The Annies

[Toonboy]

Hooboy. Stiff competition on all fronts. All very quality products. Except for maybe the "Home Entertainment" section. Maybe next year is better for Avatar. Not that Clone Wars isn't worthy for Best Animated Tv Production. But Storyboarding? I mean come on. What kind of an award is that? Not to mention that in that section Avatar was only up against Kim Possible, Danny Phantom, and Miss Spider. Oh well. At least Wallace and Gromit took a bunch of awards.

[athena]

But Storyboarding? I mean come on. What kind of an award is that?
Hey now, I took two whole course in storyboarding... it's a lot harder than it looks. :)

Despite what you might think--and what I thought/hoped before going to school--frequently the animator has very little control over the content of a shot. In live-action you often give the actors the gist of where you want the scene to go and then let them take you... but because there are so many other factors and people that are part of the production in animation... and also because, back in the cel days, it was just so labour intensive that there simply isn't time to re-animate a shot of you don't like it... the storyboard artists lay down virtually every action in the scene.

Character comes into the room (1 panel), he sees something on the floor (1 panel), he reaches for it (1 panel), it twitches (1 panel), he looks surprised (1 panel), the thing on the floor devours him whole (1 panel), and then it burps (1 panel).

And then there is often timing--right down to the frame--for each of those storyboard panels. The storyboards are then handed to the animator and they become the blueprint for everything he does.

Incidentally, if you like drawing comic books and you've got a good sense of framing and shot layout, you can make good money as a storyboard artist... they are definitely hard to come by.


hehe. okay, I'm done now... :D

[Juuchan17]

Ooh, sounds difficult. And I read comic books/graphic novels/manga . . . . and I see what you mean by the difficulty of storyboarding. It's like a comic book version of a cartoon piece, that's soon to be animated, right?

I just saw the list of winners, and I was kind of impressed! It makes me want to see W&G when it comes out on DVD tomorrow if it's that good!
*also wants to see Bambi 2, but meh, I'm a weirdo*

[athena]

It's like a comic book version of a cartoon piece, that's soon to be animated, right?
Exactly, except this comic book also provides a sense of time--how long each action should take... particularly important in animation since the voice track is often locked off long before anything is animated.


I should see if I can find my storyboards from school...