COP3 - Feedback from Arcus Studio, James Taylor & the Final Storyboard Layout

After completing my thumbnails for the merged perspective boards, I sent them to James, from Arcus Studio, for some feedback on the process so far and some screen shots from one of his projects for my dissertation. James's feedback was positive and really helped me with proving the thumbnails for the final boards, as well as reassuring that the use of film language was good within the boards.

I will definitely be reading the Dream Worlds book, from the research that I have completed and analysed so far I already know that layout is something that I need to refine within my own work. I will continue to research and experiment with the role of a layout artist in my PPP module.

With consideration of the layout, I need to create a simple structure, they cannot be over complicated as I don't want to take away from the main focus of the practical, the use of composition in the panels. James goes on to talk about the inclusion of larger drawings, which I definitely agree with as there are some panels which contain so much detail that it becomes lost in the smaller panels. In order to solve this problem I will make two layouts, one containing two panels and the other six panels.

I first need to look through my main storyboard influences before beginning to make the structure.

I first looked at the example storyboards from Serotonin Sarah that James sent me. I really love the layout of James's boards through how neat, clean and easy to understand panels with the source of lighting and the camera/action notes. The camera and action notes were given their own colour, as well as described in the text below the panel. Not only is the scene and shot noted on each panel, but the background source is also given, making it easier for the animator to construct the scene. Each frame shows the source of light and is coloured in grey tones. Using these grey tones makes it easier to depict the detail in the landscape and the viewer is able to understand what is happening without having to read the action notes beneath.

I collected more inspiration, creating a visual research board on Pinterest to compare the layout and structure on each example. One in particular that caught my eye was an example board from the animation, Over the Garden Wall. These storyboards were simple but held more detail on the movement of the character in the notes beneath. I quite liked this addition, I think it's quite important to show in as much visual detail about the character interactions and what they interact with. The only disappointing feature was the lack of camera or action notes as well as grey tones to detail the colour and light in the scene.

Arcus Studio, James Taylor, Serotonin Sarah

Over the Garden Wall storyboard example

Visual Research board of inspirational storyboards

With these inspirations I began to make my own boards that were simple and easy to read. I purposely made more than one kind of board to accommodate the amount of detail that would be in each frame, therefore I created a double and six panel page. The scene is shown at the top of the page, however this may change as the process continues, depending on the frames that are together on the boards, I may move the scene description above each frame so that the boards are even easier to read. I chose a bright blue and orange for my camera and action notes as they are complimentary colours, which makes them stand out to the viewer. In the notes beneath the panels I included a box that would describe the action and sound/dialogue in each frame. This worked successfully with the camera and action notes drawn on the frames.

Practical Double Page Example

Practical Six Panel Page Example