Storyboarding

Story Project 2

Much like the first project I worked on, I took a story from concept to a finished animatic. Although this time I did it with a partner. We went through all the steps that we did in the first project but this time with a different story. We didn't have the same requirements as last time, this time we were allowed to use animals and dialogue if we wanted to. However, my partner and I thought it would be easier if we stuck to inanimate objects. We ended up with a 1 minute animatic. 

The story we made was called On a Roll! In the story Chief (a D4 die) isn't accepted by the other die because of his unimpressive rolls and the fact that he can only roll up to 4 while the other die can roll much higher than him. However, Chief is determined to prove himself.

Here is the animatic:

I personally didn't have a lot of problems with the animatic, my partner and I timed out the shots pretty well initially so the timing overall seemed to go pretty smoothly for the most part. My partner worked on the sound for the animatic, while I updated the slides to make the animatic more readable.

Here is the storyboard that we made:

My partner and I split up the storyboard into halves so that we could both contribute to the slides. Initially when we presented the slides people thought that overall it was good, but there was a few things that we should change. The first thing that we changed was that we added some shading so it was more obvious that the die were on a table. Before they were just on a white background and they weren't very grounded.

The other thing that we changed in the storyboard, was highlighting which part of the die was the top. For people who haven't used D8, D12's, D20's etc. it wasn't super obvious what the die landed on. This is a pretty crucial part of our story, so we highlighted them by giving the rest of the scene a darker opacity and then making the number they landed on brighter.

Here is the Beat Board that we made:



I personally didn't have a lot of issues with the beat board because this is one of the assignments that my partner worked on while I worked on the Character modeling and Character Posing. One thing that I know was hard to achieve was communicating all of the dies emotion and expression while being so far away so that you can see all the die. Ultimately this came down to positioning the die well, while also giving them clear expressions. Another way that we cleared this up in the beat board was by highlighting chief when needed.

Here is the character sheet and character poses that I made:



There was a lot of reference for a D4 but I found Chief a bit hard to create initially because he is triangular and the perspective was a bit hard to work with but eventually I got it down and his model sheet done. I kept him pretty simplistic because he's supposed to be a bit timid and docile.

In creating his poses sheet I struggled with deforming Chief to convey feeling. Deforming a triangular die proved to be a difficult concept. So I deformed him a bit for some poses but I focused heavily on using other indications too. I focused on making his facial expressions a clear factor in what he is doing, while also using other visual queues like the angle of Chief and lines/stars to convey motion or confusion.

Here is the script that we made:

Creating the script wasn't too hard, but this is really where we nailed down the main details of the story and how it was going to play out. So it took us some time to make sure that we were providing the audience with a full story arch. We needed to make sure that we were also conveying the story well in the series of events that we were presenting. The biggest thing here was making sure that we split the time between the other die and Chief well. Ultimately I think the script turned out pretty well and gave us a good guideline of what the story was.

Here is the overall basis of the story such as the logline, references, beat sheet, etc.:

My partner and I worked on this collaboratively. The hardest part was nailing down the beat sheet because it created the core points of our story. So my partner and I sat down and made sure that it contained what we wanted in the story. This gave us a good base to start off with. The references and character descriptions also gave me a good idea of what I wanted the characters to look like before I started drawing.

Overall I think the project went well! I did face some small challenges along the way but my partner and I found solutions to pretty much all of them. I enjoyed working collaboratively on a story with my partner. My biggest struggle was trying to get the story down to 1 minute because there were a lot of characters to balance time between. Ultimately we decided that it was best to focus on Chief the most and not go into very much depth with the other characters. We told a little about each character through their designs instead. I like how the project turned out and appreciate my partners effort!

Story Project 1

In this project, I took a story concept from start to finish through a series of steps. Initially, I pitched multiple story ideas and ultimately I chose one that I thought was the best. The two requirements for the project were that the character had to be an inanimate object and there is no dialogue. The end product of the project is to create a 1 minute short of your story through an animatic.

My story is called Perry the not so Smooth Peanut Butter. In the story, Perry a jar of peanut butter is attracted to Jane the jam jar. However, there is a predicament, they are in two separate cabinets. Perry repeatedly tries to impress Jane despite being in a separate cabinet.

Here is my the final product the animatic:



I had a bit of trouble trying to find sound clips that worked for my storyboard but overall I think I found some good ones that help convey the story well. I also had a bit of trouble transitioning between different pieces of music but I did a couple of fades between the music pieces and I think it helped quite a bit.

Here is my storyboard that I made for the project:

The biggest thing that I ran into was making interesting camera angles even though the two jars were stuck in separate cabinets. I have quite a few similar camera angles because I think they convey the story the best, but I also have a lot of close-ups to emphasize particular actions or emotions. My story also had more panels initially but I cut a sequence where Perry creates a table out of matches and other kitchen items to impress Jane. I did this so the animatic stayed under a minute and it was also an extra piece of the story that was not needed so I decided to cut it.

Here is the beat board that I made:



An issue I faced in making the beat board is trying to show both characters expressions in one panel. So I showed both cabinets in one scene throughout my beat boards to visually both of the characters actions and emotions. I also had a hard time conveying that they are behind glass windows but I put the streaks on the window to help the audience visualize that it's a window.

Here is the character sheet and my character poses sheet of Perry:




In creating the character for Perry it wasn't too hard to make initially because he is just a jar of peanut butter, so there was plenty of reference. However, I struggled a bit with posing Perry because I didn't know how I was going to deform him. But I decided to take a more liberal approach to how he can move and tried deforming the jar itself to convey emotion. Ultimately this helped me create poses that conveyed the emotion of Perry really well.

Here is my script for the project:



Creating my script went pretty well for the most part but this is where I fleshed out most of my idea for the story. I knew how I wanted the story to end and that Perry was going to impress Jane but I didn't know exactly how he was going to try and charm Jane. I decided that it was best if Perry finds local things in the cupboards as props to use in a way to try and impress Jane. Such as trying to curl a salt shaker.

Here is a look at some of my general story details such as my logline, Beat Board, and Plot Summary:


I didn't have really have any issues with creating these except for making my logline concise and to the point. Overall this was the part of the project where I fleshed out my idea and outlined the core pieces of the story.

Overall the project went pretty well I had to adjust some of my panels and pieces of my story throughout the project because I took out/adjusted small bits and pieces. However despite making small changes there didn't seem to be too many large issues. The biggest challenge I faced was making the storyboard because I'm not much of an artist but I felt I conveyed the story pretty well after making the necessary adjustments that were suggested to me. In total, I'm happy with how the project turned out!