance of the villain.

 

From this I can easily see the next few shots forming in my mind.

 

Villain rises into air above building.

Camera closes in on villain so we get a good look at him

Individual shots of S-team members entering building/scaling side of building, flying toward villain.

Shot of team member A inside building w/ shaking walls, loose props falling to floor.

(OS voice over of team members throughout as they coordinate attack on villain)

Close up of villian in rage/evil laugh etc.

Villain powers up/FX bubble outward (esp. down)

Building tembles and begins to collapse

Team member B (flying) overconfidently says, "Houston, I think we've got a problem." ignores villain/starts flying toward building (anticipating he is going to keep parts of it from toppling into street below onto crowd of people).

Shot of team member C inside building realizing what is happening as voice over (telepathic voice for team leader/primary coordinator) yells inside everyone's head, "Everyone out of the.. (building)." Voice doesn't complete sentence. Final word obscured by foley/crashing.

FX/smoke billowing outward from (mostly) bottom of building

Team member B is seen trying to keep building from falling as weight of walls/debris crush down on him.

Close up of Team member B face as he begins to panic and is engulfed by debris.

Medium shot of Team members D and E inside building as walls and ceiling rain down on them. D trying to sheild E from falling debris. Both fall under its weight.

Dust approaches camera and obscures everything

Rumble fades

Dust fades

Pan across piles of concrete and steel as everything grows eerily quiet with only slight wisps of dust moving.

look up to GV.mov

[largento]

That's what I'm talking about. Look how quickly you're already making a movie!

[fae_alba]

With it being easy to construct basic models in A:M, you don't have to go to the level of using rudimentary shapes to represent things. For instance, I tried to do storyboards for Paul's bear cartoon (turns out I have a mental block trying to do storyboarding. And don't say, "You can do it!" I can do a lot of things ...but not everything. This is one of the things I can't do.)

 

So, in an attempt to try to find another way, I quickly mocked up a substitute model for the bear that could be easily rigged and posed and creating simple background elements is also fairly easy in A:M.

 

So, without an inordinate amount of work, I was able to create models and setups like these:

 

 

fishin_01_001_0.png

section_02_01_0.png

 

 

 

You wouldn't happen to have those assets still do you? I'm (slowly) getting back to this script, and want to continue with your process.

[largento]

Sure. I'll email 'em to you.

[Tore]

https://www.facebook.com/CGMeetup/videos/1043439492353907/

 

[zandoriastudios]

Mark--I'm suprised that story boarding is giving you a creative block! It's just like doing a comic layout, only the panels are always the same size, and you don't have to leave room for balloons!

[largento]

I'm surprised, too, but I just can't do it. I stare at the paper, unable to do anything that I don't immediately hate and I just get frustrated and the project comes to a screeching halt.

 

That's what interested me in this idea when I saw it.

[Rodney]

I just experienced one of the reasons I'm not yet ready to jump right into the animatic stage (it's hard for me to call it previz because everything before the images are there is pre-viz; story sketches, layout roughs, etc.).

 

I thought I had a good continuation of the scenes outlined above with villain launching into air from top of building, then shooting a blast of energy down toward the building.

Somewhere in the process though my attempt to (simply!) translate and scale a sphere (the proxy for the blast of energy), something went wrong and that sphere refused to work the way I intended.

While a few frames from the entire sequence would be useful as representative stills, after some 30 minutes I still don't have that shot roughed out and I find myself at the point of wanting to scrap the whole setup and start again. This when I know that in just a few short minutes I could have drawn the scene out in rough animation. (It's certainly not hard to draw an expanding circle)

 

Grrrr... It's enough to turn a mild mannered wannabe animat.... storyboar...previ....WHATEVER THE HECK I CURRENTLY AM... into a nefarious villain!!!

 

But... good may still triumph over evil and win the day. I watched the video Tore linked to and think I may be up to giving it a go again.

[largento]

Not suggesting it's for everybody, Rodney.

 

Just throwing it out there.

 

Nothing says everything in the setup has to be 3D, either. You want to draw an energy blast and bring it in, bring it in. You want to draw a picture of a chair, bring it in. Whatever it takes to get the ball in motion.

 

The process itself is not more important than the end result. You can draw a thousand storyboards, but if you don't get the film done, there's no satisfaction in saying that you followed the rules. :-)

 

To me, the reason why we have storyboards is because the technology didn't exist to do what we can do now.

[Rodney]

This topic is certainly timely. Last week I downloaded a trial copy of Toon Boom's Storyboard Pro.

I'd post the initial storyboard I created with it but... um... er... it's pretty lame.

I'm tempted to post it just to encourage folks to post work of their own.

Not that the forum is setup for it (outside of posting in the WIP forum) but I love the idea of reviewing dailies.

It keeps us plugging away at our stories.

 

I doubt I'll purchase the software but it's nice to know it's available if I need to go that route.

I'm leaning more toward drawing splines in A:M and (as you suggest) scanning in drawings to rough out the story.

 

One of the projects I'm currently working on has a lot of input from kids and I'm having a blast developing characters and a story with them.

I set up the basic framework but am trying to let them drive the main story.

I pay the kids 25 cents a design for their drawings (if they are selected for use in the story) and they are currently making me poor!

 

I'll be posting some of that related work in my Tuckertown topic or perhaps in a topic of its own.

If I submit a mascot this year it will very likely be a character created for use in that project; one that was initially sketched directly in A:M (I think I referred to that character above).

As a collaborative project with kids that don't have access to A:M and would probably struggle to use any similar software, drawings on paper is the perfect route.

I just jumped into A:M a few minutes ago and modeled an R2D2 wannabe from one of the kid's other drawings.

We'll probably have to adjust that design quite a bit more in order to be able to call it our own.

But it went from drawing to textured model in very short order.

 

Creativity is fun no matter what the approach.

[John Bigboote]

Storyboarding is usually just a phase which is meant to explain to the 'money-people' what the flow of imagery they are paying for will look like, in 3D it is typical that once you have your scene setup a better camera angle will present itself...

 

There is a piece of gaming software out there called SFM or Source Film Maker that is gaining popularity, basically allowing people to make movies right in the gaming engine.

[detbear]

Previz is the new storyboarding. Traditional storyboarding(Although beautiful, ingenius, and great art) is extremely time consuming and expensive. With previz, you're actually

working on the following stage of the production process as well.

 

I love storyboard art. But even larger studios who can afford it, are opting for the efficiency and effectiveness of Pre-viz...

 

I seem to recall WETA doing some impressive work for the "Lord of The Rings" franchise VIA previz.

 

Some of My animation friends(Who are feature film animators) have moved into "Pre-Viz" studios that only produce the pre-viz work on films.

[John Bigboote]

I wonder how the 'purist' Quentin Tarentino goes about his pre-planning, if he is really 'old-school' -he shoots from the hip.