Storyboarding

Café Storyboards

Overall, I am quite satisfied with the way in which my coffee shop storyboards finished, I really enjoyed using a more loose approach to the thumbnails and only using the grey sparingly. However, one thing I found difficult was finding a way to keep the 180 degree rule in check when I wanted to show both the face-on reactions of the two friends while also displaying the barista’s reaction, which resulted in a breaking of the rule on multiple occasions, I hope that, most importantly, it is still clear to the viewer what is happening in the space. When formatting my storyboard, I took inspiration from professional storyboards such as those from Akira which uses multiple frames to show one shot, especially when the camera is zooming, panning or tilting. Because the interaction was quite ordinary, I wanted the comedic element in the story to be how exaggerated their reactions were, for the final storyboard I tried using elements in the environment such as glass jars to distort the face. In future, I would try and pay more attention to the three quarter rule and vary shots more to make them more visually interesting.

When doing observational drawings in the Tate, I was surprised at the pace at which I needed to draw to capture people- I didn’t expect people to move as much as they did. This led to me trying to be very quick and not as deliberate with my pen strokes. When trying to decide which to turn into a three-panel storyboard, I was trying to choose between a scene of a girl standing amongst a group of sitting people and a family of three having lunch. After mind-mapping which directions I would take the stories I settled on the former, making it into a zombie apocalypse story as I wanted to portray something more fantastical following my down-to-earth coffee shop storyboards.

Observational Drawing at the Tate

Observational Drawing Storyboard

For my final storyboard, I had to use my sketches from the Tate Modern to create a 3-panel storyboard. I chose to develop a drawing of a woman standing amongst a crowd of sitting figures, with her back towards the viewer. I thought that with her face hidden it could bring some intrigue into who she is and what she’s feeling which could become a reveal. Because my previous café storyboard was very down-to-earth and realistic, I chose to challenge myself by turning the scene into a zombie apocalypse genre story which is something I’m personally not very familiar with but has tropes that I thought everyone could understand.

I think my final outcome was fairly successful, it utilises concepts we had been taught such as over-the-shoulder shots and the idea of a beginning middle and end. However, if I had to redo this I would try and make the middle panel especially more striking- especially by exaggerating the figure running towards her to make it clear that he has quite an emotional investment in the scene. I think this would have made the reveal that the woman had been infected even more emotional. Additionally, I would have perhaps made the reveal from the point of view of the man, perhaps by showing him reaching out to her. In future, I think I will try harder to make sure that every panel somehow serves to push forward the narrative I’m trying to show to its fullest- as I feel that this is important in animations with shorter time frames or only a few key frames as this storyboard has.