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Web-based collaboration on storyboards and animatics takes a leap forward with the new app, Shottio.

The post Collaborating On Storyboards Just Got Easier With The New Web-Based App Shottio appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

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A simple question with a surprisingly complex answer.

The post How Long Should It Take To Draw A Storyboard Panel? appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

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Here's an inevitable product of our time: custom-designed storyboard pads for people creating content specifically on iPads and iPhones.

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The ultimate guide to visual storytelling! How to make the audience “feel” the story while they are “reading” the story. Using his experiences from working in the comic book industry, movie studios and teaching, Marcos introduces the reader to a step-by-step system that will create the most successful storyboards and graphics for the best visual communication.

Support Rabbleboy and order this book on Amazon
Framed Ink: Drawing and Composition for Visual Storytellers

 

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What exactly is a storyboard?

A storyboard is a sequence of images that tell your story. In the 1930s, Disney Studios' artists began taking on more complicated projects- intricate stories with many scenes- and before long one cartoon generated so many sketches that it was impossible to keep the flow and sequence of the story straight.

Sound familiar? This is exactly how it feels to me when I have an early draft of a novel. So much great material-- backstory, dialog, action sequences, contemplative moments-- but it's a jumble. Some parts drag. Others race. Worse of all, with hundreds of pages of material and almost no perspective from my position close inside a project, I can't pinpoint  the problem spots.

Disney animator Webb Smith had a solution- storyboarding. Basically a sequence of images arranged in the order of the final product.

Here's a storyboard from a famous Disney movie-

Beautiful, isn't it?  Is this what my storyboards look like? No way. For one thing I'm no artist. But believe me, that's not a handicap for storyboarding a novel. In fact in some ways it may be an asset because my drawings are free and spontaneous. We'll talk about why this is important tomorrow--- and how storyboarding can pull you into the "flow state". But let's stick with practical matters today.

What does a novelist's storyboard look like?

I've had a more or less hellacious time downloading images today... if I can get my camera to work with my computer I'll post a photograph of the actual storyboard I'm working on right now later. Until then take a look at this template-

This is generic but it will work for our purposes. There's a block for an image, and underneath, lines for text. So how do you fill it in--- what goes in those blocks? I have some recommendations but ultimately it's up to you.

Recommendations-

1) Consider including three elements for each storyboard "segment". Below the block make a brief note about the major ACTION in the scene or part of a scene you are storyboarding. In the block draw what's happening. Above the block write a one word description of the overriding EMOTION in the scene. This will gauge both the arc of the story itself (what is "happening") and the emotional arc of your protagonist or of the story. If every block is "Sad" "Sad" "Sad" that's a good clue your story is stagnant.

2) Play with the pictures. At least until you've decided one method works best from you draw whatever you feel in each block. It may be one strong visual image (perhaps I'd draw a handprint in one of my blocks). In the next block you may chose to draw the major action (how about two characters embracing?)  When you stay loose and free you're going to surprise yourself. Something entirely unexpected might pop up anywhere. Don't "overthink" it. Just do it.

3) Don't get hung up on how it's coming together while you're working on it. You're not storyboarding fo

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Are you a plotter or a plunger? Can I see a show of hands for each category?

I've always hated that question a little because I just don't get it, at least for my own writing. Plotters plan ahead, arranging the sequence of events in their novels with the precision of a German train schedule. Plungers take a blind leap off a cliff and write whatever their heart tells them to put on the page.

I do neither.

Or maybe I should stand up and proclaim (with pride rather than shame) "I do both."  Now with a creativity technique I learned from my wonderful advisor Carolyn Coman I can do both at the same time. Her planning/reviewing method drops me off at the corner of creative and organized, right where I need to be to get an accurate view of my novel, it's strengths, and it's gaps.

The summer residency at Vermont College started up yesterday with a grand welcome -- Coe Booth, Frannie Billingsley, and An Na joined the stellar faculty, and a whopping 31 new first semester students began their journey (More about what's going on in Montpelier later this week!) On Friday alumni will converge on campus for an Alumni Mini-residency, along with a slew of agents, editors, and special speakers including Jacqueline Woodson, Gregory Maguire, and Holly Black... and um... me. I'll be teaching a workshop for alumni on Friday. Here's a description-

Storyboarding Your Way Out Of The Forest

Tami Lewis Brown
Deep into a novel's revision it can be hard to see the forest for the trees and navigate your way to a satisfying, well structured novel. In the 1930's Disney Studio's animators invented the storyboard technique to help visualize the shape of their stories. Carolyn Coman has developed a novelist's version of storyboarding which tracks both plot and emotion... and may reveal surprises your unconscious has buried inside your novel. Bring a pencil. Tami Lewis Brown will describe Carolyn's storyboarding technique with examples from Tami's own work and the work of other VC'ers, then we'll all try our hands at storyboarding. 

But wait! This post is no mere tease for my workshop! This week in the Tollbooth I'll explore storyboarding with all of you, giving you a new tool for your toolbox, a map to lead you to the corner of Creative and Organized. Following our summer schedule we have an interview planned for Tuesday in the Tollbooth, but on Wednesday I'll be back with specific hows and whys and whats and wrap it all up on Thursday. Sarah Aronson will be in the 'booth, live from the mini-residency with a writing prompt on Friday.

So what are you? A plotter? A plunger? Or someone who meets your story somewhere in the middle?

Bon voyage!

~ Tami

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Have you tried storyboarding for your novel? I am new to this technique, just read about it and saw its usefulness in Blake Snyder's Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need (highly recommend the book for all storytellers). Anyway, the basic premise is you get a bunch of index cards and write a one sentence summary of each scene in your novel. Then you set them up on a corkboard in order for Act 1, 2, and 3. Ideally, you will have done this before writing a word, but since I just discovered it I ended up doing it after a first draft of my latest MG novel.

And, boy, was it an eye opener. Seeing it played out scene by scene all together like that, I could immediately see where things were too bunched up (Act 1), which scenes lacked conflict or tension (me and my characters are partying), and where things were muddled (whatever happened to subplot 2?). 

Another useful tip which I took from this book and from which, I swear, I will religiously follow for all future projects is to write a logline of your story and your story's theme BEFORE you begin. That way, with each scene you write you can check: is it serving your story and your theme? Of course you can always go back and change your logline or theme, but it's a way to stay on track. I've been an outliner all along, but still found myself struggling with story structure. I really like the flexibility of the storyboarding tool and the visual/tactile way it helps with the story telling part of things. 

If you've tried this technique, tell me how it worked for you. I'd love to hear what other tools you use for structuring your story too!

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A slightly cheesy but interesting-none-the-less 10-minute overview of storyboarding - mainly from a Disney perspective.

via Presentation Zen

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