happy holidays from toby...

We Need Storytelling....

I am a great admirer of the visual storytelling of Ang Lee. The other day this quote "We need storytelling. otherwise, life just goes on and on, like the number Pi." popped up on the interwebs. Story not only is the heart and soul of a film, it is the motivation, the driving force to making one. It goes into every aspect of film making, character development, visual narration...we cannot get reminded often enough. Also, it's a  huge part of  what makes us human.

(I have not seen the film, but here is a short interview with ang lee about the film)

storyboarding for cg

For some years now I have been doing storyboards  for cg productions. Generally speaking I would  approach it the same way as I would for a traditional  or flash show. Visual storytelling driven by strong characters. A major difference I noticed is the freedom of not having to stay 100% close to model (drawing wise) and having the freedom of using a flexibel camera. On his website,  story artist Giancarlo Volpe published some of his own notes about storyboarding for  cg animated films, which he used on the production of the animated "green lantern". Its a great take on the subject. There is little common ground between productions and  artists on how and when to handle the virtual cameras in the storyboarding process.  From sticking to traditional 2d use (pan, truck in/ out), to animated bg, to camera setups. I believe CGI and storyboarding for cg productions has brought storyboarding much closer to life action film production when it comes to the use of cinematography. More and more the creative split is between the story-reel and the layout or previs reel. Personally I find the use of grids (horizon line and perspective lines) in storyboarding crucial. also use as a guide for the camera setup as it is more common in life action productions If you are interested on the subject also have a look at Ben Caldwells Blog. More precisely his post "storyboard tip sheet from dreamworks."
happy storyboarding everyone!

On Flying Toasts and Rusty Knight

I recently had the chance to revisit one of the productions I was part of last year. The Project, by Caligari Film und Fernsehproduktion, is called "Rusty Knight". I had the pleasure of being part of the story team and very much enjoyed the process. The results so far look very promising and I am very pleased with direction the film has taken, so at this stage I am really looking forward to watching it on the big screen with my family this coming January.  The German trailer of "Rusty Knight" has just been released and even features some of my (translated) boards. Sorry, there has been no english version released yet as far as I know.

I quite like the absurdity of flying toasts in slow motion,  an idea we came up with by chance. It's great it made it into the trailer (and hopefully into the film). 

Remember this old mac screensaver "flying Toasters"? (a long time ago)

storyboard tip sheet from dreamworks

Its been a while. Way too busy to post lately. This has to change.
in the meantime there is a great tip sheet vial Ben Caldwells Blog from a while back about storyboards. A great post!

(check out the rest of the jpgs on his blog)

The art of storyboarding with Ridley Scott

I am a huge fan of Ridley Scott's ( director of alien, bladerunner...) storytelling and cinematography and one day would love to see an exhibition of his storyboard work. The approach to storyboarding for life action can be somewhat different to animation. Even though with the increase of vfx shots in big budget movies the two areas seem to be getting much closer. Essentially though storyboarding is the first visual representation of the film. Ridley Scott brings this to the point in this short video:

The art of storyboarding with Ridley Scott

Sammy 2

Just saw the first trailer for "Sammy 2 - Escape from Paradise". I had a great time storyboarding a few sequences on this feature and cant wait to see how the film is holding together.

Storyboard Pitch

I like working on commercials once in a while. They feel like a mini movie at best, they have a definite time frame, still wanting to tell an epic story - plus there always is a quick turn around.

Lately I have not had much extra time  to take on commercials. More than a year ago I did this story pitch for a Danonino commercial, which was fun to do (I dont think anything ever came out of it in the end though).

Winter Update

...freezing temperatures outside and everything covered in white. It must be winter.
I have been plenty busy working away and feeding my wood burning oven to keep me warm. Only recently I discovered some great inteviews with some fantastic fellow story artists currently working in the USA  (on the schoolism website).  I have not had the time to listen to all of them, but I can highly recommend (to those of you interested in story art) these ones for now:

Alex Woo (Pixar)
Louie Del Carmen (Dreamworks)
Kris Pearn (Sony Animation)
James Robertson (Pixar)

Also I have been listening to most of the interviews on the animationguild blog.
The latest for instance with story artist/ director Jennifer Yuh Nelson (Dreamworks)  about Kung Fu Panda 2.

part 1
part 2

Going through my hard drive over the holidays I rediscovered two quicktimes I boarded a couple years ago. Created from a simple, few sentence outline with a 2.5 minutes cap and no dialogue (you have to provide your own sound effects while watching). There was a comfortable amount of freedom interpreting the outline while doing them, except for the fixed budget. The episodes were then finished directly by an animator in a cut out style and aired as animated segments during a kids show. I am sure they have changed some more,  but I have never had the chance to see the result of these to episodes.

Happy Holidays!

...signing off for the holidays wishing everyone a very festive holiday season and a fantastic 2012. thanks for stopping by and see you here again soon!