Currently, I am halfway through the year-long Mentorship program with StoryboardArt.org.
My visual communication skills are getting stronger. Still, my drawing skills are less than impressive, but I can feel my understanding of different elements of shape, figure, and perspective starting to click. The feedback loop from the mentors is a huge help. With each dive into the process, things feel a little more possible and smooth. I can focus on building a new muscle and technique, and little by little, it’s coming along. I am starting to see angles in my mind, and by using different tricks to sketch it out I can rough out how that would look through a camera lens on a 2D plane.
It’s sketchy and scratchy, and I’m still a bit lazy at the effort it takes to draw out the bits of animation in between to make it really play nice, but it’s becoming a more comfortable and fluid process, with that comes a little more confidence that I can do this. Frankly, this takes hours to do. Once I decide on what I wanted to draw up, it took several sessions 8-12 hours (who knows?) total to sketch out. Tack on a few more hours for getting them into Storyboard Pro, and a handful more playing with the narrative, timing, and my recording my voice to layer in the outline of the dialogue. I lose track of time, but it’s fun. And I genuinely laugh and enjoy it.
This Good Will idea was a comedy sketch idea I’ve had in my brain for a bit. I’ve drafted a couple of scripts and the basic idea was that it was going to be a guy going to the Good Will and he gets so overcome by the joy of giving that he takes his clothes off.
When I went to draw it up and think through how all of this would work, new ideas came up, and little decisions were made and it shaped into what it is. What I enjoy, is the reward of putting in the time and getting a new set of ideas and thoughts, and adding on the layers. While it may have gone off in a few silly new directions, it’s still just a blueprint and a pitch for the final thing we’ll hopefully shoot soon. There’s power in being able to communicate your scenes and stories visually, both to develop and share them.
Here below is the first pass for the Animatic for Good Will, below that is an overview of the thumbnails and boards.
