Prepare to Board! Creating Story and Characters for Animation Features and Shorts, 2nd Edition

Prepare to Board! Creating Story and Characters for Animation Features and Shorts, 2nd Edition

by Nancy Beiman
Released November 2012
Publisher(s): Focal Press
ISBN: 9781136142536

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Book description

Successful storyboards and poignant characters have the power to make elusive thoughts and emotions tangible for audiences. Packed with illustrations that illuminate and a text that entertains and informs, Prepare to Board , 2nd edition presents the methods and techniques of animation master, Nancy Beiman, with a focus on pre-production, story development and character design. As one of the only storyboard titles on the market that explores the intersection of creative character design and storyboard development, the second edition of Prepare to Board is an invaluable resource for beginner and intermediate artists. Animators and artists will be able to spot potential problems before they cost time and money. Learn how the animation storyboard differs from live action boards and how characters must be developed simultaneously with the story. Positive and negative examples of storyboard and character design are presented and analyzed to demonstrate successful problem-solving techniques, applicable to a variety of animation projects. Featuring in-depth interviews with leading animators and storyboard artists, artists and animators alike can adapt professional workflows, techniques and problem solving solutions and add them to their own creative toolkit. Of course, no book about storyboarding would be complete without a rundown of the basic concepts of cinematic storytelling: camera angles, lenses, and composition. Artwork from an international array of students and professionals supplement the author's own illustrations. New to this edition will be a fully developed companion website featuring video tutorials highlighting the creation of animatics, good and bad pitching techniques along with updated images and even more content driven techniques.

Table of contents

  1. Front Cover
  2. Half Title
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright
  5. Contents
  6. Introduction
  7. Dedication and Thanks
  8. PART ONE: GETTING STARTED
    1. 1  First Catch Your Rabbit: Creating Concepts and Characters
      1. Linear and Non-linear Storytelling
      2. Setting Limitations and Finding Liberation
      3. Shopping for Story: Creating Lists
      4. Nothing Is Normal: Researching Action
      5. All Thumbs: Quick Sketches and Thumbnails
      6. Reality Is Overrated
      7. Past and Present: Researching Settings and Costumes
    2. 2  Vive la Difference!
      1. Graphic Novels: Shaping the Frame
      2. Screen Ratios: The Fixed Frame
      3. Television Boards and Feature Boards
      4. Technological T(h)reats
      5. Digital Storyboard: An Interview with Elliot Cowan
      6. Who Loves Short Shorts?
    3. 3  Putting Yourself into Your Work
      1. The Use of Symbolic Animals and Objects
      2. The Newsman’s Story Guide: Who, What, When, Where and Why
    4. 4  Situation and Character-Driven Stories
      1. Stop If You’ve Heard This One
      2. Defining Conflict
      3. Log Lines
      4. Stealing the Show
      5. Parodies and Pastiches
    5. 5  What If? Contrasting the Possible and the Fanciful
      1. Beginning at the Ending: The Tex Avery ‘Twist’
      2. Establishing Rules
    6. 6  Appealing or Appalling? Beginning Character Design
      1. Reading the Design: Silhouette Value
      2. Construction Sights
      3. Foundation Shapes and Their Meaning
      4. The Shape of Things
      5. Going Organic
      6. Creating a Character from Inanimate Objects
      7. Across the Universe
    7. 7  Size Matters: The Importance of Scale
      1. Practicing Your Scales
      2. Stereotypes of Scale
      3. Triple Trouble: Working with Similar Character Silhouettes
      4. Getting Pushy
    8. 8  Beauties and Beasts: Creating Character Contrasts in Design
      1. I Feel Pretty! Changing Standards of Beauty
      2. A Face That Only a Mother Could Love?
      3. Gods and Monsters: Contrasting Appearance and Personality
    9. 9  Location, Location, Location: Art Direction and Storytelling
  9. PART TWO: TECHNIQUE
    1. 10  Starting Story Sketch: Compose Yourself
      1. Tonal Sketches
      2. Graphic Images Ahead!
      3. The Drama in the Drawings: Using Contrast to Direct the Eye
      4. The Best-Laid Floor Plans
      5. Outgrowing Your Furniture
      6. Structure: The Mind’s Eye
      7. The Wonderful World of Color Accents and Keys
    2. 11  Roughing It: Basic Staging
      1. Made You Look: Using Tone and Line to Direct the Eye
      2. I’m Ready For My Close-Up: Storyboard Cinematography
    3. 12  Boarding Time: Getting with the Story Beat
      1. Working to the Beat: Story Beats and Boards
      2. Sizing Things Up
      3. Do You Want to Talk About It?
    4. 13  The Big Picture: Creating Story Sequences
      1. Turning the Page: Sequential Construction from Literature
      2. Arcs and Triumphs
      3. Acting Up: Identifying Acts and Sequences in your Story
      4. Pacing the Film
      5. Acting Out: Acts and Sequences
      6. Outlines and Treatments
      7. A-B-Sequences: Prioritizing the Action
      8. Naming Names
    5. 14  Patterns in Time: Pacing Action on Rough Boards
      1. How Many Panels Do You Use in a Storyboard?
      2. Yakkity Yak: Dialogue on the Storyboard
      3. Writes and Wrongs: Using Transitions
      4. Climactic Events
    6. 15  Present Tense: Creating a Performance on Storyboards
      1. Working with Music
      2. Visualizing the Script
    7. 16  Diamond in the Rough Model Sheet: Refining Character Designs
      1. Tying It Down: Standardizing Your Design
      2. Your Cheatin’ Part: Nonliteral Design
    8. 17  Color My World: Art Direction and Storytelling
      1. Fishing for Complements
      2. Saturation Point: Colors and Tonal Values
      3. Writing the Color: Color Scripts
      4. O Tempora, O More or Less
  10. PART THREE: PRESENTATION
    1. 18  Show and Tell: Presenting Your Storyboards
      1. The More Things Change: The Turnover Session
    2. 19  Talking Pictures: Assembling a Leica, Story Reel or Animatic with a Scratch Track
      1. This Is Only a Test: Refining Story Reels
    3. 20  Build a Better Mouse: Creating Cleanup Model Sheets
    4. 21  Maquette Simple: Modeling Characters in Three Dimensions
    5. 22  Am I Blue? Creating Character Through Color
      1. Creating Color in Context
      2. It’s a Setup: Testing Your Color Models
    6. 23  Screen and Screen Again: Preparing for Production
    7. 24  Further Reading: Books, Discs, and Websites
      1. Artists’ Websites
      2. Books by Animation Character Designers, Animators, and Illustrators
      3. Books on Scriptwriting, Art Direction, and Visual Storytelling
      4. DVDs
      5. Anatomy Books for the Artist
  11. 25  Appendices: Animated Interviews
    1. 1: Discussion with A. Kendall O’Connor
    2. 2: Caricature Discussion with T. Hee
    3. 3: Interview with Ken Anderson
  12. Animation Pre-Production Glossary
  13. Index

Product information

  • Title: Prepare to Board! Creating Story and Characters for Animation Features and Shorts, 2nd Edition
  • Author(s): Nancy Beiman
  • Release date: November 2012
  • Publisher(s): Focal Press
  • ISBN: 9781136142536