THE SIMPSONS NEWS

We had the day off Monday because it was Memorial day.  This left me with four days to do the work I have to do this week. I enjoyed having a day off, I just don’t like how I seem to get punished for having it.

I did manage to finish Act 3 on Tuesday which gives me the rest of the week to finish Act 1.

The reasons I haven’t gotten done with Act 1 was because it had a really problematic opening that the director really wanted to work out himself.  It was really tough but he solved it. Now I just have to make it presentable for the layout staff.

VIDEO

An excellent video on drawing eyes:

ART

This is the fun part of storyboarding for me.  This is the part I enjoy the most.  The first pass at building  the visual pace and narrative of a film or show.  After all this time, (two years) I finally get to see what my story will look like.  Once I’m done with this pass, I’m going to time it and make a rough animatic.  But first, I need to get the shots down as fast as I can.  All that work thumbnailing is finally paying off.   I don’t really have to think as hard as I did as when I thumbnailed the shots.  I just have to make rough clear drawings that tell the story. If it works at this stage, it will work once it’s cleaned up.  I’m not laboring over anything too much at this stage. It just has to be clear.

Once I finished this pass and get ready to time it out as an animatic, I’m probably going to need more acting poses to flesh out the action.

Anyway, here’s what I’ve done so far. The program I’m using is TOON BOOM STORYBOARD PRO
2:

The first panel above is in yellow because I just imported my original Post-it and stuck it in the panel to save me time.  I’ll replace the first panel during the rough animatic process, I just wanted to have something there in the mean time. I didn’t want to re-rough the drawing.

I’m drawing the rough pass in red because, well, if feels more comfortable for me to do so.  The red line makes it feel less final to me.  It’s just a working habit I’ve acquired.

The drawing of the raven above and below is really clean only because I used an old development drawing I had done during the treatment process. It was pretty much the shot I had thumbnailed so just went ahead an used it.

The page count gets screwy here because I had to “re-print” the last two pages. I had forgotten to put in the dialogue and descriptions in the last four pages:

29 scenes down, 400 left to go.

What do you think?

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THE SIMPSONS NEWS

First week back at work.  I miss the kids.  Though Ambrose seems to be waking up around the same time I do and hangs around as I get ready for work.

I’m revising Act 1 of show 1.

OH! And I found out about the new programs we’ll be using this season, which I wrote about last week.  Last week I was under the impression that we where going to start using a program from a different company. Not so. We just upgraded out Toon Boom programs, so now the Layout Crew is using Scene Machine, and the board artist are using Storyboard Pro 2.

Last week I went to a class that taught us to use Scene Machine, but I had no experience with Storyboard Pro 2.  Turns out that Scene Machine had so many similarities to Storyboard Pro 2 that it was pretty easy to pick up.  I like the new program. It fixes some issues that I had with the previous one.

ART

I’m FINALLY done thumbnailing the shots for my film. It only took TWO YEARS to get to this point.  It should NOT have taken this long:

I feel like there should be a parade or something to mark the occasion.  I’m so glad I didn’t pushed through and finished it.  429 shots! That’s crazy.  The Simpsons boards have this many shots.

Well, now the that the hardest part of the boarding is done, I finally get to execute the project.  I begin the process of making it come to life.  This is the fun part.  I’ve been waiting a long time for this.

So excited.

VIDEOS

I saw this video posted in different Social Media sites but never bothered to click on it until much later in the week.  Turns out it’s fantastic.  It’s Neil Gaiman (one of my favorite writers) giving a commencement speech at a college. I highly recommend you watch it if you’re into art or interested in it in anyway.

For more comic and stories written by me, CLICK HERE.

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Writing this blog is almost a part time job for me. Tips are most welcome.

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

So I finished my work and within the hour I was getting booted right out the studio door.  Well…not really, but it sure felt that way.  I worked as hard and as fast as I could on the boards I needed to do.  I started the clean up process late Thursday and it took me Friday, Monday and Tuesday to finish it all.  Wednesday  night and  most of Thursday I spent creating  a rough Quicktime Animatic of my board in order to find out how long the short would be.

I stayed late Wednesday working on the first rough pass of the animatic.  I showed it to the director and he had the same problems I had with it. Namely, it was too fast in parts. It was difficult to tell what was going on.  We went over, about a third of the shots and retimed them before we got too tired and decided to call it a night.  I told him I’d come in nice and early Thursday to tighten up some timing before he got in.  I usually come into work around 7am.

Imagine my shock, as I was ready to go bed that night, when I passed by my Jury Duty notice and realized I had to call in that night to see if I had jury duty the next day.  Turns out I did.  Everyone was counting on me being in Thursday and it turns out I had to go in for jury duty the next day.  Panic time.

Well, at the court house the next day, I had to make all the phone calls to all the director and production staff, about my situation.  They were less than happy about it.

Lucky for me, about an hour after I had done that, I was dismissed and on my way to work.  Not a moment too soon, since one of the production  coordinators had called me to ask about the location of my boards in my computer.  They were releaved when I told them I was on my way.

I got to work at noon and worked on getting the animatic finished ASAP.  The director and I managed to finish it on time and we showed it to the Head Director of the show, who really liked it.  He gave us a suggestion or two and it was time to finish cleaning up the  boards.

As I wrote above, I got done by Tuesday.  No sooner had the head of production received a copy of my board, when she was having me turn in my last time card so I could go on my hiatus.  It was pretty crazy.  But it was necessary.  They needed to process my as soon as they could so I could sign the right paper work. Otherwise I would have to come in the next day for no good reason.

I was originally suppose to have 4 weeks off, but because of how long this project went, I now only have 2  1/2 weeks.  That’s not so bad.

ART

FINALLY! I’m done with page 7 of my script:

That was by far the toughest part to get through.  The worst is over.  It should be down hill from this point on.  Yes, I have to thumbnail the climax of the story, but compared to having to rewrite an whole new fight scene as I went, it will be much easier to do.  Especially since the final conflict is much more internal the external.

I’m so glad I was able to get through this. I was really ready to quit. It was just so much work and I was suppose to be doing this for fun.  Now that it’s over, I can get back to having fun with the rest of the thumbnailing.  It’s still work, but it’s much easier to handle.

VIDEOS/storyboarding

The video below is an incredible resource for anyone who’s interested in doing boards or comics.  It’s a video by Sherm Cohen on THE 7 SEVEN HIDDEN PATTERNS OF SUCCESSFUL STORYBOARDS.

This is a great tool veterans and newbies to get acquainted or reacquainted with some basic shot fundamentals. For those who are new at composing shots, it should open your eyes to things to watch out for as you watch movies. It helps you get an eye toward figuring out why some shots are used at certain times.  I highly recommend watching it.

It’s also helpful to watch as a comics creator because much of the thinking behind what shots to use can be easily translated into comic book form.  It will help clarify you visual storytelling.  I’m tired of reading comics with that are very well drawn whose panels are confusing to read.

For more comic and stories written by me, CLICK HERE.

If you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.

Comments are appreciated as well.

I also have a store. Click Here and check it out.

If you would like to have a text ad on my site, click on the red BUY LINKS button under the Archives list.

And while you’re at it, please Digg me too.

Writing this blog is almost a part time job for me. Tips are most welcome.