The Art of
the Storyboard
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The Art of
the Storyboard
A Filmmaker’s Introduction
John Hart
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v
Contents
Dedication vii
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction xi
Chapter 1: The Storyboard’s Beginnings 1
Tutorials 7
Chapter 2: The Storyboard Artist Is Part of the Preproduction Team 9
Tutorials 26
Chapter 3: The Storyboard Artist and the Storyboard 27
The Director’s Vision 27
Tutorials 36
Chapter 4: Basic Components and Principles of the Storyboard 37
Rule of Thirds 37
Foreground, Middle Ground and Background 40
Developing Drawing Skills 47
Shot Angles 49
Building the Storyboard 55
Classic Film Examples 60
Tutorials 68
Chapter 5: Adding Reality with Perspective 69
Perspective 69
Classic Film Examples 81
Tutorials 88
Chapter 6: Design, Composition and Color 89
Drawing Humans in Action 89
Human Proportions 90
Light and Shadow 96
The Importance of Color 98
Black and White 103
Design and Composition 105
Tutorials 109
Chapter 7: Illustrating Action in Your Storyboard 111
Tutorials 130
Chapter 8: Light Sources and Depth of Field 131
Light Sources 131
Depth of Field 137
Classic Film Examples 142
Tutorials 149
Chapter 9: The Shot, Its Dynamics and Its Function in
the Storyboard 151
Montage 160
Editing 166
Dynamic Design 172
Tutorials 173
Chapter 10: Animatics: The Future of Motion Control 175
Sequencing 175
Editing 176
Special Effects 176
A Real-World Animatic 176
Tutorials 182
Appendix A: Additional Resources 183
Appendix B: Glossary 187
Index 193
vi Contents
To my dear friend, Mary Ann Maurer, whose professionalism, humor and positive
outlook made writing this book such a pleasant task.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge my late friend Lanny Foster, who is represented in this
book.
A particular mention goes to Georgia Kennedy from Focal Press and Beth Millett,
development editor, for their help and encouragement.
A majority of the artwork was drawn by me, unless otherwise noted for guest
artists.
ix
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xi
Introduction
“What goes around comes around” couldn’t be more applicable than to the recent
announcement from Ed Catmull, president of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios,
and John Lasseter, the chief creative officer, that they are once again returning to
hand-drawn animation for their film projects. Hooray!
After the success of their computer-animated project Toy Story in 1995, they closed
their hand-drawing facility in 2004. They have now decided, rightly, that the charm,
linear attributes and added depth of hand-drawn animation still have a strong role
to play in the future of animation. We wish them well – and the same to all of us
artists who draw by hand!
While I was studying art in high school, I thought the greatest
place to get a job as an artist would be the Walt Disney Studios.
Enthralled by the stunning visuals of Disney’s Snow White and the
Seven Dwarfs, followed by Fantasia, Dumbo, Bambi, and then the
delightful Song of the South (the first to combine live action actors
with cartoons), I very much wanted to be a part of Walt’s creative
force. Instead I got a fellowship and went for my Master’s Degree
in Fine Arts. I eventually got to New York rather than California
and became a successful commercial artist/photographer/lecturer
and author. Still, I wonder what would have happened had I been
accepted in Walt’s workshops.
I later learned that most of the artists on Walt’s creative team
simply worked at coloring the hundreds of thousands of cels
(acetate sheets) that comprise a full-length cartoon. Those cel
painters, called “in betweeners,” actually went on strike a couple
of times for more money. Now, if one had the talent to get a job
in animation as an idea person, a concept sketch artist, a production
design artist, a storyboard artist, or a character design person,
that would have been a different story and a more creative one.
As a matter of fact, concept artists are still in demand at Dreamworks
and Pixar, as well as all the major film producers. With film
production being a collaborative art, it’s nice to see storyboard
artists now getting acknowledged in the credits rolls on most
major motion picture releases.
Your drawing talents must be developed thoroughly in both rendering live-action
images realistically and in interpreting images as called for in animated films or
videos. To be a storyboard artist is to illustrate the individual frames that make up
the shots in a shooting script for animated feature films, industrial films or multimedia
projects, and educational films. All these genres use storyboards in one form or
another. You are part of the preproduction team and will work with producers,
production designers, directors of photography and the special effects teams, but
most of your storyboard work will be done with the director, whose vision of the
project will guide the entire production team.
The Art of the Storyboard II seeks to help you in the following ways:
● To summarize the history and development of the storyboard and to clarify its
adaptation and function as a viable visual tool for the creative team that produces
live-action feature length films, animation films, cartoons, multimedia/industrial
films, videos and documentaries.
● To provide basic exercises and illustrations to help you develop the drawing,
drafting and design skills essential to creating an artist’s style that will satisfy the
needs of the director.
● To increase the appreciation of the storyboard as a preproduction tool for producers,
directors, cinematographers, art directors, etc. in any media who are not
familiar with its processes and purposes.
● To help the student of storyboarding or film techniques whose time or funds restrict
participation in organized classes.
● To serve as a standard text or a supplementary text for established art or film
studies at a secondary or college level or in film schools.
Stills from historically important films – from silent to sound – will be used throughout
the text to illustrate their design qualities and “stopped action.” These are actually
parts of a storyboard, called “shots” or “stills” from key frames. Each of the chosen
renderings, from almost 200 entertainment projects, will serve three basic
functions:
● To place the film in its historical context in the evolution of film styles, particularly
those nominated for or awarded Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Cinematography,
Best Production Design/Art Direction or Best Special Effects.
● To clarify each film’s unique compositional qualities, such as its use of framing
in the context of reproducing a three-dimensional reality on the screen.
● To delineate the dynamic placement of figures, use of camera angles (the point
of view of a character often dictates the camera angle used), and the director of
photography’s or cinematographer’s “painting with light” and the striking visuals
created by light and shade (chiaroscuro).
The stills or shots that have been analyzed and interpreted serve as illustrated frames
that make up the visual narrative that is the sequential action of the storyboard.
These key frames – when filmed as individual shots then projected on a screen at
xii Introduction
30 frames per second – induce a persistence of vision on the human retina, thus
creating a “cinematic motion” in the viewer’s perception.
The basic drawing techniques illustrated in this book will be applicable to any creative
work the storyboard artist is assigned to do in the world of feature films, whether
it involves the use of computer generated images, special effects and compositing
or not.
The repeated emphasis of this book is that drawing the story concept is the storyboard
artist’s first responsibility and that even rudimentary drawing techniques can
convey the narrative flow of a given film project. I hope that the extra emphasis
given here will refine those techniques and add a professional polish to the artistic
output of the future storyboard artist.
PERSISTENCE OF VISION:
Retention of an image on the
human retina causing the illusion
of motion in films.
Introduction xiii
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1
The film industry’s current use of storyboards as a preproduction, pre-visualization
tool owes its humble beginnings to the original Sunday comics. Pioneers like Winsor
McKay, whose Gertie the Dinosaur (see Figure 1-1) and animation of the Sinking
of the Lusitania (1915) established him as the true originator of the animated cartoon
as an art form. He paved the way for Disney and others.
The concept of telling a story through a series of sequential drawings actually goes
back to Egyptian hieroglyphics, even back to the cave men’s drawings of stampeding
cattle. The Bayeux Tapestries (1050), woven on linen and depicting with brutal narrative
action William the Conqueror’s invasion of England, is still awe-inspiring and
has its own claims to being some of our first “storyboards.”
Charles Solomon’s History of Animation begins much later with the traveling magic
lantern shows of the 1600s and takes readers from the optical illusion of Phantasmagoria
in the 1800s to the contemporary animated cartoon: from Felix the Cat
and Mickey Mouse in the 1920s up to Jurassic Park and The Lion King in the 1990s.
Lately, we’ve had the brilliant 3D effects of The Incredibles (2004), Shrek (2001)
and Madagascar (2005).
Even with our concentration primarily on film in this new edition of Art of the Storyboard,
we still have to recall a late-19th
century major contributor to cinema –
George Méliès, the French conjurer, illusionist, theatrical set designer and magician
whose films projected optical tricks and fantasies. His Trip to the Moon (1902), with
its stunning imagery of a rocket going “splat!” in the eye of the moon, is still used
for documentaries and commercials. His other films include Cinderella (1899) and
Joan of Arc (1902), and generation after generation continues to be fascinated with
Méliès’ inventive film spectaculars. Other artists who paved the way for animation
were Felix Messmer, whose mischievous Felix the Cat (1914) became the world’s
most popular cartoon character, and Max Fleischer, who is best known for his still
popular Betty Boop character.
Let’s not forget Ub Iwerks, credited by many as being the original concept artist for
Mickey Mouse, who bore a striking resemblance to Ub’s Oswald Rabbit. 1929 was
the beginning of the so-called “Disney Era,” which reigned through the early 40s,
when the entire world fell in love with Mickey Mouse (now just a corporate icon),
Donald Duck, Pluto and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1938), the first full-length
cartoon, brilliantly Technicolored and a giant money maker for Walt Disney.
Chapter 1
The Storyboard’s Beginnings
STORYBOARD: The storyboard is
the premiere preproduction,
pre-visualization tool designed
to give a frame-by-frame,
shot-by-shot series of sequential
drawings adapted from the
shooting script. They are concept
drawings that illuminate and
augment the script narrative and
enable the entire production
team to organize all the
complicated action required by
the script before the actual
filming is done to create the
correct look for the finished film.
2 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 1-1 Hart’s sketch of Winsor McKay with Gertie the Dinosaur, the ancestor
of the animated cartoon. McKay’s hand-drawn style is still influencing Disney’s
animators.
The Storyboard’s Beginnings 3
Unless you want to be chained to a computer, digitally rendering a Madagascar
lll, the bigger reward would be to connect with the world of film. You could
be creating great storyboards while working with directors in the tradition of
Griffith, Fellini, Hitchcock, Truffaut, Selznick, Welles, Hawks, Spielberg, Scorcese,
etc.
The use of the storyboard is the premiere tool in preproduction on any project.
Whether you work in animated or live-action film, the storyboard artist must still
arrange the story in a logical narrative sequence. Eric Sherman states in Directing
the Film, “The storyboard consists of making a series of sketches where every basic
scene and every camera set up within the scene illustrated – it is a visual record of
the film’s appearance before shooting begins.” In my book “Lighting for Action,”
written for the still photographer moving to video and film, I describe the storyboard
as a tool designed to “give you a frame-by-frame, shot-by-shot, organized program
for your shooting sequence (or, the shooting script).” Christian Metz, author of “Film
Language,” refers to the shot (the basic component of the storyboard) as the “basic
unit of film meaning.”
Artists who created those original Sunday funnies drew their cartoon in a logical
narrative sequence; this, essentially, is still the task of the storyboard artist. The use
of the storyboard is a premiere aid in planning a filmed live action or animated
feature. In “The Film Experience: Elements of Motion Picture Art” (1968), Ron Huss
and Norman Silverstein elaborate on the storyboard artist as one who, “guided by
the Director, captures the actions and passions that will be translatable into film,”
that they involve “a continuity reminiscent of comic strips,” and that they remain
“primarily pictorial.”
Working from the original story idea, storyboards enable the entire production
team to organize all the complicated action depicted in the script, whether being
rendered for live action films, animation, or commercials. They will illustrate what
action each lifted shot contains. By doing one’s own storyboards carefully and
thoroughly, you know exactly what is going to be done before the actual filming
begins – every shot and every camera angle, along with what lighting, sets and
props will be used.
Memorable scenes and sets don’t just happen. You need talented people to create
them. And, on a live action project, every section of lumber and each pound of
plaster used in the building of sets, every performer, every costume, and every crew
member, has to be accounted for and paid. Germs of ideas and creative conferences
involving the director, director of photography, set designer, and costume
designer are part of this necessary preproduction process.
Dozens of other creative people are involved in the extremely complicated preproduction
process. The producer acquires the story property in the first place and raises
the money to produce it. Producing it requires actors, costumers, composers of the
4 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
soundtrack, grips, and other technicians like the carpenters, painters, even traffic
managers and drivers. The entire production enterprise can be quite mind-boggling
long before it is shot, edited, promoted and distributed to local movie theaters. The
whole operation is doubly impressive when one considers the logistics of getting
together this group of people to decide what will be the “look” of the film to be
produced. What will be its tone, and how will it be visualized – in other words, how
will the film appear in its final form. Exactly to what created images will its target
audience relate and respond?
Audience response has been record-breaking for many leading cinematic examples
of film’s recent digital revolution, including Pirates of the Caribbean, the Lord of the
Rings trilogy, the Harry Potter series, Spiderman, and Superman Returns. These are
all digital treasures, live action films that contain awesome, visceral entertainment
values that continue to enthrall a world-wide movie audience. They are primary
examples of developing computer graphics imaging (CGI) and its influence on
special and visual effects (SFX/VFX).
All the above cinematic treasures share another primary element that must be noted.
Each and every film started not only with the germ of an idea, but also with a small
thumbnail sketch – a concept sketch that provided for the production team the visual
possibilities of those first written works/descriptions.
It can’t be stated too many times that the storyboard artist is an integral part of the
visualization process, often coming up with concept drawings that illuminate and
augment the script narrative. Everyone benefits from the storyboard artist’s talent:
the director, producer, director of cinematography and the production designer.
Often a script starts with a few sentences, a concept or a hook to grab a producer’s
attention.
With Pirates of the Caribbean, producer Jerry Bruckheimer was sold on the fact that
Pirates wasn’t just going to be a film based on a Disneyland ride, but rather a live
action film that added the effect of the supernatural to the typical pirate story line.
The film was intensely involved with greedy pirate ghosts that appeared human in
daylight but became skeletal horrors at night.
Storyboard artists were put to work immediately to visualize for the Disney production
team exactly what the lead characters and setting/backgrounds and sets were to
look like. The lead characters were drawn in detail then were sculpted by model
makers and made into maquettes (three-dimensional figures) for all to see. Illustrators,
matte painters, model makers (for sets and characters) and concept artists
added to the artistic milieu, creating, often by hand, the “look” of the film with their
presentation sketches and drawings.
Later, the computer crowd from ILM (Lucas’s industrial light and magic) moved in
and used CGI to give the narrative its added dimension of supernatural horror. ILM
created computer-animated pirates and SFX/VFX. Computer artists gave tremendous
COMPUTER GRAPHICS IMAGING
(CGI): Imagined and executed
scenes or elements created on a
computer and often combined
with live action film.
SPECIAL AND VISUAL EFFECTS
(SFX/VFX): Interchangeable terms
to indicate effects that are not
real. These effects can be
computer-generated elements or
live-action elements shot over a
greenscreen.
The Storyboard’s Beginnings 5
graphic adventure to the pirate plot. Casting also played a major role in realizing
the final live action film – Disney’s biggest selling ever, until topped by the grosses
for the second film, Dead Man’s Chest.
The digital revolution seems to have re-vitalized the film industry. But, you still have
to have the initial, individual creative input of the storyboard artist, “hecho a mano”
(made by hand). The storyboard artist is the one who makes sense of the initial creative
mayhem involved in getting a film produced. The storyboard artist’s contribution
to the creative team’s effort is to help in visually evaluating and synthesizing the
narrative flow of the screenplay.
The storyboard artist’s job is to give cohesion, interpretation and illustration to the
visual spine, the “flux of imagery” that will constitute the screenplay. He or she will
render or sketch, when requested by a particular director, all the necessary action
in each key sequence or shot. Working with the producer, director, director of photography,
and often the production designer, the artist will create a vital blueprint
that will be referred to by all of them during the entire shooting schedule of the
production and frequently right into the postproduction editing process.
In a 1998 interview in VISFX with editor Bruce Stockler, Ray
Harryhausen responded to a question on how he learned
about storyboarding:
“I learned storyboarding from Willis O’Brien. He storyboarded
everything. He started a film before King Kong called Creation
(1931) at RKO. When Merian Cooper took over, he put the gorilla
in it, and they added parts of Lost World and they built that up to
be King Kong. It was a great experience to work with him. He
would make 20 or 30 drawings a day, little ones, about the size
of the [indicating a napkin] . . . then he would paste them up and
write captions underneath and we would do each scene that way.
They were all numbered, so you knew when the close-up was
coming, the camera angle and the framing, and whether you
needed a rear-projector or a split screen or whatever.”
Basically, the same structural techniques were used by Peter Jackson in his 2005
remake of King Kong. The big difference being that Jackson’s compositing frames
set-up (putting as many as 20 or more computer generated images together in one
shot) were created especially for Kong by his own company, WETA Digital Effects.
Earlier, WETA Digital had composited such elements as real location shots, matte
paintings, 3D miniatures and live actors to create his Oscar winning trilogy Lord of
the Rings in 2001–2003 (Figure 1-2). Rings was followed by Chronicles of Narnia
(2005) for Disney. Howard Berger, the head creative designer and supervisor for
Chronicles, relates in the Official Illustrated Movie Companion to Chronicles of
Narnia, “When I first met [director] Andrew Adamson at his modest office in Burbank,
he showed me the presentation room where hundreds of preproduction drawings
for the Narnia movie hung. These drawings [storyboards] by the preproduction artists
6 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 1-2 Hart’s composite sketch of the characters from Peter Jackson’s Lord of
the Rings trilogy.
Figure 1-3 Hart’s example of a quick concept sketch drawn on a paper tablecloth in
a restaurant. Notice the use of basic geometric shapes and shading.
The Storyboard’s Beginnings 7
Figure 1-4 This is a structural sketch of the entrance to the anatomical bodies
exhibit at the South Street Seaport in Manhattan. Notice the one-point perspective
with the vanishing point in the upper righthand corner of the picture.
were presented in the order of the film as Andrew envisioned it, then we watched
his early version of the animatics of the final battle.” It seems like old times, because
his preproduction artists were following the same pre-visualization procedure Disney
introduced 50 or 60 years ago on films like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and
Song of the South.
Tutorials
1. Buy a sketchbook and fill each page with drawings of everyday objects.
Then work up to sketching people in action – pay attention to the basic
geometric construction of any object or figure (Figure 1-3).
2. Purchase a good book on anatomy and study the skeletal and muscular
structure of the human body (Figure 1-4). Suggested texts are: Art
Students’ Anatomy by Edmund J. Farris, Dover Books; and Wall Chart
of Human Anatomy by Thomas McCracken, Anatographica LLC.
3. Compare the original King Kong (1933) to Jackson’s 2005 version.
Make basic structural sketches of key scenes for comparison.
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9
Ben Wooten, the conceptual artist and production designer for Lord of the Rings,
says that “Better design work is done when we all work together swapping ideas.
That makes it far more realistic and far more successful. No one works in a vacuum.”
In short, everyone is a member of a vital creative team, all working toward one
major goal: producing a viable yet commercially successful film product. The storyboard
artist starts in collaboration with the producer, the director, the production
designer/art director and even the lighting designer. Pre-visualization is the new
catch phrase, and the storyboard artist is the main interpreter of that concept.
Beginning with the concept sketch that visualizes a selected scene from a script
narrative or making on-the-spot thumbnail sketches for the preproduction team, the
storyboard artists not only impress those involved but also realize that it is a rewarding
creative experience. They note the pleased expressions of the directors and producers
when they see the scene created for them visually as the movie takes shape
“before their very eyes.” Now they have actual images that have come alive, springing
up from the script’s printed word and translated into reality by the storyboard
artist. The art director and the production designer will also relate to the storyboard
artists “on demand” output.
From the beginning, the evolution of the storyboard is intertwined with the history
of 20th
century cinema. Some directors like Sergei Eisenstein made simple sketches
in the margin of the script (Figure 2-1).
Other directors probably kept them in their heads, like John Ford or Cecil B. DeMille
in the silent film period. It’s my guess that if the early master directors didn’t use a
storyboard per se; creative visionaries like D. W. Griffith, Eric von Stroheim, Charlie
Chaplin and Buster Keaton were very involved in preproduction planning, even if it
was simply the basics. For instance, the day and time of specific shoots, which actors
were involved, what location, what sets would have to be built, what style costumes
would be worn, who would run the cameras, and what scenes were the director and
the cameraman going to shoot at what designated time and location?
Some form of preproduction concept sketching is evolved, if only to give the construction
and technical crews as well as the actors some idea of what the next
shot was going to be. It’s unlikely that someone like Griffith, who was shooting 72
Chapter 2
The Storyboard Artist Is Part of the
Preproduction Team
PRE-VISUALIZATION (PRE-VIZ): It
is the drawings of the storyboard
artist that illustrate the visuals
that will make up the narrative of
the film.
10 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
one- or two-reelers a year, would have had the time to make detailed sketches of
every scheduled scene (Figure 2-2).
Although the storyboard was developed in its more sophisticated form by Disney in
the 1930s, Griffith certainly preplanned the setups, set construction, camera movements,
crane shots and so on. He rehearsed the actors to block each shot. Later,
in Gone with the Wind (1939), David O. Selznick applied many of Disney’s preplanning
animation techniques to his Civil War epic.
Frederico Fellini (La Strada, 1954; La Dolce Vita, 1960; 8½, 1963) was known to
arrive on the set early in the morning and – like Griffith – keep scores of carpenters,
actors and technicians waiting around while he worked out in his head where and
how the next shot was going to be accomplished. (No one could get away with that
now with the multi-million budgets of some productions!) No doubt he spent many
hours with his technical people preplanning the use of the expensive sets, the lighting
and the camera positions that were needed for his brilliantly imaged film like La
Dolce Vita or his 8½ (Figure 2-3).
Preplanning for these films? Most certainly. The gigantic budgets demanded it.
Storyboarding for action sequences? Probably drawings of concept sketches aligned
with the script.
Orson Welles, who worked under even tighter studio controls and budgets with his
legendary Citizen Kane and Touch of Evil, worked out all his key scenes in close
collaboration with his award-winning cinematographer Gregg Toland. They storyFigure
2-1 Hart’s schematic interpretation of the original Sergei Eisenstein sketch
for Ivan the Terrible, Part II (1958).
The Storyboard Artist Is Part of the Preproduction Team 11
Figure 2-2 Hart sketch of the D. W. Griffith film Intolerance (1916). This shot, of one
of the largest sets ever built in Hollywood, was taken from a hot air balloon.
boarded each key frame, especially those scenes involving cast members and extras.
They utilized high contrast and ominous shadows that frame the shot (Figure 2-4).
Even as far as budgeting time was concerned, Welles’ contemporaries like John
Ford, DeMille, Victor Fleming and William Wyler (The Best Years of Our Lives, 1947)
were all aware that selected storyboards could help realize the “look” of the film,
indicate an actor’s movements and give the positions of cameras and lighting setups
implementing the set designer’s constructions. Frank Capra (It’s a Wonderful
Life, 1946) made the salient point that “to lower the odds against a film being
‘quality,’ there is no substitute for intensive attention to preproduction.” Ideally, each
production element would be worked out ahead of time and dealt with in the consideration
of each shot, right up to the final “cut and print it.”
In Russia, the great, innovative Eisenstein made a smooth transition from silent
movies in the 1920s to the sound films of the 30s and 40s. Eisenstein was a talented
and professionally trained artist (like Alfred Hitchcock) who became a theatrical set
12 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 2-3 Hart sketch of the tower scene from Frederico Fellini’s 8½, his
autobiographical masterpiece released in 1963.
The Storyboard Artist Is Part of the Preproduction Team 13
Figure 2-4 Hart sketch of Orson Welles come-back crime drama A Touch of Evil
(1958).
14 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
designer before he got into film. Eisenstein designed all the sets and costumes for
all his films. Although his classic Battleship Potemkin (1925) was shot almost entirely
at the actual historical locations depicted in the film, his later works, like Alexander
Nevsky (1938) and the two-part Ivan the Terrible (1945 and 1958), required massive
sets built to satisfy the needs of the individual story lines (Figure 2-5).
Figure 2-5 Hart interpretive sketch of Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible II (1958).
The Storyboard Artist Is Part of the Preproduction Team 15
Many preliminary sketches were made to show not only the settings themselves but
also the action and movements of the actors (again, working closely with his brilliant
cameraman, Eduard Tisse. It is safe to say that Eisenstein was one of the early directors
or auteurs employing rudimentary visual techniques that would later be incorporated
into storyboard construction (Figure 2-6).
We have seen the contributions of early animators such as Winsor McKay, who
perfected the storyboard technique along with Walt Disney’s Ub Iwerks. Disney
insisted that his dream factory use the cartoon-style storyboard process. Disney’s
studio’s perfection of animated cartoons is legendary, as are Walt Disney’s pioneering
efforts (along with Max Fleischer and his Betty Boop cartoons and others in the
early 30s) in bringing about many innovations and techniques to which the development
of current storyboard styles owe their existence.
Disney and his conceptual artists refined the use of the storyboard as the essential
method of pre-visualizing the story to be told (Figure 2-7). It was done first with
rough concept sketches, then workbook sketches in color, then sequential animation
renderings and finally painting the approved production cels. All the creative personnel
knew exactly how each sequence would pertain to the overall story line, which
in itself contained “the essential composition of shots and sequences” (Culhane,
1983).
Storyboarding was an absolute necessity due to the thousands of individual cels that
had to fill 24 frames per second on 35mm film and eventually had to be handcolored.
These demanded much greater care than the average film in preparing
and painting the separate cels or frames that constituted shots that unified the continuity
of the storyboard process. Today all of that is done digitally (CGI).
When the perfectionist producer David O. Selznick was faced with the intimidating
task of filming the 1,200-page best-seller Gone with the Wind, he insisted on careful
preplanning and storyboarding every major scene to be shot in the four-hour film
(this Technicolor spectacle was the most expensive movie ever made to that point).
The experience his production team had gained previously in the use of special
effects on King Kong (1933) came in very handy in preparation for the extensive
use of matte paintings and composite photography that Gone with the Wind
demanded.
Selznick hired the most expensive actors in the movie business (like Clark Gable as
Rhett Butler) and employed the top designers and technical personnel available in
Hollywood. Heading the list of this creative pool, along with the director Victor
Fleming (The Wizard of Oz, 1939), was the eminent production designer, William
Cameron Menzies. Menzies designed the “look” of each key scene and even indicated
the camera angles and framing of each shot. He received an Academy Award
for his production design. Lyle Wheeler as art director (set designer) and Lee Garmes
as the director of photography (Figure 2-8) followed the bidding of the production
designers and the directors, creating stunning lighting for the film (Figure 2-9).
16TheArtoftheStoryboard:AFilmmaker’sIntroduction
Figure 2-6 Hart original storyboard construction/schematic (six frames) illustrating concepts involved in pre-viz of the script.
The Storyboard Artist Is Part of the Preproduction Team 17
Figure 2-7 Walt Disney and staff. Storyboards occupy the entire studio wall directly
behind them, showing the complete narrative flow of the project.
Figure 2-8 Hart sketch of Lyle Wheeler and William Cameron Menzies approving
the storyboard production sketches of Gone with the Wind.
18 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 2-9 Hart interpretive sketch of the burning of Atlanta from Gone with
the Wind.
Selznick’s legendary meticulous attention to detail, covering all facets of the production
process, especially preproduction, would pay off handsomely with a shelf-load
of Oscars garnered for the biggest grossing hit in Hollywood history. (I saw the reissued
restored color version and it’s better than ever.)
One salient point can be made: Many great producers and directors in the history
of the motion picture used some form of preproduction planning. They realized how
much time and money could be saved (balancing their budgets) if their preproduction
people utilized a carefully laid out storyboard that was the “visual spine” of the
screenplay. In other words, they could readily see, by referring to storyboard sketches,
who had to spend what and for what purpose.
Director John Ford, who supposedly kept the continuity of his shots all in his head,
received valuable visual support from several great art directors, including James
Basevi. We can marvel at Basevi’s brilliantly conceived compositions in The Grapes
of Wrath (1940), My Darling Clementine (1946) and The Searchers (1956).
Since the storyboard is concerned
with illustrating the flow of action
in each key scene, it basically
deals with the movement of the
actors performing in front of the
previously designed sets and
lighting. observe the art direction
and production design that
contribute to the stunning visual
presentation of the following
films: Ernst Lubitsch’s Ninotchka
(1939); Orson Welles’ Citizen
Kane (1941); David Lean’s
Lawrence of Arabia (1962); Victor
Fleming’s Wizard of Oz and
Gone with the Wind (both 1939);
Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window
(1954); Steven Spielberg’s Jaws
(1975), Indiana Jones and the
Temple of Doom (1984), and
Jurassic Park (1994); Ridley
Scott’s Gladiator (2001); and
Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean
(2005) and Pirates of the
Caribbean II, Dead Man’s Chest
(2006).
The Storyboard Artist Is Part of the Preproduction Team 19
In observing many of the illustration or stills in this book, you will see that each
frame of the storyboard creates its own world. It requires the use of design, perspective,
mood and mise-en-scene. Whether the film is a comedy, tragedy or melodrama,
great film directors can create a very spatial world, populated with interesting indepth
characters who, by the force of a dynamic plotline, reward us with great visual
entertainment.
For those who have seen them, certain realms of experience have been indelibly
imprinted on our memories by the graphic images Alfred Hitchcock created for his
films (Figure 2-10). He was responsible for such hair-raisers as Psycho (1960), The
Birds (1963) and North by Northwest (1959).
Each shot of these movies was filled with stunning imagery and visual impact. Each
was designed to flow with the narrative of the screenplay. Hitchcock made exciting
use of the montage concepts culled from Eisenstein, Griffith and Chaplin and
imprinted them with his own suspense-oriented style.
Hitchcock was a major proponent of storyboarding for every one of his productions.
In many of his movies, like The Birds, elaborate special effects that involved
MISE-EN-SCENE: placement of
actors within a given scene,
simply tells us visually where the
action takes place.
Figure 2-10 Hart interpretative drawing of an explosive shot from Hitchcock’s North
by Northwest. The theme of the mistaken identity had been used by Hitchcock in The
39 Steps, The Man Who Knew Too Much and The Wrong Man.
20 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
composite shots of live action sequences combined with matte paintings and bluescreens
made the execution of storyboards imperative (Figure 2-11).
Hitchcock (like Eisenstein) was a prolific director whose career spanned silent films
to sound and continued to his last film, Family Plot, in 1976. From an advertising
layout man in a London Department store to art director for Woman to Woman in
1923 to full-fledged director of The Lodger in 1926, “his background in advertising
layout was to help him in his directorial duties. In planning each film, he would
make hundreds of sketches (storyboards) illustrating the camera angles and the facial
expressions he wanted from the main characters” (Spoto, 1976).
More recent films have given us creative blasts from outer space like the George
Lucas movies. The storyboarding of his Star Wars trilogy coordinated and impleFigure
2-11 A recent example of an eye-catching storyboard by Eric de Jong, 2006, www.erikdejong.eu,
www.illustrationen.de. It has great graphics and dynamic close-ups and illustrates the use of camera angles,
horizontals and verticals, and gives the indication of special effects.
The Storyboard Artist Is Part of the Preproduction Team 21
mented all of the composite shots that involved actors, space craft, animated miniatures,
matte drawing and other special effects, many of which were conceived by
master storyboard painter Ralph McQuarrie.
Industrial light and magic (ILM), founded by Lucas to handle in-house special effects
of his films, later worked with other directors and producers creating more SFX magic
in Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (1994); Jan De Bont’s Twister (1996); and the
potboiler trilogy Mission Impossible (1996), Mission Impossible II (2000) and Mission
Impossible III (2006). James Cameron’s memorable Titanic had some of the most
stunning visual effects of the 90s. Another Cameron film, Terminator 2 (1991), was
considered ahead of its time, using morphing (digitally changing one form into
another) with dynamic effect.
Twister is replete with heart-pounding, visceral SFXs created by the innovative ILM
team. All those nonstop tornado thrills in Twister were storyboarded beforehand so
that not only De Bont, but also the producer, art director, director of photography
and the entire string of technicians could consult the storyboards during the entire
shooting schedule. De Bont said, “You have to make storyboards, and the storyboards
have to explain to every department exactly what is demanded of them”
(Weiner, May 1996).
Stunning visuals are also seen in the recent Da Vinci Code (2006) (Figure 2-12),
Casino Royale (2006) and Spiderman II (2007).
ILM (now in competition with WETA and DreamWorks Digital) has been busy doing
special effects for the commercial markets that – because of its own tight budgets
and time scheduling of talent and equipment – demands the use of a detailed
storyboard. The art of the storyboard, with all of its techniques and adaptations, has
been tailored to the requirements of the divergent needs of commercials, industrial
films, music videos, computer animation and other productions (Figure 2-13).
However, there is nothing new to this. Disney animators were doing this in Chicago
for commercials and industrials in 1971.
Renaissance architect Leone Battista Alberti, writing circa 1470 in Florence, said:
“The architect must know exactly what to do before construction can begin [script
concept]. The building must already be fully complete in his mind [pre-viz, like
Hitchcock or Peter Jackson]. He must have made drawings [storyboard artist] and
scale models complete in every detail, including the sculptural decoration [production
designer], so that he can estimate costs [producer], prepare his materials [CGI
and VFX] and workforce, and bring them to the building site [sets and lighting].”
Anyone attempting to shoot any kind of story line, even the harried film student or
independent filmmaker doing their first documentary, should use the storyboard as
a visual device. It serves not only as a day-to-day guide for setting up shots (with
22 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 2-12 Hart composite schematic of Ron Howard’s Da Vinci Code, a murky retelling
of the book of the same name. It’s best known for its production design,
scale models and SFX.
The Storyboard Artist Is Part of the Preproduction Team 23
Figure 2-13 A storyboard by Eric de Jong, 2006, www.erikdejong.eu,
www.illustrationen.de. Note the delineation of the car and wolf, its naturalness,
the composition/design of each frame, and his imaginative use of camera angles.
24 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
their inherent problems of lighting, blocking and pace), but also as a precious timesaver
and aid in controlling budgets of any size.
A case in point was Gregory La Cava (Stage Door, 1937; My Man Godfrey, 1936).
In his autobiography, The Name Above the Title, Frank Capra described La Cava
as a very witty director, who was guilty of “inventing scenes on the set.” La Cava
had proclaimed that “he could make motion pictures without scripts,” but without
scripts, the studio heads could not make accurate budgets, schedules or time allowance
for actors’ commitments. “Shooting off the cuff,” executives said, “was reckless
gambling; film costs would be open-ended and no major company could afford
such risks.” Capra goes on to tell us that La Cava’s meteoric rise was followed by
a very sad fall because of his lack of preproduction planning.
In contrast, Capra described the legendary director Ernst Lubitsch (who directed
Greta Garbo in Ninotchka, 1939) as “the complete architect of his films.” His scripts
were detailed blueprints, replete with all the required sketches, drawings and specifications.
Every scene, every look, every camera angle was designed in advance of
photography and he seldom, if ever, deviated from blueprints in the actual shooting.
“His stamp was on every frame of film from conception to delivery.”
Another case for good preproduction planning is Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of
Baron Munchausen (1988). In “Losing the Light” (Yule, 1991), actor Charles
McKeown was quoted as saying, “If you start a movie unprepared, you never catch
up. You lose morale and there’s an instant sense of failure, no matter how hard
everyone works. On Munchausen, nothing was ready, nothing was right.” Missed
deadlines, escalating budgets and problems with communication damaged the collaborative
effort and jeopardized the film. Apparently, the storyboards were one
saving factor. Gilliam is quoted as saying, “It might not be in the script, but you’ll
find it on the storyboards.” The actor said, “If you took your eye off a combination
of the script and the storyboards on this incredibly complicated film even for one
minute, you were lost.”
The value of good preproduction planning and storyboarding as a part of that
process cannot be overstressed. Consider what cinematographer Hiro Jarita, ASC,
said of director Henry Selick while they were collaborating on the technically demanding
live/animation film, James and the Giant Peach, 1997 (Figure 2-14).
“I pre-programmed each of the different lighting situations. That way I could
go from a day shoot to a night shoot in 29 minutes. That forced us to do a lot of
pre-rigging.” (Blair, June 1996) Fortunately, Selick had done a great deal of
storyboarding.
As illustrated in Figure 2-6, the art of the storyboard is a controlled art, a sequential
art – an art form concerned with the illustration or depiction of a given story line
with one specific end in mind, the realization of these kinetic drawings in filmic terms.
The Storyboard Artist Is Part of the Preproduction Team 25
The storyboard represents the line of dynamic movement dictated by a given script
that has been chosen for production.
Based on basic comic strip art forms, the storyboard is, in effect, a shot-by-shot
visual programming of the suggested action of the script and as such dictates its
own artistic requirements. It must demonstrate graphic visualizations for the producer,
director, director of photography and the director of special effects. Consider
the growing sophistication and phenomenal costs of SFX exploding in earlier productions
like Spielberg’s The War of the Worlds (2005), which was budgeted at about
$100 million, up to the present day movies with truly spectacular special effects like
Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth (2007) called a “tour de force of cinematic
imagination” by the New York Times, Disney’s fantasy Bridge to Terabithia (2007)
and Joel Schumacher’s scary thriller The Number 23 (2007). Suffice to say, this
increased reliance on SFX makes demands on the storyboard artist and his or her
imagination even more acute and more challenging. Naturally, any visual effects
will be indicated in the storyboard sequence.
The storyboard then is broken up into flowing action that emanates from each preplanned
shot. Since the shot is the heart of every image set up, it contains its own
dynamic. Its primary purpose, illustrated in the storyboard, is to realize the kinetic
intentions of each dramatic section of the script, giving specific assistance to the
director in capturing his or her personal vision. The individual shot implies more than
Figure 2-14 Hart sketch of James and the Giant Peach. This visual treat of the
classic children’s tale, by Roald Dahl, was directed by Henry Selick. Notice the use
of forced perspective. The house in the BKD is only 10≤ high. The center of interest
(giant peach) is placed off-center in the upper lefthand corner.
26 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
it suggests, since each shot is the keystone of every scene in the script. The inherent
essence of the phrase, the shot will be discussed at length in later chapters.
In Birth of a Nation (1915) and particularly in Intolerance (1916), D. W. Griffith
developed editing and montage techniques that, along with his creation of the closeup,
iris, pans and tilts, became the foundation of film grammar and in turn, influenced
worldwide film direction, particularly and dramatically for Sergei Eisenstein in
Russia.
Although Eisenstein is justly a legendary figure for the filmic strength of Strike (1925),
Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible, Parts I and II, he is most remembered for
the absolute graphic power of his Odessa Steps sequence from Battleship Potemkin.
This memorable action sequence can serve as the premiere “catechism” and learning
tool for the student of storyboarding. This brief background of the beginnings
of the storyboard and its use by the “greats” is explored later in greater detail.
To repeat the key point of this chapter, storyboard artists produce pre-viz formats in
collaboration with the director and preproduction team, which are the springboard
for the superb visuals shown to audiences worldwide.
Tutorials
1. After seeing some of the films discussed in this chapter, compare on
paper the visual effects of the old with the new. You’ll begin to see
how the storyboard is actually used.
2. Pick a short scene from a recent film and create your own storyboard
for that scene.
3. During credit rolls, note the name of the storyboard artist, look up the
credits and check out his or her style.
4. Do the same for the composite or VFX artist(s).
27
One of the biggest challenges facing the storyboard artist is the demands of the
various members of the preproduction team. Trying to satisfy the visual and narrative
requirements of the script as interpreted by the producer, director, director of photography,
cinematographer, art director, production designer, set designer and the
SFX team is a formidable task.
As a storyboard artist, you must be ready to create on demand and to deliver professional
quality sketches under pressure. You must have a thorough knowledge of
design and drawing, particularly the human figure in motion. This book will give
you a jump-start toward a basic knowledge of design and drawing skills. The rest
is up to you. “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” a New York cab driver was asked.
He replied, “Practice, practice, practice!”
Director Ronald Petrie (Mystic Pizza, 1988), when interviewed on IFC, said there are
nine important words to remember when approaching any new project. His nine
“P’s” are: “Prodigious Preproduction Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Postproduction.”
He’s right on and as a functioning storyboard artist you are an essential component
of that preproduction planning process.
THE DIRECTOR’S VISION
With storyboards, the producer can make a much better estimate of costs and
therefore develop a realistic budget. The director uses the storyboards for shot
sequences, blocking the actors, camera setups and lighting.
David O. Selznick, the king of producers, went over every storyboard sequence
executed for Gone with the Wind with his production designer William Cameron
Menzies and with art director/set designer Lyle Wheeler. They were able to give the
movie a visual consistency that survived the film’s three directors, Sam Wood,
George Cukor and Victor Fleming. They were able to maintain the look of this epic
through all the changes in part because of the preproduction sketches and
storyboards.
The director ideally first goes over the storyboards with the director of photography,
who will use appropriate visual concepts drawn from hundreds of shot sequences
to decide which cameras to rent, what lenses are needed, what film stock and what
Chapter 3
The Storyboard Artist and
the Storyboard
28 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
lighting design will best create the right atmosphere or look of the picture (Figure
3-1). Since SFX have become such an important part of so many films today, the
producer, director, cinematographer and production designer will want to see the
storyboard visuals that illustrate any SFX. The storyboards are used to figure costs
and to set up shots, lighting and framing, as well as design sets in conjunction with
model builders, miniature makers and greenscreen technicians and so on.
In 1939, the production cost of Gone with the Wind was in excess of $6 million. In
1999, Titanic cost $200 million. I shudder to think what it cost for the bookish young
stepdaughter of a sadistic army general to escape into the eerie fantasy world of
Pan’s Labyrinth in 2006. Any producer, faced with the daunting assignment of
developing a budget for today’s films, needs all the help available, and storyboards
can be an effective tool for this all important preproduction work.
The visuals offered by the storyboard are especially important to illustrate SFX when
the storyboard artist works with the producer, director, cinematographer and production
designer, then makes whatever changes become necessary in order to accommodate
their vision or “look” of the script relating to SFX.
Figure 3-1 A scene from Kingdom of Heaven (2005), an action/adventure period
piece, showing the placement of the multi-directional camera and boom used for
the shot.
The Storyboard Artist and the Storyboard 29
The Dictionary of Television and Film has a great definition of SFX:
“Any visual action, image or effect that cannot be obtained with
the camera shooting in normal operation directly at the action and
which requires prearranged special techniques of apparatus
added to the camera, action, processing or editing. Special effects
include contour matting; multiple image montages, split screens,
and vignetting; animation; use of models or miniatures; special
props such as break-away glass and furniture; simulated bullet
wounds, injuries, explosions, floods, fires; and any mechanical or
visual effect whether created on location, in the lab during processing,
or in editing in postproduction.”
A current example of SFX is the storyboard frame in Figure 3-2, a production sketch
drawn for a Duncan Film venture whose working title is The Fu Project. It tells the
story of a Chinese astronaut whose space capsule falls to Earth and is discovered
by a young Chinese girl. Here, the space agency helicopters are lifting the capsule’s
parachute up and off of the trees where the astronaut has landed. Also in this shot,
he is pointing to the rush of journalists advancing toward them from frame right.
Figure 3-2 Enlarged storyboard frame with indications for a composite shot
including actors, scenery and CGI of the helicopter.
30 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Directional arrows indicate the two lead characters, the hordes of media, and the
upward direction of the parachute being lifted. SFX or VFX indications in this enlarged
storyboard frame would include requests for hi-definition imagery, for a composite
shot which would include the human elements, the actual forest locale, and CGI of
the helicopter’s action.
In the space below the framed storyboard, detailed instructions should be made,
not only indicating the action movements, but also any SFX that are needed in the
final shooting script so the production isn’t flying blind. With SFX, as with everything
else, it’s the concept that counts and storyboards are the process that renders that
concept. For example, as I watched the 20th
anniversary screening of Star Wars, it
occurred to me that the jaw-dropping SFX of this ultimate science fiction film were,
in part, a result of the creative imagination of Ralph McQuarrie. Ralph did the conceptual
storyboards (some the size of a postage stamp) for ILM and also rendered
finished production paintings illustrating Darth Vader’s mask, Storm Trooper
uniforms, and the awe inspiring sets for the Rebel Ceremony, the interior of the
Death Star and the Death Star trench. Ralph was ably assisted by Peter Ellenshaw,
a legendary matte painting artist, who did most of the background scenes in the
composite shots. New storyboarding was done for the computer generated characters
like Jabba the Hut for the anniversary release. (Get the definitive book on the
subject, Titelman’s profusely illustrated The Art of Star Wars.)
Jean Cocteau directed Beauty and the Beast (La Belle et la Bete) during the last days
of the German occupation of France in 1945. This is an example of the film as a
collaborative art form at its most challenging. Cocteau’s filming style was derived
from his association with the surrealist movement in the late 20s and 30s. This
fantasy film has been described as the most beautiful black-and-white movie ever
made. For me, this Beauty is much better than the Disney version from 1991. Jean
Marais starred in Cocteau’s film as the frighteningly imposing Beast (Figure 3-3)
whose chateau – with its surrealistic environment – evokes dreamlike movements
and strange situations that confound Beauty.
For example, the idea of Beauty entering the Beast’s hallway and seeing candelabras
being held by human arms (Figure 3-4) is a stunning visual concept adapted by the
Disney animators in their 1991 feature film. The arrow at the base of the frame
indicates Beauty’s floating movement toward the camera.
It was the collaborative effort of the entire production team that enabled this movie
to be produced, directed and shot under the most trying of circumstances. Cocteau’s
uncanny imagination, aided by the artists who put his ideas on paper, produced
dazzling SFX without a single computer in sight. Understanding the surrealist visual
demands of this fantasy/fairy tale, he conjured up his own magical kingdom with
filmic slight of hand. Interpreting the visual field as a symbolic dreamscape is evident
in all of Cocteau’s films, starting with Blood of the Poet (1930) and culminating with
his very surrealistic Orphee (1950). All of Cocteau’s films are a viewing must.
The Storyboard Artist and the Storyboard 31
Figure 3-3 The ugly Beast – with sad eyes and the dress and manners of a 17th
century gentleman – and Beauty –
who is both intimidated and intrigued.
Terry Gilliam’s fanciful The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1989) is another piece
of brilliant art direction and set design (by Martin Scorcese’s favorite production
designer, Dante Ferretti) blended with bold SFX to produce an adventure/comedy/
fantasy which recounts the Baron’s fantastical experiences with his band of misfits.
The storyboarding for this film, many by the director, included dozens of sketches
of props and scenery in addition to the VFX and normal shots (Figure 3-5).
Figure 3-4 Hart sketch of scene from Beauty and the Beast, an example of one-point perspective.
Figure 3-5 An example of one-point perspective and an elaborate prop. The bed
was called King of the Moons.
The Storyboard Artist and the Storyboard 33
Steven Frears’ 2006 biography/drama The Queen begins after the untimely death
of Diana, Princess of Wales. Prime Minister Tony Blair must defuse the bad public
relations situation caused by Queen Elizabeth’s restrained reaction. It is always difficult
to create a film about a living person and to do so with some accuracy. Storyboarding
the scenes becomes especially important so shots are crafted in a way that
allows the director to give the precise motivation needed for the actors, along with
the exact camera angles and the lighting plots to produce the desired effect for a
given scene. Though these technical areas are important in all films, even when
dealing with a film that uses little or no SFX, the entire weight of the film is not only
on the actors, but also on the feel or “look” that that film has evoked from the
storyboards and pre-viz (Figure 3-6).
At the other end of the film reality spectrum is The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion,
the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) which would not have been the spectacular film
it is without the SFX that dominated the movie. An action, adventure and drama for
the whole family, it’s about four kids who travel through a wardrobe to the land of
Narnia. They must defeat the Witch, and to do so they join forces with Aslan, a
Figure 3-6 The Queen is posing for her coronation painting. “Tradition prepared
her, change will define her.” In this frame, the composition has been carefully
balanced with the figure of the Queen placed in the left of the frame, balanced by
the artist in the right of the frame.
34 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
mystical lion god. It is their destiny to free Narnia and a great battle ensues between
good and evil. Director Andrew Adamson coordinated a huge cast, most of whom
were in fanciful makeup and costumes. Without the talent of storyboard artists,
without the availability of the storyboards showing the shot-by-shot sequence of
this complicated production, I don’t think this spectacular film would have been
produced (Figure 3-7).
Figure 3-7 Hart interpretative sketch of the opposing forces of good – Aslan, the
lion god – and evil – the Witch.
The Storyboard Artist and the Storyboard 35
Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon hit the international film community in 1950 like a flash
of sunlight off a samurai’s sword. This is a vibrantly kinetic film starring Toshiro
Mifune as Tajo¯maru, a medieval bandit on trial for murder. His story is related by
three different witnesses, each telling a different version of the grisly incident. The
film is filled with dazzling production designs coupled with the styling of Kabuki
Theater and Japanese scroll paintings. From its brilliant opening sequence in a
ruined, rain-swept temple to its conclusion in the same temple, you can’t take your
eyes off the screen. In Figure 3-8, Tajo¯maru is being interrogated by the judge. Any
storyboard artist would be thrilled to have worked with Kurosawa THE master of
visual dynamics exemplified in such internationally acclaimed films as Throne of
Blood, and The Seven Samurai.
The ideal situation in film production is to work like a family, with every member of
the creative force working together to achieve a final product. Producers and directors
realize that the best scenario is to have all the creative departments working as
a smooth, well-oiled creative machine, with each member of the production staff
endeavoring to satisfy the narrative and visual demands of the script. Most of the
names that roll by in the film credits belong to people behind the scenes. Though
Figure 3-8 Hart interpretative sketch of Rashomon during the judge’s interrogation
of Tajo¯maru, defiantly retelling his version of the rape and murder.
36 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
ego certainly has its place in the artistic environment of a film production – all of
us need to feel secure in our professions – it is important to remember that there is
room for everyone’s inspirations.
As a storyboard artist you have to be a good listener, always considering other artist’s
points of view. Above all keep a good sense of humor, after all, sporting a jocular
positive attitude will help achieve the common goal – finishing the film.
Tutorials
1. Analytically look at a film from the standpoint of producer, director,
director of photography and production designer. Tell the story as each
character requests, then work as the storyboard artist to make rough
concept sketches for each member of the team. Take into consideration
the various visual demands of each.
2. Pick three key scenes from a screenplay of your choice and make quick
rough sketches of each scene, with an imaginative, and, hopefully,
original eye to the needs of the production.
37
Steven Spielberg’s storyboard sketches for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
are little more than chicken scratches, but since his concepts for the action sequences
were at least indicated, even primitively, he was able to visually convey his ideas to
a professional storyboard artist who, in turn, rendered them in a storyboard that was
then used by the whole preproduction staff.
In drawing the basic components of the storyboard, all of the design principles discussed
here have but one goal: to reproduce and augment the exterior 3D reality
on a 2D surface – the movie screen. Even with the current digital revolution, the
weapon of choice for pre-viz of the working film script is still pencil on paper. Drawn
storyboards rendered within the parameters of the script’s narrative structure should
be as graphically dynamic as possible. Why? Because the audience’s visual interest
must be engaged and maintained.
RULE OF THIRDS
Just as a writer has to face a blank page, the artist has to face a blank rectangle
on a drawing pad and visualize how to fill that space with the demands of the script.
But even before we fill it, the space itself must be in good proportion. Storyboards
are drawn in elongated rectangles, to match the aspect ratio of the final image. The
aspect ratio of the projected image can range from 1.65:1 to 2.55:1 in today’s
wide screen formats. These are the same proportions the storyboard artist would use
to draw the individual frames. The Greeks called it the divine proportion or the
golden rectangle. The base of the Parthenon is two-thirds the total of the building
height, and the pediment triangle is the top one-third (Figure 4-1). This division of
thirds is a proportional device utilized in the entire history of art.
When constructing divine proportion, start with the square and follow the steps in
Figure 4-2 to create a golden rectangle. The “empty” rectangle is the base of any
illustration and, like all art, is based on geometric shapes.
Paul Cézanne, the French painter known for beginning the Cubist movement at the
turn of the 20th
century, stated that all reality is made up of the cone, the sphere
and the cylinder (Figure 4-3). The Raiders of the Lost Ark sketch in Figure 4-4 demonstrates
the design use of Cézanne’s observation applied to film design. The sphere
Chapter 4
Basic Components and Principles of
the Storyboard
The architects for the Parthenon
on the Acropolis (finished in 438
BC), were Ictinus and Callicrates
under the supervision of Pericles.
“Doric architecture at its zenith,
the architects having achieved a
perfection of proportion realized
neither before nor since” (Emily
Cole, “The Grammar of
Architecture”).
38 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 4-1 The Parthenon is an example of the divine proportion.
is obvious; Jones can be a cylinder, cone or a pyramid mass as he moves quickly
to the right of the frame.
Any professional composition for any frame of film has to follow these historic artistic
principles for correct placement of figures, objects or structures drawn within the
storyboard frame. The rectangle must first be divided horizontally and vertically into
three sections. The points formed by the intersection of the three verticals and the
three horizontals (Figure 4-5) become the areas where the center of interest is always
placed. This is called the rule of thirds.
The drawing in Figure 4-6 illustrates these points, showing how placement of key
elements at the centers of interest frames the shot. The points that are formed by
intersecting the three verticals and the three horizontals are the areas where you
place the center of interest.
RULE OF THIRDS: All framed
shots are divided into thirds
either (or both) vertically or
horizontally, resulting in the
placement of the center of action
at any of the intersections.
Basic Components and Principles of the Storyboard 39
Figure 4-2 Follow the simple steps indicated in this schematic drawing to construct a
golden rectangle (divine proportion).
40 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 4-3 Cézanne believed that everything could be constructed out of just three
basic shapes: the cone, sphere and cylinder.
Another example of concentric circles that frame the center of interest (Figure 4-7)
shows a variation on the use of ovals. The eye follows the wingspan of the seagulls,
which almost become arrows pointing to the center of interest – the couple in the
lower right corner. Figure 4-8 shows nature’s example of concentric circles in the
conch shell.
This rule of thirds is utilized by all professional storyboard artists and production
designers. Centering actors or objects in the exact center of any frame is boring,
just as a line that intersects the rectangle in the center of the frame is a mistake. A
composition is never split evenly in two. Never. Look at Figure 4-9 and you will see
that in a landscape the sky will take up two-thirds of the frame while the land will
take up one-third or vice versa, in order to correctly place your center of interest.
FOREGROUND, MIDDLE GROUND AND BACKGROUND
You will also maintain the visual interest in your storyboards by keeping in mind
each of the basic visual planes that constitute perceived reality – the foreground,
the middle ground and the background, often abbreviated as FGD, MGD and BGD
(Figure 4-10).
Basic Components and Principles of the Storyboard 41
Figure 4-4 Cézanne’s theory applied to a modern-day film.
42TheArtoftheStoryboard:AFilmmaker’sIntroduction
Figure 4-5 The rule of thirds identifies the best location for the center of interest in a given shot or frame of film.
Basic Components and Principles of the Storyboard 43
Figure 4-6 The concentric circles created by the path and the trees frame the center of interest.
Figure 4-7 Ovals lead to center of interest.
44 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 4-8 Nature follows the rule of thirds and divine proportion too!
Basic Components and Principles of the Storyboard 45
Figure 4-9 The most compelling compositions will divide the frame in varying
proportion (into thirds).
46 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 4-11 shows a production shot from Memoirs of a Geisha where the geisha
is framed by the director of photography and the sound man holding the boom mic.
The geisha and her friend are centered but moving off-center to exit at the right
of the frame. The camera operator and sound man are in the FGD of this image,
while the actresses are in the MGD. The BGD sets the scene for the shot, showing
Figure 4-10 This Hart photograph of Central Park is an example of the rule of thirds
and the use of FGD, MGD and BGD. The moving figures in the foreground in the
lower third of the picture are our center of interest.
Basic Components and Principles of the Storyboard 47
where it takes place. The sketch also demonstrates concentric circles as a framing
device. The movie won Academy Awards for Production Design, Costume Design
and Cinematography.
DEVELOPING DRAWING SKILLS
Once again, the concept of the story line and its validity is what counts in conveying
the visual interpretation of a written scene broken down into the individual shots.
The director has decided which specific shots are needed to interpret the continuity
of the screenplay. Our purpose here is to make you familiar with the storyboard
process and help you develop your drawing and drafting skills by actually rendering
storyboards. Through this process, I hope, you will develop your own style.
To help you in that direction, let’s start out by simply drawing some very basic figures
in action (Figure 4-12). It’s a must that you carry a sketchbook with you at all times
Figure 4-11 Sketch of Memoirs of a Geisha uses FGD, MGD and BGD to convey a rich and interesting scene.
48 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 4-12 Examples of quick sketches that I have done, many of which were taken
right from the TV screen as I watched movies.
Basic Components and Principles of the Storyboard 49
so that you can make quick sketches of the people, places, and objects you encounter
every day. This way, through practice, you will develop the facility of rendering
figures quickly and naturally.
As you make these sketches, keep in mind the proportions of the body. Try to render
your sketches in 15 or 20 seconds. This way, even if they are not perfect, you will
at least be getting the “gesture” or direction of the body’s movement. Just like a
good storyboard, they will have a line of action. They will indicate a line of action
through their gestures or body stance. The more you sketch, the more you will be
developing your own drawing style.
The following sketches are examples of the types of drawing you can execute after
your anatomy tutorial in Figure 4-13.
You can start simply with sketching your own hand (Figure 4-14). Enrolling in a local
art school to take figure drawing lessons is encouraged. No time? Then work from
a wooden model (as on the right of Figure 4-14) or even from figural toys. In Figure
4-15, the young lady ice skating was sketched from a small toy. By simply twisting
it, I gave her movement from the left to the right side of the frame. Note the use of
division of thirds, medium shots, close-ups and the arrow indications for movement/
line of action.
The soldier with a dog (Figure 4-16) and the dancing dog (Figure 4-17) were
sketched to show action, while the wedding couple (Figure 4-18) shows a sketch of
a high angle shot.
SHOT ANGLES
One of the most dynamic aspects of cinematography is the ability to change camera
angles to present different perspectives, convey different presentations of a scene or
show the audience all that you want them to see. Camera angles are a critical way
to keep the audience interested in the story you are telling – imagine if you saw only
one point of view for an entire movie. It wouldn’t be very stimulating.
Therefore, you will likely work closely with the preproduction crew to determine the
best angles for each shot and this needs to be accounted for on the storyboard.
Throughout the book, you will see reference to a wide variety of shots, so here is a
list of the most common ones:
● Close-Up (CU): full face shot of actor(s) or up close shot of objects.
● Extreme Close-Up (EXT CU): so close you see only actor’s eyes.
● Establishing Shot (EST): shows the placement of the actor(s) for the audience.
● Long Shot (LS): shows the actor(s) or objects in the distance (background).
● Medium Shot (MS): shows the actor(s) or objects in the MGD.
LINE OF ACTION: The gesture of
a figure or the continuity of the
action itself in the storyboard.
50 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 4-13 A sketch on skeletal structure.
Basic Components and Principles of the Storyboard 51
Figure 4-14 Drawing simple anatomy: my hand, a wooden model and a skeletal rendition.
52 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 4-15 The ice skater sketched from a small toy shows both motion and division of thirds.
Basic Components and Principles of the Storyboard 53
Figure 4-16 Both the soldier and the dog show the line of action of the shot.
Figure 4-17 The fanciful dancing dog shows movement and expression.
54 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
● Over the shoulder (OTS): taken over-the-actors-shoulder; must stay consistent (on
same shoulder) for an actor.
● Panoramic (Pan): the camera moves horizontally to take in a panoramic scene.
● Tracking shot: the camera is mounted on wheels and moves smoothly on a track
to capture the movement in the scene. Sometimes a similar “dolly” shot is used,
where the camera is pulled or pushed on a cart, like the crab dolly that moves
in circular motion.
● Zoom shot: the focus goes from wide angle to CU with a zoom lens.
Figure 4-19, from True Grit (1969), is a three-shot of John Wayne with his two
antagonists framing the FGD. It is an example of an over-the-shoulder shot, in this
case, over the shoulders of the two bad guys. Our hero is positioned dead center
between then and is lit with the key light aimed directly at him.
Figure 4-20 is a rough sketch I made while watching Citizen Kane; it’s the scene
where Charles Foster Kane in the background is yelling after the politician exiting
Figure 4-18 The high angle of the sketch shows the use of concentric circles in the
movement of the couple.
Basic Components and Principles of the Storyboard 55
Figure 4-19 John Wayne in True Grit.
to the right of the frame. Arrows indicate the line of action. The camera will frame
this flow of action; Welles directed cinematographer Gregg Toland to hold on the
low angle shot, to let the politician exit out of the right of the frame. This simple
sketch would be enough for a director of photography to follow. Placed in sequence
with the shots that logically would go before and after it in the story line, it becomes
part of a storyboard.
The number of camera angles is virtually unlimited, and camera angles can be used
to create unique presentation of the scene, such as the overhead shot in Figure
4-20. It shows the action as if the camera were positioned on top of the scene
looking down. This extremely high angle (attic view) later would be used by Hitchcock
in Psycho, when Norman stabs the inquisitive detective at the top of the stairs in the
Victorian house.
BUILDING THE STORYBOARD
At this point, you’ve become pretty adept at drawing the human figure in its simplest
form. Let’s start now to place them inside the individual rectangular frames that
make up the shots.
56 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 4-20 Hart rough sketch of a shot from Citizen Kane plus the overhead shot,
which was also used by Hitchcock in Psycho.
Basic Components and Principles of the Storyboard 57
To devise a good storyboard, ask yourself and your production heads the following
questions:
● What is the story about?
● Who are the characters? And what is their motivation? (Motivation dictates blocking
and framing, where the director places the actor within a given scene to convey
the action of the script).
● What do they do and say, if dialogue is indicated?
● Which characters are in the foreground, middle ground, and background?
● Are they in conflict and with whom?
● Where does the conflict take place?
● When are long, medium and close-up shots necessary?
The answers to all these questions become clear when illustrated in the storyboard.
Elements of period costumes should be fully researched. Attention must be paid to
motivated light sources. Basic lighting of the main characters or lead actors in a film
are lit through the use of the key light (strongest light on the face), fill light used to
fill shadows (also called reflective light), and back light or hair light to separate the
actor from the background. To quote the famous director Joseph von Sternberg (who
directed the early Marlene Dietrich films) “Once you have mastered the key light,
everything else falls into place.” Lighting is covered in greater detail in Chapter 8.
I did a storyboard for a screenplay by Lanny Foster, Venus Mountain. The screenplay
contained some terrific action sequences that cried out for visualization. Figures
4-21 and 4-22 show a stick-figure interpretation for those of you who are still
searching for a drawing style. Remember, I started out with this sequence by making
very simple sketches in the margin of my copy of the script, as many directors do.
You follow the action that takes place between the characters Cardiff and Mary. As
denoted in the script, Cardiff walks down the corridor, goes into his own large office,
turns on the lights, and finally goes to his desk, all the while being stalked by a
revengeful Mary, who eventually, gun in hand, confronts him in his office. This entire
scene is observed by two assassins, one with binoculars and the other holding a
gun, seen through one of the windows in the office building opposite.
Working with Mr. Foster (who also wanted to direct), we broke down the scene into
the basic shots that it required with these initial rough sketches. He wanted to capture
the intense flow of action that would build up to Mary threatening to kill Cardiff. So,
keeping the continuity in mind, the power that well-designed frames and the use of
fluid, not distracting camera work can bring to a scenario, I started with these
thumbnail sketches. They follow the nine shots that we felt this particular page of
the script needed to “tell the story” visually.
KEY LIGHT, FILL LIGHT AND
BACK LIGHT: Key light is the
primary light shining directly on
the focus of a scene, while fill
light is used to reduce shadows
and back light is light coming
from behind the subject.
58 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Going from shots 1 through 11, you can follow the sequence of action:
Shot 1 A pan shot of Cardiff going down the corridor to open his door, filmed at
a slightly lower angle, but not too low because he was seen from Mary’s point of
view (POV).
Shot 2 An OTS of Cardiff as he turns on the light in his dark office.
Shot 3 He throws his coat on the sofa, moves to the bar, to the window, to the
desk and tape deck.
Shot 4 Cardiff in MGD, framed in the doorway of the office (Mary’s POV) as her
gun slowly intrudes into the left side of the frame.
Figure 4-21 Venus Mountain stick figure interpretation of the beginning of the script.
Basic Components and Principles of the Storyboard 59
Shot 5 The barrel of the gun slowly advances from the left of the frame into the
left center of the frame. (Keep the CU on the gun, with a wide angle lens as it moves
toward Cardiff in MGD right of frame.) Cardiff looks up.
Shot 6 Cut to CU of Cardiff, where it freezes.
Shot 7 Low angle tilt-up to Mary (Cardiff POV).
Shot 8 Mary slowly raises the gun pointing at Cardiff.
Shot 9 Mary and Cardiff in a two-shot CU “facing off.”
Shot 10 Cut to CU of assassin looking through binoculars at Mary and Cardiff.
Shot 11 CU of Mary and Cardiff framed in binoculars (assassin’s POV).
Figure 4-22 Venus Mountain stick figure interpretation, continued.
60 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
This stick figure style is for beginners only or for directors who, like Spielberg, are
not trained artists.
The next version (Figures 4-23 and 4-24) contains the same narrative and action
sequence. I have fleshed out the figures and the locale with basic indications of light
and shade and types of shots that the director and director of photography will need
for the actual shooting.
CLASSIC FILM EXAMPLES
Ridley Scott’s Academy Award-winning film Gladiator (2005) tells the story of a
Roman general who is betrayed and his family murdered by a corrupt prince (Figure
4-25). He comes to Rome as a gladiator to seek revenge. Although the film was of
epic proportion, it also concentrated on the human element. The spectacular ancient
Roman scenes were done with major help of VFX and CGI. In addition to his directing
talent, Scott also did his own storyboards.
The famous still from Gone with the Wind shown in Figure 4-26 has several design
elements going for it. Scarlett has just run in disgust from working in the hospital to
find all of Atlanta trying to escape Sherman’s advancing troops. Notice how production
designer William Cameron Menzies and art director Lyle Wheeler designed the
scene. Scarlett is taking off center stage on the platform, framed by the pillars on
the left and a bird cage on the lower right of the wide angle frame. She is backlit,
making her stand out from the moving mass behind her. The scene is framed by a
series of buildings as the crowd pushes toward the action in the far background.
In Figure 4-27, I have broken up this dramatic scene into FGD, MGD and BGD.
Three separate receding planes divide the scene and give it an in-depth, threedimensional
dynamic. Scarlet is in the FGD, the surging group behind her in the
MGD and the distant train depot in the BGD. The backlighting from a bright sky,
the wind and movement swirling the red dust and perfect movie scoring from Max
Steiner all contribute to this memorable moment.
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (see Figure 4-28) was constructed using a technique
called claymation. This was done with stop-motion 3D modeling to capture the
movements of the dinosaur in this feature from 1953. The arrow obviously indicates
his forward motion through the city. Notice that he is framed to the right center of
the picture with his head turning inward to the action. The cars in the immediate
FGD in this low angle shot not only are placed there for him to destroy but also to
act as a framing device. The Godzilla image was updated by Spielberg in the Jurassic
Park series and in The Host, a South Korean film by director Bong Joon-Ho
released in the United States in 2007.
The sketch of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1989) directed by Terry Gilliam
illustrates the design concept of the circle within the rectangle and clearly shows the
Basic Components and Principles of the Storyboard 61
Figure 4-23 Venus Mountain’s more complete storyboard showing types of shots.
62 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 4-24 Venus Mountain’s more complete storyboard, continued.
Basic Components and Principles of the Storyboard 63
Figure 4-25 The strong overhead sun with its resulting black shadows adds to the
sense of defeat and the isolation of the gladiator. Note the contrast of the circle
(shield) within the rectangular frame.
line of action (Figure 4-29). It was shot against a greenscreen for a matte composite.
They shot the actor first as a mask against the screen and then the background (sky)
was added later, resulting in a dynamically visual shot aided by SFX.
Figures 4-30 and 4-31 illustrate a sequence of shots taken from Terminator 2, where
the boy is pleading with the Terminator not to destroy himself. These storyboard
sketches have been done in a very rough conceptual way using only a fine ballpoint
pen. This touching scene has been broken down into the shots that the director felt
told that part of the story. In other words, using just minimal lines, the concept of
the scene (and each shot that makes it up) can be rendered with visual impact. There
is ample imaging in this section of the storyboard that will easily serve as a guide
not only for the director but also for the director of photography.
64TheArtoftheStoryboard:AFilmmaker’sIntroduction
Figure 4-26 Sketch of a scene from the classic Gone with the Wind, where Scarlett encounters the exodus from Atlanta.
Basic Components and Principles of the Storyboard 65
Figure 4-27 Scene from Gone with the Wind with the design elements broken into
separate planes.
66 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 4-28 Sketch of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.
Figure 4-29 Sketch of an action scene from The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.
Basic Components and Principles of the Storyboard 67
Figure 4-30 Storyboard from Terminator 2 Judgment Day showing violent action and traditional camera angles.
68 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Tutorials
1. Watch movies in the American Film Institute’s Top 100 films and
examine the scene compositions for use of rule of thirds and visual
planes.
2. Select a key scene from the screenplays for Night at the Museum, Pan’s
Labyrinth, Dances with Wolves, Brokeback Mountain and Crash, and
storyboard each.
Like the Terminator 2 storyboard, format your frames with the horizontal
rectangular film ratio of the wide screen. Be sure to pick the
scene that has dramatic impact.
Each storyboard should have at least 10 to 15 frames in it. For clarity,
keep the drawings as simple as possible and always keeping in mind
the visual needs of the preproduction team.
Figure 4-31 Continuation of a storyboard from Terminator 2.
69
Since the very invention of the cinema as a popular entertainment device in the late
19th
century, it has been the aim of producers, directors, production designers, and
directors of photography to reproduce and project our perceived three-dimensional
reality onto a two-dimensional movie screen. Besides resorting to those 3D glasses,
the filmmaker uses such filmic techniques as breaking up the photographed scene,
or frame, into three specific planes discussed in Chapter 3: foreground (FGD),
middle ground (MGD), and background (BGD). Adding interesting shot angles
and vividly rendered light and shade to the filmed objects also enhances the threedimensionality
(Figure 5-1).
Techniques such as foreground framing literally “frame” the scene and also throw
the viewers eye further into the mise-en-scene from FGD to MGD to BGD. Framing
the shot helps focus attention to the primary action in the scene, the “off-center”
center of interest. Paying attention to the geometric elements in any given shot by
applying the use of ovals as a design factor also helps hold the attention of the
audience.
PERSPECTIVE
Most important however, is the application of the laws of perspective that augment
and capture the three-dimensionality of the shot. Webster’s Dictionary describes
perspective as “the art of drawing objects on a plane surface to give impression of
the relative distance of objects, indicated by the convergence of their receding lines.”
I like to think of perspective as to perceive, to view, to know, and to get a concept
of 3D spaces.
Most images have at least one vanishing point (VP) – the point at which the receding
lines in the image appear to meet. Except when viewing a flat plane placed horizontally
in front of the viewer. Figure 5-2 taken at the Bodies Exhibit at the South
Street Seaport in New York City is a vivid example – the exhibit signs and shape of
the street stretch from FGD into the MGD, “meeting” in the upper right of the photo,
just between the double doors in the brick building in the BGD. When an image
has one vanishing point, because the viewer is looking straight at it, it is considered
one-point perspective. The close-up in Figure 5-3 also showcases the anatomy of
the human body.
Chapter 5
Adding Reality with Perspective
VANISHING POINT: One or two
points on the horizon line to
which all converging lines will
recede.
PERSPECTIVE: The art of
representing on a twodimensional
plane what the
viewer perceives as having
three dimensions.
70 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 5-1 This location shot illustrates high angle. Late afternoon sunlight causes
strong vertical shadows. The highlighted umbrella carried by the “living statue” on
the left of frame adds a vivid 3D aspect to its circular form.
Figure 5-2 This Hart photo of the Bodies Exhibit illustrates one point perspective
aspect and vanishing point.
Adding Reality with Perspective 71
The concept of receding planes is important because of all that takes place within
its preconceived boundaries. Figure 5-4 illustrates each of the three divisions of
space within its own picture plane or receding plane. The FGD (frontal plane) contains
the chairs left of frame and two characters entering frame on the right. In the
MGD are the units on wheels in front of the Fulton Market building on the left with
the blue awning and the girl walking on the left. And the BGD occupies the area
in the third, receding plane – the red brick buildings.
The two figures in the foreground and the girl walking on the left on the sidewalk
are all walking toward the vanishing point. Can you find the vanishing point?
Who do we thank for this knowledge of receding planes and the use of perspective?
Filippo Brunelleschi, architect and sculptor, the same genius who gave Florence his
magnificent dome topping The Duomo in 1431. The shot of The Duomo (Figure
5-5) was taken from the street at an extremely low angle and exhibits several VPs.
The main focus is on the ribs framing the dome and the distant vanishing point they
indicate. If you extended the verticals in the base supporting the dome, you would
find a vanishing point approximately eight inches above the page. There are two
vanishing points at the base of the support dome that eventually would meet the
horizon line close to the bottom of the photo.
Figure 5-3 Advertisement from the Bodies Exhibit shows the muscle structure of the
human body in detail.
Brunelleschi’s formulations of
the laws of perspective were
amplified by another genius of
the Renaissance, the architect
and writer, Leon Baptista Alberti
who designed the famous façade
of Santa Maria Novella in
Florence.
72 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 5-4 This Hart photo illustrates the concept the three receding planes.
Wherever your eyes look, there is a built-in eye level – an imaginary horizon line
that extends across your two pupils. If that line were extended to infinity, it would
become a duplicate horizon line parallel to your eye level. On that horizon line or
eye level, there will automatically be a VP directly in front of you (Figure 5-6). This
vanishing point creates one-point perspective.
In addition, there are VPs at the far ends of your eye level, at 180° on either side
of the one-point perspective VP (Figure 5-7). The far end occurs when you extend
both your arms to your side until you can barely see them. These two VPs create
two-point perspective.
The perspective lines that lead to VPs are called orthogonals. In Figure 5-8 of FDR
Drive in New York City, the VP is shown with the orthogonals receding off to the left
of the page.
ORTHOGONALS: The lines that
lead to the vanishing point(s) in
an image.
Adding Reality with Perspective 73
Figure 5-5 Hart photo of The Duomo taken at an extremely low angle to show
several vanishing points.
Figure 5-6 This sketch illustrates the eye level as an imaginary horizon line that is
always parallel to the distant horizon line.
74 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 5-7 Two-point perspective takes into consideration the VPs at the far ends of the eye level indicated in this
drawing. Note in this sketch my indication of the imaginary vanishing point placed between the eyes from an
overhead view.
Adding Reality with Perspective 75
Figure 5-9 is an extreme low angle shot of the façade of a landmark building in
New York City. As with the Duomo in Figure 5-5, the orthogonals go up and off
the page to the VP. Look at the interpretive drawing (Figure 5-10) which illustrates
these orthogonals.
Figure 5-11 shows one- and two-point perspective. I think that two-point perspective
is only an issue when you are drawing the corner or corners of rooms, buildings, or
objects like boxes.
A major point that must be acknowledged and understood is that the vanishing point
is not stationary. It moves when we move, to reflect the way we are looking at a
scene (Figure 5-12). I call this principle the elevator effect. Notice that when our
figure moves from the first to the second or third floor that his horizon line and his
vanishing point move vertically with him. Also, if our figure moves left to right his
vanishing point continues to move with him on his horizon line.
Figure 5-8 Orthogonals are lines that recede to the vanishing point.
ELEVATOR EFFECT: Our eye level,
horizon line and VPs move as we
do.
76 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 5-9 Extreme low angle building shot that duplicates the same perspective as
The Duomo photo (Figure 5-5).
When we look at Figure 5-13, we see the vanishing point looking straight down
from a high angle, such as an aerial shot or bird’s-eye view.
There is no question that perspective can be intimidating to the beginning artist. But,
as with all storyboarding skills, examinations of others’ work and practice will help
develop and improve these skills.
The cowboy sketch in Figure 5-14 is a good example of the dramatic use of perspective
in FGD, MGD and BGD; VPs; and use of light and shade; with the character
placed off center to the left of frame. Every classic cowboy film has the hero in a
face-off with the villain on Main Street. In this shot, the saloon is in the left FGD
and the general store on the right is in the MGD. The grain store on the left is also
in the MGD and appears half the normal size. The church on the right in the BGD
appears normal height.
The director has the perspective of the shot in mind and that will dictate the camera
placement and angle. This will be storyboarded for the director to see before shooting
it, in collaborating with the director of photography, art director or set designer.
Using a low camera angle, the actor will appear taller and more imposing. Even
the street itself will look more menacing if shot below eye level.
Adding Reality with Perspective 77
Figure 5-10 A sketch illustrating the direction of the orthogonals.
Note that all the lines of the building go back to one VP, indicated by the dot just
to the left of the church. This scene also makes use of forced perspective, where
objects in the BGD are created disproportionately smaller than the objects in the
FGD. This makes the actor and buildings in the FGD appear much larger and the
BGD appear much farther away.
FORCED PERSPECTIVE: Making
the FGD objects seem larger and
BGD objects seem smaller by
creating them out of proportion
to one another. This creates a
greater distance in the shot.
78 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 5-11 The sketch illustrates both one- and two-point perspective and the effect of light and shade.
Adding Reality with Perspective 79
Figure 5-12 The elevator effect states that no matter how far you move vertically or
horizontally, your eye level and vanishing point stay with you.
Figure 5-15 is a storyboard that uses the technique of vanishing points, indications
of motion, light and shade and close-up. The character is centered in the frame of
a low angle shot in the hall. Light and shadows come from the windows on the right
of the frame. In the next frame, she is placed to the right of the frame and an arrow
indicates her movement through the doorframe on the left. She is looking into the
interior of the classroom filled with light and shade from the windows on the right.
It is one-point perspective because the angle of the shot is taken from her POV
80 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 5-13 Sketch of an aerial view of the elevator effect, as if we are looking
straight down from a balcony.
Adding Reality with Perspective 81
Figure 5-14 Sample production sketch showing VP, perspective and light sources.
standing in the front of the classroom looking to the back of the room. And the last
frame is an extreme close-up of her, off center to the left of the frame.
A practiced, trained eye in three-dimensional composition will aid the storyboard
artist to meet any and all preproduction needs. With the emphasis I have given to
the principles of design, perspective, light and shade, the storyboard artist will be
able to make on-the-spot rough or concepts sketches of key scenes in the script
when asked by the director to satisfy his pre-viz requirements.
CLASSIC FILM EXAMPLES
When I look at a painting, photograph or motion picture the first thing I ask is “Does
it project exceptional composition or design? Classic films, many of which are used
as examples in this book, and were inspired by Renaissance painters and their
interpretation of reality in their oeuvré and influence the work of such great directors
of photography as Gregg Toland, Carl Freund and Gordon Parks. The masterful
work of production designers such as Ken Adam and Martin Scorcese’s favorite
designer, Dante Ferretti, have also been influenced by art history. As one famous
82 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 5-15 This storyboard by Ulrich Zeidler, 1999, www.ulrichzeidler.com,
www.storyboards.nl shows various aspects of motion, light and close-ups.
Adding Reality with Perspective 83
art historian said “Life is short, art is long.” All of the above artists are in the forefront
of superlative film great design.
In Figure 5-16 from the premiere detective story The Maltese Falcon (1941),
Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade looks down the embankment at his murdered
partner’s body. It is an example not only of a dramatic low angle shot, but also the
use of two-point perspective and two light sources. Imagine a line running straight
across the top of the FGD rocks (this is your eye level line). Out of our sight lines
are two vanishing points, one to the right of the frame and one to the left. All the
lines that make up the fence in the FGD and the flat walls facing us (receding planes)
will converge to the VP at eye level or the horizon line to the left of the frame. The
angled wall directly behind Sam is made up of lines that converge back to their own
VP just below the streetlight. All in all this is an excellently designed scene by director
John Huston.
Figure 5-17 is a concept sketch for a poster idea – a montage of the Batman movie
series illustrating the use of a low angle shot where the compression of space gives
visual drama and the forced perspective gives added depth and movement to the
sketch.
I redesigned the Fox logo for the 21st
century in two-point perspective (Figure 5-18).
I have made the horizon line quite clear and indicated where both the right and left
VPs are located.
Figure 5-16 Interpretative sketch of a scene from The Maltese Falcon showing oneand
two-point perspective, low angle and several different light sources.
84 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 5-17 Montage for the Batman series.
Figure 5-18 Concept sketch for a new Fox logo.
Adding Reality with Perspective 85
Vertigo, directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1958, includes the shot in Figure 5-19 of
actor, James Stewart, the lead character who suffers from severe vertigo. In this
scene, he’s going down the tower steps. The seriously distorted one-point perspective
plus the addition the special effect of having the structure sway adds to the terror
the audience experiences with the character.
The shot in Figure 5-20 is from Red River (1948), a Howard Hawks western. An
illustration of atmospheric perspective, referred to as the law of content, occurs when
the scene does not consist of linear perspective but rather is constructed of foreground
framing, middle ground actions and backgrounds that are out of focus to
give added depth. This shot shows that atmospheric perspective can consist simply
of a view of cattle in the MGD plane along with the cowboys who drive them to
market. The shot is beautifully framed in the FGD with the trees. The arrow indicates
the line of action. When you place a shot in any film, there has to be a unity of
space, a unity of composition and a pre-viz placement of people and objects.
Figure 5-19 In this scene from Vertigo, the sketch illustrates extreme high angle
one-point perspective.
86 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 5-20 A scene from Red River showing the framing of dynamic movement and
use of contrasting light and shade as well as backlighting.
The frame (the four sides that contain the selected subject matter) is the picture’s
boundary of reality. Remember that we, as artists, select from the millions of images
that exist around us and then pinpoint, emphasize and rearrange a selected few of
these images for use in the storyboard. One of the basic composition faux pas that
I often see occurs when the artist is not aware of or ignores that basic design element,
the principle of thirds. Simply stated, the image behind the frontal plane should be
divided into thirds (already discussed in Chapter 3).
Any sequence of shots or frames chosen from the script should contain images that
will illustrate all the visual talents of the director, director of photography, production
designer and the storyboard artist – that’s called collaboration.
Great design is about developing a sense of proportion. In Figure 5-21, a sketch
of a set shot from Casino Royale (2006), we see James Bond waiting for the “action”
call. The camera is at an extreme low angle, the director is explaining what comes
next, and the film crew is ready to follow the actor’s movements. Even this behindthe-scenes
shot demonstrates good composition and design because the central
figure is off-center. A series of ovals frame the shot – notice the boom mic and the
frame of the reflector. The guy holding the boom mic, the director, and focus puller
all frame and indicate the center of interest, James Bond.
Adding Reality with Perspective 87
Figure 5-21 Set shot from Casino Royale.
Hopefully you are convinced at this point that the laws of perspective and design
should govern your personal view of reality. Once these rules are mastered and
implemented in your storyboard, drawn by hand or CGI, your can consider yourself
a professional.
88 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Tutorials
1. Buy, or rent or go to see at least six recent films. Take a medium-sized
sketch pad with you. As you watch the film, make quick sketches of
scenes you feel are particularly stunning or graphically interesting.
Draw your sketches simply, focusing on basically observed geometric
patterns of the scene before you. Make dozens of sketches as you
watch.
2. Go over the sketches when you get home. Ask yourself these ques-
tions:
a. Did I capture an interesting use of perspective?
b. Is there any use of forced or atmospheric perspective?
c. Did the production designer follow the rule of thirds?
d. Were the shots framed in a visually interesting way?
e. Was the rule of off-center obeyed?
f. Was there use of varied and interesting angles?
g. Did the light plots enhance the light and shade of the actors and
their environment?
h. What design elements enhanced the three-dimensionality of the
scenes or shots?
i. What was the overall “look” of the film, and did it work?
3. Always keep your sketches and notes for future reference. Make up a
portfolio for your own use and never throw anything away.
89
Great film design is about developing a sense of proportion, a feeling for what
“works.” What “reads” well beyond the frame or frontal plane? Large trees framing
the cattle run in Red River? Small trees? No trees at all? The artist’s entire effort
should be to capture the viewers’ attention and keep them visually stimulated.
Viewers want to see the results of your creative eye. An awareness of the various
planes that exist behind the picture plane will help you think not only in terms of
great composition but also three-dimensionally. Producing a film requires intensive
collaborative efforts. The storyboard artist, working from the concepts given by the
director, can be one of the key creative figures helping to integrate all of the diverse
elements that go into developing the “look” of the finished product. When dealing
with design and color, basic design elements come first and then you add color for
visual impact.
DRAWING HUMANS IN ACTION
Go to the How-To section of any bookstore and you will find many “how to draw”
books written specifically to train burgeoning artists. Books with particular emphasis
on drawing the human figure in action will be of immense help for the beginning
storyboard artist (see Figure 6-1). For those who will be taking film courses, classes
leaning specifically toward the unique art form we know as storyboarding will be
taught and mastered.
Try using stick figures, cylinders or scribbled figures to make the rough sketches of
motion. It might be difficult at first, but it’s a start and you will become more proficient
with more practice (Figure 6-2).
As an additional aid in delineating the human figure, I suggest you purchase an
anatomical model, usually made of wood with pliable arms, legs, torso and head
like the one in Figure 6-3. The inexpensive models stand about nine inches tall and
are great for rendering the proportions of the body for your storyboard images.
When I was a graduate art student taking a sculpture class, the concept of light
falling on three-dimensional forms became even more obvious. I learned how light
and shade shape an object or figure giving it its solid form, weight and placement
in reality (Figure 6-4).
Chapter 6
Design, Composition and Color
90 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 6-1 A figure running, from stick figure to full dimension, delineated with light and shade.
Don’t just sketch the model from straight on. Set the arms, legs, hands, and head
in a running position. Then close your left eye and, pretending your right eye is the
camera lens, pick up the figure or model and “zoom in” on it from different angles
– low angles, high angles, even turn it slowly in front of your “lens.” Sketch the
model from these diverse positions. This technique will help you develop a more
creative eye for your storyboards. Unusual angles make for more interesting storyboards
while you are also improving your drawing skills (Figure 6-5).
Human Proportions
● Figures 6-6 and 6-7 show the universally accepted basic proportions used by art
students for drawing references. They are: The size of the human head is referred
to as the head length, from chin to the top of the head.
● The height of one’s hand is equal to the size of one’s face.
Design, Composition and Color 91
Figure 6-2 Sketchbook exercises eventually lead to mastery.
92 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 6-3 Use an anatomical model for figure movement.
● The human head, as in all of our golden mean proportions is divided into
thirds:
᭺ 1
/3 from the chin to the base of the nose
᭺ 1
/3 from the base of the nose to the eyebrows (or ears)
᭺ 1
/3 from the eyebrows to the top of the head
● The average male’s body height is 7½ heads tall; the same would apply to the
female body, which is usually shorter.
Design, Composition and Color 93
Figure 6-4 Include light and shade in drawing of the model.
94 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 6-5 Use the model to sketch the human figure in action.
● The halfway point from head to toe would be at the pubic arch.
● The length of the arm to the elbow coincides with the mid-point of the torso or
trunk.
● The tip of the hand held straight down against the thigh approximates half the
body height.
● The width from shoulder to shoulder is normally two head lengths. Female
shoulders are narrower.
Design, Composition and Color 95
Figure 6-6 Proportion for drawing the human body.
● The female pelvic area is wider and legs of the female form are normally longer
than those of the male figure.
See also the gesture illustrations and other references to anatomy.
I have indicated in Figure 6-7 of the human head what I call the Picasso line. In his
Cubism phase, Picasso loved to break up the human head into two or three sections
or more. My Picasso line divides the head into only two sections. This line follows
PICASSO LINE: To illustrate the
sculptural form of a face it is a
line that follows the contours of
the face from forehead to neck –
resulting also in a “profile” of its
own.
96 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 6-7 The Picasso line.
the contours of the face from the forehead to the chin – aiding us to sense this
sculptural quality of the human head and giving the indication of a full profile.
LIGHT AND SHADOW
I would like to illustrate some very basic drawing methods that will aid you in
developing, I hope, your own special style as a storyboard artist. For me, being
aware of the three dimensionality that exists in the perceived world around us is of
primary importance because it will motivate any drawing, even the simplest one
(Figure 6-8).
Where there is a light source, the object that its rays fall upon will cast a shadow.
You can actually draw figures just by indicating the play of light and shade falling
on and shaping them (see Figure 6-9). This light and shade depiction on a figure
or object will give that object its three-dimensionality.
I remember, in a college art class, the drawing instructor insisting that I draw the
light and shade on a hat over and over again until I rendered its structure correctly.
The light falling from a side window caused the side of the hat opposite the light to
Design, Composition and Color 97
Figure 6-8 A simple sketch of the human figure.
Figure 6-9 A sketch from Apocalypse Now (1979); notice the reflected light on the
fuselage.
98 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
fall into shadow. That shadow must conform to and shape the structure of the hat,
thus giving it its three-dimensionality. Observe the light and shade of the hat, face
and hands of Johnny Depp from Pirates of the Caribbean depicted in Figure
6-10.
THE IMPORTANCE OF COLOR
Let’s take a moment now to discuss the importance of color, the psychology
of color, its tones, hues and intensities and their various uses in films. Just check out
GamFusion filters (www.gamonline.com), a complete line of color filters and diffusion
material for film lighting or gel sheets of different colors used to change the
mood of a scene. They have swatch books and you can see how many shades of
the color spectrum are available to the cinematographer.
Figure 6-10 Interpretive sketch from Pirates of the Caribbean.
Design, Composition and Color 99
To change the tone or mood of a given scene, two points are to be kept in mind:
comedy is light (see Figure 6-11) and tragedy is dark. We might say that melodrama
can be a combination of both. That does not mean that the movie has to be shot
completely in tones of gray.
It is not difficult to consider that “light” colors are happy. Yellow denotes cheerful,
optimistic, summertime and so on. Blue, outside of being a background for puffy
white clouds is often used to denote a depressing scene or night shot. Note in the
sketch from Batman & Robin (1997) in Figure 6-12, that blue is the dominant color
of Mr. Freeze. Also note the arrows that indicate the action lines or movement of
the body and the use of ovals and cylinders in the drawing.
The primary colors red, yellow and blue can be mixed into secondary colors. Yellow
and blue make green, red and yellow are orange, and so forth. Purple (blue and
red), especially when a bit of black is added, starts to lean into the darker spectrums.
Red reads danger and all you have to do is watch its extensive use in films as a
visual jolt for murder and mayhem. Just remember, save red for something really
“hot.”
Figure 6-11 Amarcord (1974) illustrates a “light” comedy.
100 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 6-12 An analytical sketch indicating the use of arrows for action direction for
Mr. Freeze from Batman & Robin.
Design, Composition and Color 101
Green is the color that projects calm and the environs of the forest, like John Wayne
walking at ease through the lush Irish landscapes in John Ford’s The Quiet
Man (1952), until he encounters Maureen O’Hara, with her flaming red hair
(Figure 6-13).
As with mixing shades of black and white to blend gray tones, color can also be
“grayed down” or toned down to soften its effect. As with any art form, save the
blatant, strongest color for the strongest image, the peak moments in the script.
Reds especially should be used very carefully.
In other words, don’t give it all away at once. Too much of anything can be boring.
Learn early to be subtle and save the fireworks for the Fourth of July, or as background
high jinks for a climatic kiss between Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in Alfred
Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief (1955). Watch this film and ask yourself if it would
work as well in black and white? Is the production design strong enough to hold up
on its own without color?
For the superb use of Technicolor, screen the 1940 The Thief of Baghdad (shown
frequently on TMC)—it won an Oscar for cinematography. Watch for the shot when
the evil Jaffar, in a contrasting black costume) persuades the princess to smell a
Figure 6-13 The Quiet Man (1952) illustrates the soothing effect of nature and the
color green; the environment also emphasizes the contrast with O’Hara.
102 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
lustrous blue rose so she will fall into a spell. In close-up, the razor sharp shot of
the blue rose has maximum visual impact.
According to French Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, “The best color use
can be observed right there in nature and you will note, nature uses its chromatic
repertoire with a great deal of discretion.” Check out the use of color by the Impressionists
in any art history book.
Techniques like putting a dash of red off-center in a green landscape or a splash
of orange in a predominantly gray scene always give the shot a visual punch. The
color orange in its various shades and hues can also be used advantageously especially
when it’s tinged with red. It is a natural for sunsets and for the extremely high
incident of explosions in current blockbusters.
Similar to the tones in a black-and-white film, one can use monochromatic colors,
which are colors, shades and color hues based on one tertiary color like a burnt
umber (the right mix of orange and purple). A classic example of the subtle use of
color with soft, yet luminous intensities is the Japanese masterpiece Gate of Hell
(1953), which received Oscars for best foreign film and costume design. The sundrenched
colors Van Gogh used in all his paintings are brilliantly captured in Lust
for Life, Vincente Minnelli’s Oscar winning 1956 film. The film, shot in and around
Arles in the South of France, was nominated for Best Art Direction, Set Decoration
and Color (Figure 6-14).
Figure 6-14 A sketch of Kirk Douglas portraying Van Gogh in a posed publicity shot
for Lust for Life.
Design, Composition and Color 103
Black and White
Filming in black and white is making a come back. It was used to great effect in
Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List (1993) and more recently in Good Night and
Good Luck (2005) and Sin City (2005) though the film was actually released on
color stock, giving it a richer chiaroscuro effect. This popular film style, derived from
the legendary detective movies like The Maltese Falcon, has been tagged film noir,
which I translate as “Shoot it inexpensively at night, in and out of the black
shadows.”
The common theory behind film noir is that expensive sets and lighting equipment
were scarce during World War II. The films were shot in low light, making audiences
less likely to notice the lack of elaborate sets and the wartime cutback on the use
of electricity. We can see the influence of the film noir genre in Jean-Luc Godard’s
Breathless (1960) and in the searing drama The 400 Blows (1959), Figure 6-15,
by the stimulating Francois Truffaut.
Truffaut also gave us Day for Night (1973), his Oscar winning “how to make a
movie” script conceit. Day for Night could have had just as much dramatic impact
FILM NOIR: French term for dark
cinema. Popular black-and-white
films mainly from the 40s and
50s. Used chiaroscuro high
contrast light and shade.
Figure 6-15 In this Hart sketch from film noir classic The 400 Blows, note the figure
done in ovals and framed off-center.
104 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
if it had been shot in black and white. Truffaut was tremendously influenced by Alfred
Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), shown in Figure 6-16. Who needed color in the infamous
shower scene? Hitchcock decided that the most realistic looking blood could
be simulated best in black and white with chocolate syrup. Another example of
Truffaut’s homage to Hitchcock is evident in his “dark” comedy, The Bride Wore
Black, released in 1968.
Although most current films are in color, the storyboard artist can save money for
the producers and give them the visceral impact they seek with storyboards executed
in black and white with the added dimension of gray shadows.
Figure 6-16 Scene from Psycho is off-center with strong light and shade.
Design, Composition and Color 105
DESIGN AND COMPOSITION
Good design always means understanding and interpreting the visual demands of
the script. Figure 6-17 shows a shot from a generic western, where our action hero
frames the scene to the left with CU of his gun in the extreme left FGD. An open
gate occupies the MGD while the barn and his nemesis occupy the BGD.
In the sketch from Tiko and the Shark (1966) in Figure 6-18, the FGD is made up
of two large vertical tree limbs on which fish are being dried. The MGD has the boy
moving off-center left of the frame on a horizontal limb. In the BGD to the right of
the frame, you see a girl with outstretched arms. Water receding toward the horizon
could be considered a fourth plane. The figures have been rendered simply, but
solidly.
Figure 6-17 Our Western hero faces off with the bad guy.
106 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 6-18 This is a sketch from Tiko and the Shark (1966). Its misty gray overtones
and original FGD framing add to the visual character.
The circle as a design element is used in the scene from the film 2001 (1968) in
Figure 6-19, which shows the 3D reality of objects and forms existing in a given
space.
One of the most famous films of the 20th
century is the silent film Battleship Potemkin
(1925), directed by Sergei Eisenstein. Frames 76 through 84 (Figure 6-20) show
us the design elements and conflict of forces at work in each dynamic shot. They
have been drawn very simply but they still convey the sequence of action. In frame
85 (Figure 6-21), the mother is shot and starts to fall. It has been rendered in full
dimensional light and shade. With practice, patience and persistence, you will soon
be able to make the transition from simple figures to fully dimensional
renderings.
Design, Composition and Color 107
Figure 6-19 The 3D circle as a design element is evident in this shot from 2001.
If I were to recommend one book that is a compendium of the best of Hollywood’s
films, it is Ronald Haver’s David O. Selznick’s Hollywood (1987). It’s full of high
quality films from this prolific producer. Selznick reached his peak with the spectacular
Gone with the Wind (1939, directed by Victor Fleming) and, in contrast, the rich
black-and-white cinematography of Rebecca (1940, directed by Alfred Hitchcock).
You will find at least 1,500 illustrations from preproduction conferences involving
storyboarding, set design, costume design and set decoration, all the way up to the
actual production scheduling involving many original shots and camera setups (see
Figure 6-22). This volume alone gives you insight into the multiple areas of visual
enhancement that make for breathtaking films.
Figure 6-21 Battleship Potemkin (1925) frame 85.
Figure 6-20 Battleship Potemkin (1925) frames 76 to 84.
Design, Composition and Color 109
Figure 6-22 An interpretive sketch showing Menzies checking camera positions
against his storyboard for The Devil and Miss Jones (1941).
Tutorials
1. Draw scenes of figures in action in black and white. You can use
everyday scenes or interpret scenes from films.
2. Draw the same scene again using color. Check your composition and
design and pay particular attention to light and shadows.
3. Being able to draw the human figure quickly and accurately requires
a great deal of discipline on your part. Don’t forget to carry that
sketchbook with you and make sketches from everyday life.
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111
Creating well-drawn, motivated figures that kinetically move in an interesting way
through the 3D space of the film is one of the primary jobs of the storyboard artist.
A finished storyboard covering all the basic shots tells the story and is an invaluable
aid to the entire preproduction team. Vivid images from a strong director and a
storyboard illustrating their robust style complements the intensity of the action and
the raw emotions of the characters. The shots from important films in this chapter
demonstrate how the dynamic placement of figures within the continuity of the
storyboard frames has to be rendered simply yet effectively. Indications of sets constructed
or actual buildings and locations used must be illustrated in the storyboard
artist’s renderings, remembering that sets are background for the action.
The use of special effects, computer graphics (CG) and the compositing of different
images enhance the continuing action of the storyline and the VFX must be indicated
and illustrated in the storyboard.
Superman Returns (2006), directed by Bryan Singer, is a super sendoff of the previous
versions and is considered by many to be the best. It has a strong backstory
and an interesting new story line, with strong performances from all the leads, plus
spectacular new VFX. Nominated for an Oscar for Best Achievement in Visual Effects,
this film would make one agree with the ads for the film. Talk about action! Talk
about adventure! Talk about superb visuals!
I went to see this new version of Superman Returns at a local IMAX equipped theatre,
and the film was indeed awesome. The IMAX projection – with its humongous curved
screen and high-definition projection – increased the feeling of a 3D world. Added
to the visual thrill were several scenes that were shown in 3D – the coming new rage
in Hollywood. Superman Returns is a terrific contemporary showcase for the very
latest digital/CGI/greenscreen technology. For the showing, I took along my
trusty 8 × 10 sketchpad and sketched many key scenes very quickly in the semi-
darkness.
I have selected just five of my favorites for demonstration purposes only. I had to
sketch fast, but have, frankly, gotten quite good at it with practice. Keeping in mind
the geometric construction of any image helped make my drawing easier, as it will
be with yours. I hand-drew the individual scenes denoting action. Arrows indicate
direction of movement.
Chapter 7
Illustrating Action in Your Storyboard
112 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Frame 1. I tried to capture the iconic image of the new Superman (created by Scott
Marsden). And although we know that he is suspended on wires against a greenscreen
with multiple tech assistants pointing fans at him, the masterful use of the
current CGI technology causes us to suspend our belief.
Frame 2. The teenage Superman tests his new flying skill, taking off from a handy
water tower.
Frame 3. In this low-angle action shot, Clark Kent is in a major hurry to change
into his Superman persona. The character action is slanted at an angle to his left
to add to the feeling of swift movement from BGD to MGD to FGD.
Frame 4. Superman raises an entire subterranean city from the depths of the ocean.
Very impressive shot, showing imaginative compositing of several elements, the
model of the island city, the turbulent digital sky with added lighting, and the ocean
with the huge opening left by the island topped by the figure of Superman lifting the
whole shebang.
Frame 5. Another shot demonstrating fabulous CGI and the composting of various
images. The packed ballpark, upper left of center, waiting to be destroyed by the
plummeting airplane, entering dramatically into the upper right frame is stopped by
the invincible super hero. This dynamic placement of the digitized components
makes for a white-knuckle ending in this super sequence.
Getting the knack of drawing the human figure is not easy, but here are some
more ideas that will help. Some of the drawings in Figure 7-3 are little more than
doodles, but in drawing even these simple exercises, you will become more facile
at rendering the human figure in motion. After dozens and dozens of attempts,
eventually you will develop a style of your own, even if it is crude at first. Refer
back to the development drawings of Chapter 6 and keep the wooden artist’s
model handy.
In these sketches, you can start out with a stick figure, but you don’t have to stay
with it. You can simply double the lines as seen in frame 2.
In frame 3, I added ovals for the body shapes, remembering the principle of
threes – upper arm, lower arm and hand; upper leg, lower leg and foot; and
the chest, the waist and the hip. Even the human head, as in frame 8, is
divided into three sections: the top of the head to the eyebrows, the eyebrows
to the base of the nose, and from the base of the nose to the chin. Notice that
the ears always are placed in the middle third between the eyebrow and the
nose.
In frame 4, I used a coil or spiral technique to flesh out the stick technique. In frame
5, I broke up the various thirds of the body parts into cylinders.
Illustrating Action in Your Storyboard 113
Figure 7-1 Superman storyboard frames 1, 2 and 3.
114 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 7-2 Superman storyboard frames 4 and 5.
Try each of these techniques and see which might work best for you. By frame 6, I
hope you will have arrived at a possible style of your own, showing the figure drawn
more completely, so that by frame 7 you can add some simple indication of light
and shade. All you have to keep in mind is this: Where is the light source? For
instance, if you place a bright light to the right of an egg (which has the same
general shape as the human head), the left side will fall into shadow.
Keep in mind those all-important proportions and keep comparing the size of the
head to the width of the shoulders, the bend of the elbow is at the waist, the elbow
one-half the length of the arm.
Figure 7-4 is a sketch from Reign over Me (2007), where Adam Sandler’s character
lost his family in the 9/11 attack on New York City. He searches out his old friend
Illustrating Action in Your Storyboard 115
and roommate, played by Don Cheadle, to help him deal with his grief. In the
film, Sandler is searching through material that will help him make new life
adjustments.
This interpretation sketch is an example of implied action or an action waiting to
happen. The moment itself with Sandler holding the document is fraught with future
implications as Cheadle gives moral support. It is a quiet but intense part of the
narrative flow.
Figure 7-5 is a sketch from A Hard Day’s Night (1967). This classic romp, exuberantly
directed film by Richard Lester and starring the Fab Four, exudes all of the
kinetic energy anyone could want in any film. The Beatles – being chased – are
practically suspended above ground and about to be airborne. This overt action
sketch is the direct opposite of the implied action shot from Reign over Me.
Figure 7-3 From stick figures to stacked figures.
IMPLIED ACTION: An image with
no movement but the unspoken
concept of movement. For
example, a killer threatens a
victim with a loaded gun.
OVERT ACTION: An image with
specific movement to convey the
point in the story. For example,
the killer extends his arm and
shoots the victim.
116 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 7-4 Sketch from Reign over Me, an example of implied action.
Figure 7-5 Sketch of A Hard Day’s Night, an example of overt action.
Illustrating Action in Your Storyboard 117
Figure 7-6 shows a complete storyboard sequence taken from a student film that I
directed when I taught film at Notre Dame. It is one of my early attempts at storyboarding,
and though the idea sketches are on the crude side, they are indications
of where I wanted the actors to move, utilizing directional arrows to point out that
movement. Keep in mind that the concept is what counts and even these preliminary
idea sketches eventually helped to make the shots as indicated. Boldness and simplicity
of execution will make the point quicker than overly elaborate drawings. The
storyline is simple – the Everyman character is being accosted by Death as he walks
to his home through the woods.
Frame 1. Long shot of Everyman walking through the woods.
Frame 2. Medium close-up of the Death figure.
Frame 3. The Seventh Seal sketch.
Frame 4. Close-up of the frightened man.
Frame 5. Man falls after being touched by the Death figure.
Frame 6. Death figure continues on his way in a long shot. Note the use of arrows
to indicate the movement of the figure out of the frame.
In the storyboard in Figure 7-6, I tried to keep strong, simple design elements
working for me. You will note the use of foreground framing in every shot,
either with the trees in frames 2, 3 and 6 and the Death figure in frames 3, 4
and 5. The black figure is combined with the trees in 1, 2, 3 and 6. Only two
close-ups were used – frames 2 and 4 – for maximum impact. Note that in
each of the frames, the center of interest is never placed in the center of the
frame, but off-center for a strong design. The drawings themselves have been
kept simple but effective in their rendering of the moving figure within its given
space.
While I was the director-teacher on the shooting of this satirical short subject, I
appointed a student director of photography. His job was pretty simple since we
were using only winter’s available light and took advantage of a built-in light metering
system. We did not need to carry reflectors with us, because the snow makes
for terrific reflections and fill for shadows. Since the budget on this production was
minimal, covering only the cost of film and processing, I did the editing in the camera
because I wasn’t sure that an editor would be available. Costumes were the dayto-day
apparel of the students. We made it a contemporary scenario to avoid the
use of medieval costumes. The death figure’s costume I borrowed from our recent
production of Hamlet – a flowing black robe adorned with a large white cross on
the chest and sporting an impressive black hood that would hide the face of the
actor until his important close-up.
118 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Our small film crew worked quickly and efficiently in the cold snow. It was so cold
out there that I was afraid our borrowed Bolex with its wide angle, medium and long
lenses would freeze up. When shown to the film department, the piece was appreciated
as an exercise in simple film technique and production. My primitive but useful
storyboard helped the director and entire student crew with the shooting of our
film.
Figure 7-7 which shows great design and composition is taken from the storyboard
concept and used in the eventual shot taken from the film itself. Arrows indicate the
kinetic action in this pyrotechnic SFX frame. The actors are running from the car
explosion. Their action has been framed off-center. A 3D quality has been achieved
by the lead characters bolting quickly into the FGD, and the car (in one-point perspective)
in the MGD with the flames in the BGD. In this rendering, I have given the
sprinting figures the full-dimensional treatment. The wrinkling and shifting of their
clothes implies the speed with which they are moving to escape from explosion.
Figure 7-6 Completed storyboard for a satire on The Seventh Seal.
Illustrating Action in Your Storyboard 119
The shot in Figure 7-8 from Citizen Kane (1941), directed by Orson Welles, is
another superb example of the combination of several action and story elements
into one shot. The mother is placed in the FGD, signing the papers that will take
her son away. The lawyer is just behind her. The father is in the MGD, next to the
open windows. The son is seen through the window in the far BGD as he throws a
snowball at the window. I have tried to show the light and shadows that are falling
on the figures in a strong yet simple way using a felt-tipped pen for the chiaroscuro
effect. Intense, elemental compositional devices are at work here. The figures are
placed strongly in the frame but project the narrative action fulfilling the wishes of
the director, the cinematographer and the set designer.
Figure 7-7 The storyboard concept from The Peacemaker (1997) demonstrates the
visceral thrust into the foreground along with good framing and strong dimensional
development.
120 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
In the shot from Dr. Strangelove (1964) in Figure 7-9, the implied action is the
ominous threat of a world-wide nuclear holocaust. In order to achieve the mood,
the oval is used as a solid compositional device in the suspended light fixture
and the round table beneath it which are a threatening visual device that looks to
crush the generals at the table beneath it. The war map, which is in the BGD with its
vertical dots, projects the track of the nuclear device. The curve of the light that illuminates
the table, chairs and figures in them augments the mood. Great set design
and lighting give strength to the world crisis being handled in the War Room.
The action involved in the schematic drawing in Figure 7-10 concerns a terrorist
who, by cell phone, is trying to detonate a bomb in a Wall Street building. This
sketch is adapted from a script proposal titled “Scary.” The following design elements
are illustrated: the golden rectangle is divided into thirds vertically and horizontally.
The main center action (or attraction) is placed in the lower right of the frame.
Observe the placement of the observer or the camera’s eye level/horizon line (arrow
just above the flag on the left) and where the two-point perspective VP’s are indicated.
The VP for the basic one-point perspective is placed on the horizon line just
above and to the left of the seated figure with the headphones. Also, the sun as the
basic light source is causing shadows on the buildings.
Figure 7-8 Citizen Kane (1941).
Illustrating Action in Your Storyboard 121
Figure 7-9 Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove (1964).
Figure 7-11 shows a horizontal shot with movement from left to right within the
picture plane. I have drawn the moving figures in silhouette and had to work hard
to give the bodies the effect of forward movement. This is a version of Hamlet filmed
in Russia in 1964 and the director in this shot imparted a strong sense of the recession
of space with his placement of the actors played off against the buildings. The
FGD curve of the hill forces the eye of the viewer to look at the black figures walking
to the right of the frame in the MGD. Because of their blackness, they stand out
against the grayer castle in the BGD. The director created dimensional space within
the pictorial frame simply with the use of strong blacks and grays.
Lost Horizon (Figure 7-12), a Frank Capra masterpiece, was filmed in black and
white and has one of the largest sets (constructed in full scale and in miniature) that
was ever built for a Hollywood film. It was released in 1937 and earned an Academy
Award for Art Direction. In this shot, the arrow indicates the emergence of the characters
who had been lost in the Himalayas as they enter Shangri-La. This conveys
to the audience the wonders befalling the characters who are entering this 3D miseen-scene,
created by some of the best production designers in the business. As they
enter, they are framed in the FGD by jutting rocks on either side, contrasted by the
122 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 7-10 Schematic drawing adapted for a new script.
Figure 7-11 Hamlet (1964).
Illustrating Action in Your Storyboard 123
Figure 7-12 Lost Horizon (1937).
softer pools, gardens and the smaller figures in the MGD, while the impressive simplicity
of the main buildings loom up in the BGD. The director and his team had,
indeed, created visual magic which helped motivate all the characters to fulfill the
destinies put forward in the script.
Zack Snyder’s 300 opened in Greece in 2007 to great audience acclaim and is a
jaw-dropping, visceral, visual experience, from concept art drawn in comic book
style to filming actors against bluescreen/greenscreen with backgrounds digitally
enhanced with CGI throughout the film. In the interpretive sketch in Figure 7-13,
arrows indicate the actor’s dynamic action. A groundbreaking experience indeed!
The following two examples are storyboards executed by John Tartaglione. The styles
dictated by the subject matter are slightly different. Figures 7-14 through 7-16 show
a storyboard from the proposed film comedy Anything for a Laugh. In storyboarding
this sequence of the screenplay, John has given each shot what he feels will best
124 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 7-13 300 (2007).
convey the action of the story line. You can follow the narrative in frames 1
through 20.
These characters have been drawn in a simple style that lets them convey action
very directly (indicated below each frame). I think that the artist has arranged the
characters in interesting ways. Sometimes they are in a close-up in the FGD, at other
times (as in frame 7) running horizontally through the kitchen in the MGD. Jackie
chases Tom and Anthony with a baseball bat, threatening mayhem through several
sets and in and out of houses. The houses are not elaborately drawn, but you know
where you are.
Arrows indicate the main direction of the characters. Sometimes the storyboard artist
will alternate the right-to-left action as in frame 10, with left-to-right action in frame
13. The artist has also added variety by placing the secondary character in the FGD
in frame 10, then indicating the secondary character in the BGD in frame 13. Do
you think that it is too much of a jump cut from frame 15 to 16? If so, draw one
that you feel might work better, but try to keep it in the present style.
Illustrating Action in Your Storyboard 125
Figure 7-14 Anything for a Laugh (1998) storyboard frames 1 through 8 (reprinted
with permission from John Tartaglione).
126 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 7-15 Anything for a Laugh (1998) storyboard frames 9 through 16 (reprinted
with permission from John Tartaglione).
Illustrating Action in Your Storyboard 127
Figure 7-16 Anything for a Laugh (1998) storyboard frames 17 through 20
(reprinted with permission from John Tartaglione).
John has kept the use of close-ups to a minimum because there is so much body
action. Saving the close-ups for a very dramatic purpose, as in frame 20, makes
this technique more effective. The artist has achieved, in a very direct way, a visualization
of the action of the script. With his storyboard visuals, he has also graphically
shown us where the characters are going, what their motivations are and how they
fulfill the intended action of the narrative.
In Figures 7-17 and 7-18, John has interpreted and rendered a sequence from John
Ford’s epic western Stagecoach (1939) in a different style. He uses a graphite pencil,
stronger blacks and whites for more contrast, more dynamic close-ups from the
narrative and stronger lines. Perhaps his style has advanced from the storyboard of
Anything for a Laugh. Perhaps the impact of an Indian attack in which one of the
characters might find it necessary to shoot the women motivated him to render his
images in a stronger, bolder style. Following the narrative flow of Stagecoach is not
difficult. The intent of both the antagonists (Indians) and the protagonists (John
Wayne and the passengers) is obvious – kill or be killed – and the tension mounts
until the U.S. Calvary arrives to save the day.
128 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 7-17 Stagecoach (1939) storyboard frames 1 through 6 by John Tartaglione.
Illustrating Action in Your Storyboard 129
Figure 7-18 Stagecoach (1939) storyboard frames 7 through 12 by John Tartaglione.
130 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Notice how the various cuts from medium shots in frames 1 and 2 to the dramatic
long shots of the attacking Indians are used. As in any Ford film, we are made to
identify with the emotions of his characters in a very big way as with the device of
“the other woman” trying to protect the baby in frames 2, 5 and 6. Notice also the
FGD and the BGD combinations in the same frames. The Indians are alternated by
the director to be seen in the BGD in 2, then used in a menacing medium shot in
3, then back to a long shot in 4. Frames 7, 8 and 9 are contrasted to the other
shots because they are tight close-ups pointing in a more explicit way to the predicament
of the baby, the supposed assassin and the terrified mother. Frames 10 and
11 continue in close-up with the gambler raising the gun to firing position until the
quick cut to the cavalry trumpet. Strong images from a legendary director and a
storyboard illustrated in the same graphic style complement the intensity of the action
and the raw emotions of the characters who have been thrown into a desperate
situation.
Tutorials
1. Do a dozen quick sketches of figures in motion, starting with stick
figures.
2. Add the dimension of light and shade, paying particular attention to
the light sources and the resulting shadows.
131
Almost every sketch in this book shows a light source and its resultant depth of
field. The light source is indicated with the symbol of a glowing sun or circle and
the depth of field through graphic illustration of receding planes, i.e., the use of the
FGD, MGD, and BGD. Sharper focus will occur on the center of interest (usually
human figures) when the amount of light falling on the figures is more or less intense
(lit by the sun, the moon or artificial light). The type of lens used to focus on the
subject will also make a difference, whether it’s a wide-angle lens for sharper focus
or a normal lens for average sharpness.
LIGHT SOURCES
When drawing the storyboard and interpreting any given script, the storyboard artist
must always be aware of all of the indicated light sources, especially the key light,
fill light, hair light or the reflected light, as well as actors’ blocking and position of
props. Varying the intensity of the light in your storyboard frames adds visual appeal
and depth to your drawings.
The key light is most often used in the CU, and it is the main source of light that
falls on the actor. This type of light can be either harsh (not diffused) or soft (diffused
by material placed over the light source or the camera lens itself).
You’ll probably want to add one or two hair lights placed behind and above the
actor. The main function of a hair light is to enhance the actor’s hair, especially that
of a woman, and also to separate the performer from the background. The background
itself is usually lit by selected area lighting done in a way that does not distract
from the actors in the scene.
Most film images are enhanced to some degree with the use of a fill light, which is
simply light reflected by a rectangular white or aluminum board. The reflected light
(bounced light) is directed toward the actor’s face or figure. Fill light is used also to
soften facial shadows. Reflected light can come from either a natural source (the
sun) or an artificial light (tungsten studio lights). Fill light can also be a small spotlight
or eye light positioned just below the performer’s face, the camera lens and the key
light. These three supplemental lighting terms all refer to any extra light source that
fills shadows and softens the lighting on a face, thus giving the facial features a
more flattering appearance, particularly in a CU.
Chapter 8
Light Sources and Depth of Field
DIFFUSED LIGHT: Light that is
softened as it passes through a
filter on either the camera lens or
the light itself.
132 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
My favorite lighting situation is to photograph faces outside. If the actor’s back is
to the sun, either mid-morning or mid-afternoon, when the sun is not directly overhead,
the sun becomes the hair light/backlight falling on the actor. All you have to
do is hold up a white board at the correct angle so the reflected light from the sun
bounces off the white reflector onto the actor’s face. See Figure 8-1.
In Figures 8-2 and 8-3, the boy’s father is holding the reflector (key light) at a 45degree
angle to the sun, thus catching its light and bouncing it onto the boy’s running
Figure 8-1 A medium close-up of a young boy holding a white reflector.
Light Sources and Depth of Field 133
Figure 8-2 Diagram sketch of Dad holding the reflector for his son running toward the camera.
figure. To utilize depth of field, the photographer focuses his long lens on the leaf
placed on the grass in the MGD. When the boy runs over the leaf, his running figure
is in the correct MGD focal plane. The FGD plane and the BGD plane are out of
focus (Figure 8-3).
In Figure 8-4, my film cinematography class is shooting an actress in outside lighting.
Notice that not only do we have the model (at far left) leaning on a white
reflector, but one of the students is also holding an aluminum reflector for extra
bounce, or fill light on the actress’ face. Naturally they are focusing on the eyes,
and the BGD is out of focus. This is a suitable lighting situation for still or film.
This same technique is used in studio lighting, using either a reflector placed out of
camera range (the lens’ field of vision) or, in most cases, using a smaller fill light
focused on the actor just below the key light (Figure 8-5).
To determine the intensity of the light, think about how close to the actors you want
the light source to be. In most cases, the minimum distance is five or six feet. A key
134 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 8-3 Photograph of the scene; notice the leaf where the lens was focused.
light can be hard or soft. Outside, the sun can be the key light, or at least the source
for reflected light. Most film images are diffused to some degree and the use of a
fill light softens the facial shadows. In Figure 8-6, a studio MCU of Stephanie
Danielson’s face, the key light effect is soft and the hair light is angled down to illuminate
the back and sides of her head and enhance her hair. The hair light can be
as soft or as intense as you prefer and is usually one-third as strong as the key
light.
In Figure 8-7, the key light illuminates Kathleen Richard’s face, the backlight highlights
the hair, and a fill light bounces into the shadows of the face to soften the
shadow caused by the key light. (This time, the fill light was a large scoop light
softened with diffusion material.) Also, an eye light is placed directly in front of her
face to give her eyes a lively highlight. This is “star” lighting that the extras don’t get
– they are lit with area lighting, a general expanded light that lets them be seen,
but doesn’t emphasize any special features. A few examples follow later using analytical
sketches taken from certain shots from classic films which will define these
lighting and compositional concepts further. Figure 8-8 is the lighting plot for a
portrait shot.
LIGHTING PLOT: Correct
placement of lights for the actors
and the scenes in which they
appear.
Light Sources and Depth of Field 135
Figure 8-4 Cinematography class shooting outside, and the resulting shot.
136 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 8-5 Studio lighting diagram from Hart’s booklet “chalk talks,” explanatory
illustrations for his photography class at NYU.
As the storyboard artist collaborating with the director of photography or cinematographer
who is in charge of creating the lighting moods and atmosphere that
reflect the director’s vision and intent, you must be familiar with the lighting and
compositional tools that might be discussed in the preproduction meetings. They will
expect you to be familiar with most of the basic terms that pertain to lighting, lenses
Light Sources and Depth of Field 137
Figure 8-6 MCU photograph shot in the studio with a soft key light and downwardangled
hair light.
and camera angles so you can interpret exactly what they want and illustrate the
effects of the lighting plots in your storyboard. For the same reason, you must have
some knowledge of lenses used in the filming, such as normal lens (MS – medium
shot), long lens (LS – long shot) or wide angle lens.
DEPTH OF FIELD
Depth of field refers to the point in the image where you want the sharpest focus.
This might be a person or an object, and it might be in the FGD, MGD or BGD.
This place of sharpest focus is the place of greatest interest in the shot. For many
people, depth of field is difficult to visualize. To me the term depth of field has always
been a misnomer.
For clarity let’s use the farm world as a reference point.
What depth?
The depth of the well in the back of the house?
DEPTH OF FIELD: The area of the
shot that is in sharpest focus,
indicating the area of greatest
interest.
138 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 8-7 Studio portrait shot with “star” lighting for maximum effect and
emphasis.
The depth of the pile of compost in front of cow barn?
What field?
That field with the cows outside the farmer’s window?
That field that Gramps refers to as the North 40?
Well, yes and no to all of the above. Whoever came up with the term depth of field
was referring to our human field of vision – what our retinas and optic nerves can
absorb (light rays) when we view any given scene.
On our farm location, how much depth has that field of grass? Its depth is the distance
from where we, the viewers, stand and the space that stretches from FGD to
MGD to BGD. In this sketch, the viewing field of vision encompasses the distance
from the front fence all the way back to the row of trees in the back of the field –
maybe half a mile away from us.
Light Sources and Depth of Field 139
Figure 8-8 Light plot for Figure 8-7.
Depth of field does not refer to the height of the grass in the field. We have discussed
receding planes: FGD, MGD and BGD, and the required center of interest for every
shot. First, if that fence framing the field in front of our view is in the FGD, then the
grazing cow occupies the MGD. Second, that row of trees behind Nellie occupies
the BGD. Third, keeping the cow in focus is our main concern because she is our
center of interest. We’re not interested in the FGD fence, or the trees in the BGD.
We will focus our lens, probably a long lens, only on the cow. Our bovine friend
will be in focus more sharply than that FGD fence or the BGD row of trees.
Also, if we focus on Nellie with our long lens, the BGD will automatically go out of
focus because the long lens has limited the depth of field. (Note the bird’s-eye view
in Figure 8-9.)
140 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 8-9 A farm scene sketch illustrating depth of field.
If it’s a bright, sunny day, the depth of field will increase, so the grass just in front
of Nellie and the grass directly behind her will be more in focus too, i.e., in the
MGD focal plane. Why? Brighter light causes your aperture to close down a stop
or two, increasing the depth of field. Optics again! Light increases the depth of
field.
If Nellie walks up to us into the FGD, focusing on her will be easier. On a professional
film shoot, there will be a focus puller, whose only job is to follow focus while
adjusting the lens, making sure that Nellie is constantly in focus as she moves from
MGD to FGD.
Light Sources and Depth of Field 141
Figure 8-10 Ricky the Raccoon.
Depth of field is the distance selected in your field of vision for proper focus. Figures
8-10 and 8-11 show more examples and explanations of depth of field.
Figure 8-12 is a shot of my sketching class in the FGD of the World Trade Center’s
Heaven’s Gate solarium. They are drawing the room’s perspective from their point
of view. Note the bold geometric design of the interior.
Who is in the MGD?
What is in the BGD?
Where is the main light source?
142 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 8-11 Football analogy.
CLASSIC FILM EXAMPLES
Figure 8-13 is a sketch taken from The Birth of a Nation (1915), D. W. Griffith’s
landmark film about the Civil War. It elevated movies into an art form and was the
most famous film until Gone with the Wind in 1939. Photographed by his indispensable
cinematographer, Billy Bitzer, this scene is a tableau permeated with natural
sunlight that is the main light source, taken from the Southern point of view. Normally,
this is not the time of day for a shoot because of the harsh overhead shadows,
but it works here to add raw realism, sharp detail and focus. Because of the strong
lighting, the depth of field is not only very sharp, but also extends beyond the soldiers
in the FGD.
William Daniels, the cinematographer Greta Garbo demanded on all her films,
backlit Garbo in many scenes, giving her hair a halo of luminosity, then lit her
Light Sources and Depth of Field 143
Figure 8-12 My sketching class at the WTC.
Figure 8-13 Dramatic scene from The Birth of a Nation.
144 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 8-14 Greta Garbo and John Barrymore in Grand Hotel (1932).
famous bone structure with a soft, diffused, romantic key light. He added another
soft fill light to soften the shadows (Figure 8-14).
Figure 8-15 shows a shot from Citizen Kane (1941), directed by Orson Welles and
photographed by Gregg Toland. Their close collaboration produced a film that is
invariably at the top of everyone’s “10 best films of all time” list. Kane’s key light is
hitting him at a 45-degree angle but has been manipulated to shade his face from
the eyes to the top of his head, creating the emotional mood of a man whose life
is spent. He is being blocked out, shaded and pressed in upon. The focus is specifically
on Kane, using a normal lens in a MCU, causing the shadows from the beams
in the ceiling behind him to eventually soften as they recede in perspective. Shot
from an unnervingly low angle, it photographs him almost silhouetted against those
receding rafters, in turn reflecting his diminishing power.
Figure 8-16 exudes high drama, a sketch from Ivan the Terrible, Part II (1958). A
strong chiaroscuro effect is caused by the intense key light emanating from the left.
It is an original composition that is strong from the FGD figures to the MGD shadow
of Ivan, all the way to the tapestry in the BGD. The great depth of field comes from
the brilliant key lighting along with supplemental lighting in the rear throne area.
CHIAROSCURO: High contrast
light and shade, as in film noir.
Figure 8-15 An analytical sketch from Citizen Kane.
Figure 8-16 Analytical lighting sketch from Ivan the Terrible, Part II.
146 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 8-17 An analytical sketch of Doctor Zhivago.
Figure 8-17 is my water color rendering of a scene from Doctor Zhivago (1965). A
scene that helped Freddie Young, the director of photography and John Box, production
designer, win Academy Awards for their visual contributions to this stunning
film. This illustration is a night scene permeated with an ethereal blue that floods
the residence. Compositionally, the horizontal shadows in the FGD contrast with the
vertical trees within the same plane. The strongest light source is from the left, with
a strong overhead sky lighting descending on the snow-covered house and grounds.
This lighting, along with the wide angle Panavision lens, creates a deeper depth of
field.
In 1982, Stephen Spielberg’s E.T. was a ground-breaking venture in fantasy science
fiction using animatronics along with real actors. E.T.’s movements were more
believable than anything ever before. Even in Figure 8-18, you can see why he
looked so real – the same glamour lighting used on Garbo was used on E.T. E.T.
and the boy were backlit, while a soft, flattering key light emanated from the glow
of his index finger. A general fill light surrounds the alien so E.T. and the boy are
equals.
In the interpretive sketch of a shot from Forrest Gump (1994) in Figure 8-19, the
use of one-point perspective is obvious. Figure 8-20 is an example of forced per-
Light Sources and Depth of Field 147
Figure 8-18 An analytical sketch from E.T.
Figure 8-19 Forrest Gump one-point perspective.
148 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 8-20 Forrest Gump forced perspective.
spective, where the wall to the right is made larger in the FGD and forced to appear
smaller by the time it reaches the MGD. The house in the BGD is one-tenth the size
of a real house, so you have compressed a scene from FGD to BGD, and this adds
to the fairy tale feel of the setting. Figure 8-20 has added a sense of surrealism or
unreality to the scene. Forced perspective has been demonstrated in previous chapters,
particularly in James and the Giant Peach in Figure 2-14.
Giant (1956), starring Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson, featured James Dean,
one of the icons of the 20th
century. Boris Leven’s superb visual interpretation of the
scenario won him a nomination for an Academy Award for Art Direction. Figure 8-
21 shows Dean as the FGD framing and the ranch house in the BGD. The ranch
house is as strongly lit as the foreground because of the intense sunlight, creating
a greater depth of field.
As always, I recommend that you always carry a small sketchbook and take a few
moments to record images or scenes that you find interesting. These “quickies” help
you think quickly and will help when you have to come up with fast concept sketches
in script sessions with directors. These sketches, along with others you have seen in
this text, are graphic examples of what the storyboard artist-to-be should be doing
in his or her spare time. These rough sketches can always be rendered in a more
finished way later, but in the meantime they assist you in becoming a more facile
Light Sources and Depth of Field 149
Figure 8-21 Interpretive sketch for Giant.
Tutorials
1. Select 12 examples of photos from magazines, film stills or newspapers
that indicate various depths of field and light sources.
2. Make a simple sketch of each, noting the FGD, MGD and BGD, and
add light and shade to each sketch.
artist who is adept at proportion, composition, lighting and placement of figures in
the mise-en-scene of the shot. It is the job of a good storyboard artist to design
each frame so the center of interest in each scene is maintained using strong compositional
devices. Extraneous elements that distract should be avoided. It is most
important that you that you learn how to think and draw three-dimensionally.
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151
The visual language of cinema is a language of story structure whose grammar is
made up of “the shot.” The storyboard is a series of illustrated shots. To paraphrase
Gertrude Stein, “a shot is a shot is a shot.” Like Stein’s poetry, the shot has its own
simplicity and its own complexities, its hard realities and its emotional side. The
director has to figure out exactly what he or she wants the shot to say to the audience.
By way of introduction to the variables and components of the shot and why
it is the visual heart of the movie-making process, let’s go back to the audience
itself. The audience’s attention must be grabbed by the shot or a succession of shots
that make up the storyline.
Everyday you hear people with cameras saying, “I want to get a shot of you” or “Let
me get a shot of the Parthenon before we go back to the hotel.” This is “the shot”
that focuses on a particular scene taken with your camera to capture it on film.
The difference in making films is that a series of shots of a particular scene are taken
– motivated by events specifically drawn from the written screenplay or script. Film
is foremost an artistic medium that desires an emotional response from its audience.
The audience must be treated with respect. Preproduction storyboarding is a must
to create a film with a strong story line, one that will visually interpret the written
words of the screenwriter, one that the audience will enjoy. B. P. Schulberg, production
head of Paramount Pictures in the golden age of Hollywood, told one of his
production teams, “We don’t have to waste time hammering out a story line. What
you do is visualize it; think of every scene (shot) as the camera will see it, not as
you would describe it in prose.”
Any series of shots has to be part of the story structure, and it has to make up an
entertainment package. Sergei Eisenstein compressed the entire Russian Revolution
into 75 shots for the Battleship Potemkin (see Chapter 6). He was continually experimenting
with different combinations of shots in his striving for artistic perfection.
Figure 9-1 is my diagrammatic illustration of the structural make-up of a storyboard.
A storyboard is composed of a series of shots that will be photographed in sequence
following the continuity of the script. Illustrating this series (frames) in a logical,
structural rhythm is the job of the storyboard artist. The shots themselves have to
have stunning, eye-pleasing content. Since the shot itself is the smallest element that
Chapter 9
The Shot, Its Dynamics and Its Function
in the Storyboard
152TheArtoftheStoryboard:AFilmmaker’sIntroduction
Figure 9-1 The function of a storyboard.
The Shot, Its Dynamics and Its Function in the Storyboard 153
makes up the film scenario, it dictates its own psychological, artistic and intellectual
demands. The shots should have a unity of action and must obey a certain principle
of order.
In “The Film Experience,” Roy Huss and Norman Silverstein state,
“The storyboard artist, guided by the director, captures the action
and passions that will be translated into film. Even though his
series of drawings is accompanied by written actions and dialogue,
the continuity reminiscent of action comic strips remains
primarily pictorial.”
Figure 9-2 is an effective atmospheric shot from Duel in the Sun (1946), produced
by David Selznick, with no obvious linear perspective, only a LS (long shot) of
the figures silhouetted against a setting sun. The Earth is part of the darker
FGD plane and the night sky acts as the BGD plane. The use of circles is a
strong design element. Observe the one-third/two-thirds division of Earth and
sky.
The primary questions that one has to ask in reference to the content of the shot
are these:
● What are the demands of the script?
● Who is involved in the scene?
● In what locale do these characters exist?
● Why are they there?
● What mood will enhance the setup of this particular shot? What colors will
augment the emotions involved in the conflict?
● Where will the camera be placed to best advantage? What lenses will be used
for establishing the shot?
In a memorable series of shots from Alfred Hitchcock’s infamous Psycho (1960),
shown in Figure 9-3, note the original way he filmed this action, with the use of a
stunning variety of angles to set the mood and enhance the suspense.
Frame 1. A CU of the back of Anthony Perkins’ head and an EST SHOT to let us
know where the action actually takes place.
Frame 2. Cut to CU of the side of Perkins’ head as he looks through a peep
hole.
Frame 3. Cut to MS of Janet Leigh, undressing.
Frame 4. Cut to EXT CU of Perkins’ eye, staring.
Frame 5. Cut to MS of Leigh continuing to undress.
154 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 9-2 Duel in the Sun (1946).
Frame 6. Cut to Low Angle MS of Leigh under shower head.
Frame 7. Cut to Low Angle of showerhead.
Frame 8. Cut to MS of Leigh’s profile under shower head.
Frame 9. Cut to Leigh, three-quarter MS, right of frame.
Frame 10. Cut to MS of Perkins, through shower with knife.
Frame 11. Cut to CU, Perkins’ hand with knife.
The Shot, Its Dynamics and Its Function in the Storyboard 155
Frame 12. Cut to CU, Leigh screaming.
Frame 13. Cut to EXT CU, Leigh’s mouth.
Frame 14. Cut to MS, Leigh grabs Perkins’ arm.
Frame 15. Cut to EXT CU, knife at her midsection.
Frame 16. Cut to tight CU, Leigh’s face.
These graphic shots from one of the best-ever suspense films illustrates the brilliant
use of diverse camera angles which – combined with Bernard Herrmann’s eerie
score and Hitchcock’s incisive editing – create a truly frightening sequence.
Figure 9-3 Storyboard for the Psycho shower scene.
156 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
The next two sketches are interpretations of what you might be doing after a discussion
with the director or author about a new script concept. The drawings done
quickly at a first meeting might be fleshed out and discussed as a storyboard concept
at the next meeting. This is a sample of a page from Jeff Chena’s new script; the
working title is The Last Ten Yards. In this shot, psychic fortune teller Madame Zena
reads some terrifying cards, predicting some bad news for the male lead, who is a
famous football player (see Figure 9-4).
Figure 9-5 is another page from this script showing a flashback CU shot of our
hero’s eyes as he is about to be killed by a Knights Templar. The arrow indicates
transition to the second shot, where Madame Zena reacts to her vision of his
murder.
Many variables indeed are involved in the content of the shot, and the storyboard
artist’s familiarity with them certainly will be of inestimable use for the entire creative
team. The sequence of shots cannot be static. The story line has to move. The individual
shots have to flow like music. They need a rhythm of their own. They must
be paced so as to follow one another with appropriate speed. For instance, how
long should the camera hold on any one shot?
You can’t hold on to the scene as though it were a painting, because the scene has
to keep moving so the audience is glued to the screen. The audience must have its
share of kinetic thrills, experience the planned unity of action, emotion and environment
of each shot as the moving pictures continue to flow along with the continuity
of the script.
Citizen Kane (1941) is required viewing for any film student. Figure 9-6 shows a
high angle shot of Orson Welles doing the final lining up of a shot, with his legendary
cinematographer Gregg Toland. See this film just for its superb handling of a
fluid camera, its extremely sharp depth of field (wide angle lens plus extra lights on
BGD), its use of compositing (putting several separately photographed shots into
one frame), its original use of camera angles, and its legendary story line.
The series of shots should result in a cumulative action that imparts a fully realized
look to the film itself. Wherever the scene takes place, each shot contains certain
production details that have been selected for inclusion in the storyboard. No extraneous
details should be included, only those that pertain to the here and now of
the story being told. Professionals make these selections ahead of time, and the
storyboard artist is on hand, helping translate the director’s vision in deciding which
elements of the scene will be selected and designed with camera placement, choice
of lenses, and compositional framing in mind.
Robert Duncan of Duncan Films came to me recently to help him with concept
sketches and storyboards for Fu Project, a project they are filming for the Chinese
Educational System. It is a series of films that will help students become familiar with
The Shot, Its Dynamics and Its Function in the Storyboard 157
Figure 9-4 Script page for Chena’s new film with an interpretive sketch of the
selected action. Courtesy of Odyssey Pictures and JL Media, Dallas, Texas, and Jeff
Chena.
158 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 9-5 Second script page for a new film with an interpretive sketch of the
action. Courtesy of Odyssey Pictures and JL Media, Dallas TX and Jeff Chena.
The Shot, Its Dynamics and Its Function in the Storyboard 159
Figure 9-6 Orson Welles and Gregg Toland checking a set-up for a shot.
the history of Chinese characters (lettering). Figure 9-7 shows concept sketches
provided by the director. My job was to visualize these concept sketches for him.
Figure 9-8 is a promotional piece for Fu Project (note text) for which three more
fully realized concept sketches were chosen (one of which is enlarged in Figure
9-9).
160 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 9-7 Some of Robert Duncan’s concept sketches for his selected shots.
Left frame. INT. Night. Our young leading lady is day-dreaming in her bedroom,
gazing out at the night sky.
Center frame. EXT. Day. In a park-like setting, she sees a large orange parachute
descending from the sky directly in front of her.
Right frame. CU. Girl, seeing that the parachute was attached to a space capsule
that has fallen into the trees, endeavors to open the escape hatch for the
astronaut.
Insert box in upper righthand corner of frame, indicates a LS of the scene.
MONTAGE
A film technique used very effectively by many directors is the montage. The definition
of montage in “The Film Encyclopedia” (Ephraim Katz), as it is applied to motion
pictures, is “a sequence made up of a quick succession of brief shots blending and
dissolving into one another, created to compress action and convey the passage of
The Shot, Its Dynamics and Its Function in the Storyboard 161
Figure 9-8 The promotional piece for Fu Project, courtesy of Robert Duncan, Duncan Films.
time.” A montage can refer to several images overlapping each other or a series of
separate images that are edited in continuity while conveying something quite different
in meaning, instigating an emotional or intellectual response.
Eisenstein seems to have made montage the symbol that it has become. He
employed it many times to stunning effect, but even he was influenced to a great
extent by D. W. Griffith, especially as Griffith manipulated his editing in Intolerance
MONTAGE: Individual shots or
images that conflict with each
other (Eisenstein) arranged in a
pre-viz continuity.
162 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
to achieve the sympathetic emotional response he wanted from the audience. The
opening scenes from Gone with the Wind are another example of montage, introducing
the audience to the culture of the Old South. It is a tableau that flows effortlessly
from one shot into another creating a stunning montage.
We think of montage as the assemblage of footage to give a sequence of different
shots, used as a device to satisfy the visual demands of the script created at the
discretion of the director.
The director has to consider plot points like:
● Will using a montage in this particular spot advance the story line?
● Will it have the pace, metric precision, and rhythm that are needed?
● Does the script necessitate a metaphorical or intellectual message here?
● Will it wind up attracting attention to itself?
In some instances, the editing will deliver the montage effect when it is cut from the
footage that has already been shot.
Figure 9-9 Enlarged concept sketch for Fu Project.
The Shot, Its Dynamics and Its Function in the Storyboard 163
Figure 9-10 is a storyboard sequence from John Ford’s Stagecoach. Zoom shots
were not used at the time this film was shot, so cuts from LS to MS to CU were part
of the montage. Frame 1 is a LS, which cuts to a MS in frames 2 and 3, and then
the MCU in frame 4. By frame 8, the star, John Wayne, has fallen into a series of
CU shots. He has moved from BGD to MGD to the FGD planes.
Figure 9-11 is a scene from the epic The Godfather (1972), first of the Godfather
trilogy. This is an interpretive sketch from a shot at the beginning of the film that
illustrates implied action, off-center framing of a secondary character, strong overhead
lighting and strong geometric design. This epic tale of the mafia life (and
death) is often placed at the top of many of the Best American Movies list, even
beating out other greats like Citizen Kane and Gone With the Wind, however it is
number three on the American Film Institute’s list. The film is a winner of the Academy
Award for Best Picture in 1972, and Brando got Best Actor award. Director Francis
Ford Coppola was nominated for an Academy Award, as was the “over-the-head”
style of dark, moody lighting by Cinematographer Gordon Willis.
Figure 9-10 Storyboard sequence from Stagecoach.
164 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
In the storyboard from The Godfather, Part I (Figure 9-12), Francis Ford Coppola
uses several different techniques to convey the meaning of this sequence. The lead
character, Don Michael Corleone, is attending his son’s baptism.
Frame 1. MCU of the priest’s hand and the baby’s head. Note: Hands are a continuing
motif in this montage.
Frame 2. Cut to CU barber’s hands reaching for the lather.
Frame 3. Lather is applied to the character who will later be murdered in the
chair.
Frame 4. Cut back to the priest’s hands during the baptism.
Frame 5. Michael (right) has ordered the execution of his competitors; on left are
other witnesses to the baptism.
Frame 6. Cut to hand holding open an elevator door OTS shot of the assassin.
Figure 9-11 Brando in a dramatic two-shot from The Godfather.
The Shot, Its Dynamics and Its Function in the Storyboard 165
Frame 7. MS, the gunman holds elevator door open and fires.
Frame 8. Quick cut to Michael at the baptism.
Frame 9. Another OTS from the opposite angle, man on a massage table.
Frame 10. MCU, wait in suspense for the execution.
Frame 11. CU of the now dead body.
Frame 12. Cut back to Michael in a tighter CU, at the baptism, but his mind is on
the killings he ordered.
This Coppola montage has great visceral action with its dual story line, graphic
compositions, strong framing and imaginative choice of camera angles and held
together by the sound track playing organ music through the executions.
Figure 9-12 Storyboard of The Godfather, Part I.
166 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
EDITING
Although editing is an integral part of the filmmaking process, it comes at the end
of that progression, almost opposite the creation of the storyboards. In other words,
it is postproduction, not preproduction, although some famous directors like Alfred
Hitchcock and Ridley Scott have already edited their films in the structure of their
storyboards. They left no room for anyone else to interfere with the director’s original
vision. Ira Konigsberg said in “The Complete Film Dictionary,” “It is the editor/cutter
who, by shaping and arranging shots, scenes and sequences, while also modulating
and integrating sound, has considerable influence in the development, rhythm,
emphasis and final impact of the film.”
Figure 9-13 shows a sequence from The French Connection (1971) where the audience
experiences just one example of the brilliant editing in the film. Pacing-wise,
every selected shot is held on screen for just the right length of time before a cut to
the next shot. The use of too long a shot or too short a shot would break the pace,
the momentum, and the rhythm of its dramatic construction. In montages, as in
music, tempo must be orchestrated. On viewing this film, we are aware of a dynamic,
kinetic sequence of fluid shots. The director has let us know exactly where we
are, who is involved in the action and what the individual motivations are – all elements
building to this climatic shot. Every shot in The French Connection was
storyboarded.
Whether it’s in a hotel room or on the Riviera, a shot of one, two, three or a dozen
people, it is important that each shot contains the details that have been selected
for use within the previously designed frame of reference, details that pertain to the
here and now of the story. This continuity is evident in the storyboard for the screenplay
Sheriff, Figures 9-14 and 9-15. A logical line of action is consistent with the
placement of characters in each frame. There is no jumping in and out of the
established sight lines. Reading from left to right, it easy to distinguish the EST shot
in frame 1; the OTS in frames 4, 8, 11 and 12; MS shots in frames 4, 7, 14 and
15; ECU in frame 2 and CUs in frames 5, 6 and 10. The only LS is in frame 14 of
the boat framed in the FGD by a curtain left of frame and Blake off center in profile
right of frame. These storyboards were rendered with minimal pen and ink lines
shaded with a felt tip pen.
Figure 9-16 is a metaphor for the awakening masses responding to the mutiny on
the Potemkin. The three lions were actually shot from three different locations. Frame
1 is a MCU, frame 2 is a CU and frame 3 is a MS. Separately, each shot could be
referred to as mimetic (a static imitation of life), but as combined by Eisenstein, they
project kinetic vitality and spring to life. As with any shot, the length of time it is
allowed to stay on the screen is up to the director who is aware of how the timing
affects the pace and rhythm of the scene. The lions sequence became part of
the montage of images that Eisenstein was building into the structure of the
narrative.
MIMETIC: Imitative action,
opposite of kinetic.
TheShot,ItsDynamicsandItsFunctionintheStoryboard167
Figure 9-13 The French Connection.
168 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 9-14 An original sketch of conference scene for Sheriff.
Figure 9-17’s four-frame sequence from Dino So (www.dinoso.de) shows how a
brief storyboard can become a finished and dramatic product as visually exciting as
any of Eisenstein’s shots from Battleship Potemkin.
Frame 1. EXT Night. Country road. CU of wrecked car careening off moving smaller
red car – left of frame.
Dramatic framing of shot. Notice “action” rays emanating from smash-up. Use of
Eisenstein’s concept of conflict, i.e., placement of forms: large mass vs. small
mass.
Frame 2. INT. Driver’s POV, CU of hand at wheel of red car heading for blue car,
off-center to left of frame.
Frame 3. Blue car smashes into red car. Note again the off-center play of the two
forms and the dynamic action rays exploding from the broken car pieces. Strong
inverted pyramid composition.
TheShot,ItsDynamicsandItsFunctionintheStoryboard169
Figure 9-15 An original sketch of conference scene for Sheriff, continued.
170TheArtoftheStoryboard:AFilmmaker’sIntroduction
Figure 9-16 Three shots of the lions from Battleship Potemkin.
The Shot, Its Dynamics and Its Function in the Storyboard 171
Figure 9-17 The four-frame storyboard sequence called Rear Window from artist
Dino So, 2001, www.dinoso.de, www.illustrationen.de, www.storyboards.nl.
Frame 4. LS major explosion BGD that is centered in frame but at least has dynamic
movement.
Also note that all of these four storyboard frames obey the rule of thirds (see
Chapter 4).
172 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
The 2007 film Disturbia emulates Hitchcock (Rear Window) in its composition (Figure
9-18). Design-wise, the positioning of a generous circle within a rectangle produces
a very strong visual, and using two circles here makes for double whammy. Imagery,
along with the added benefit of double images (the frightened girl right FGD with
killer in BGD) is seen twice in the binoculars. This imagery has been used in films
since the silent era right up to Hitchcock’s Rear Window and beyond – demonstrating
that voyeurism is apparently still “in.” The use of the binocular image is also
shown in our previous section on the use of simple stick figures in one’s storyboards
(Chapter 6, Figure 6-1).
DYNAMIC DESIGN
MIT Press has recently published a fine book by Suguru Ishizaki titled “Improvisational
Design,” a theoretical text that confronts the new challenge of a more dynamic
set of design problems involving today’s communication advances. Suguru wants
the solving of these “visual opportunities” to be accomplished through the use of
“dynamic design.”
This makes me feel good, because in this book, I have constantly used the term
dynamic as the end goal for the storyboard artist in every frame of the storyboard.
Figure 9-18 Disturbia (2007).
The Shot, Its Dynamics and Its Function in the Storyboard 173
As a matter of fact I have incorporated many of the design elements, as adapted
from my proposed book, The Conquest of Space (the progression of spatial design
in the history of art as it relates to film and production design). This is what thinking
in 3D is all about, and that evolved into this chapter.
The visual field that we encounter is reality, our personal POV. Our virtual reality
is in 3D, and as storyboard artists, we want to replicate that reality onto our 2D
storyboard frames. This is done through the use of perspective, light and shade,
(chiaroscuro, if you will), and sound design techniques, among others.
I heartily recommend Suguru Ishizaki’s excellent text, but while it is theoretical (and
very valid), this book is practical, practical, practical.
Enjoy!
Tutorials
1. Study Eisenstein’s film form. Look for one- and two-point perspective
in shots from his films. Sketch six of each.
2. Render one local street in two-point perspective. Indicate figures in
action in the FGD, MGD and BGD.
3. Find a light source and indicate the appropriate shadows.
4. Write two pages of original script. Break it into shots and design a
basic storyboard for it.
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175
An animatic is an animated storyboard which could be an integral part of the pre-viz
process. By their very nature, storyboards are active, vivid pre-viz tools, drawn by
the storyboard artist for a given film production. The storyboard is a sequential art,
the main goal or purpose of which is to be the visual spine of the screenplay, which
then gives the entire preproduction team a visual, sequential breakdown of the main
scenes to be filmed.
As if that weren’t good enough, about 10 years ago, the animatic appeared on the
scene. Animatics (“to give life to, to animate”), simply put, brings the storyboards
alive with motion and visual effects. You can pace your narrative and your timing
and then later add music and dialog.
Animatics are expensive and very time-consuming. My first choice is to create handdrawn
storyboards. If an animatic is requested by the director or producer, the
storyboards are turned over to an animatics expert with whom I work closely to
ensure the proper selection of scenes.
Why the growing use of animatics for pre-viz of a live action film? With an animatic,
it is much easier to demonstrate and fine-tune sequencing, editing and special effects
before embarking on the costly filming process.
Animatics use scans, pans, zooms and transitional devices, to give the storyboard
an integrated motion control that actually moves the action forward. Now, you get
a real preview of the finished shooting script. The storyboard, along with animatics
where needed, can be an aid to the pre-viz process of the director, producer, director
of cinematography, etc. A musical score could be added to the animatic and,
in most cases, actors are used for voice-overs (VO). In the absence of VO, the dialogue
could be printed on the appropriate frames.
SEQUENCING
The first step when making an animatic is to select the images directly from the
original storyboard. In addition to putting all the frames in order and making sure
movement is timed to the script (or soundtrack), the animatic will show transitions
between shots. Fades can be used as transitional tools or you might decide, with
the film’s director, that a “cut to” is more appropriate for the scene. Camera
Chapter 10
Animatics: The Future of
Motion Control
ANIMATIC: A process that gives
additional visual movement to a
storyboard, re: pans, zooms,
montage, etc. – like seeing a
preview of a movie. Acts like a
visual substitute for SFX in the
final movie.
176 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
movements are emulated and timed out. For novice filmmakers, making an animatic
may indicate that their film is much longer or shorter than anticipated through the
scripting and storyboarding stage. If the length of the film or project is an issue, cuts
are made or additional material written.
EDITING
Judicious editing saves time and money when expensive equipment and valuable
talent is involved. You can plan ahead or even edit unwanted locales or a scene
before actual filming begins, thus saving budget. All the pros say that it’s better to
edit before rather than afterwards. Why? Often locales or actors aren’t available
after the shoot. Using animatics further solidifies the preproduction planning and
saves time and money while also helping the crew and actors avoid mistakes.
SPECIAL EFFECTS
An animatic is a “stand-in” for the use of VFX in key storyboard sequences selected
by the production team. This SFX could include pyrotechnics, use of miniatures,
compositing, matte shots, stop motion or digital doubles (multiplying people digitally),
just to name a few.
The amateur might even decide after viewing the animatic that the entire mood or
look of the scenes viewed so far aren’t working and consequently will make the
necessary adjustments to the elements involved.
A REAL-WORLD ANIMATIC
The following example was done from my storyboards for The Countess, Ludovica
Villar-Hauser’s film version of Gregory Murphy’s long-running New York production,
both on and off Broadway.
Gregory Murphy aptly summarizes the plot of The Countess as being: “Based on a
true story, it is set in Venice, London and the Scottish Highlands in the mid-19th
century. The art critic John Ruskin invites his protégé, the painter John Everett Millais,
to accompany him and his wife Effie on an extended holiday. While away, Millais
comes to see that Ruskin, a man he idolizes, emotionally and psychologically torments
his wife. The situation is further complicated when Millais realizes he is falling
in love with the beautiful young Mrs. Ruskin. The scandal that ensues on their return
to London becomes one of the most notorious of the Victorian age.”
With those human conflicts in mind, our animatic gives movement and additional
dramatic impact to the scenes chosen to visualize the arc of the narrative. With a
choice of more than 200 scenes, it was difficult to decide which to choose and so
two or three hour-long meetings at my studio were necessary. The first of several
meetings with Winnie Tom, the animatics artist, involved going over the storyboards
Animatics: The Future of Motion Control 177
already drawn for Ludovica’s film. Winnie also consulted the original film script.
(Some changes to that script had been made, but the new storyboards adapted to
the changes.)
Once the scenes from the storyboards were decided, Winnie suggested that several
scenes could use more close-ups for added dramatic impact and I drew new frames,
mostly close-ups of facial reactions and hands. We chose frames or shots that
visually told our story. On total view of these scenes from the storyboards of The
Countess, Winnie’s use of pans, transitions and dissolves, as well as her editing,
moved the narrative forward, adding to the more dynamic visualization of the script’s
conflicts, builds, and climaxes. You can view the animatic at www.artofthestory-
board.com.
The shots/sequences in Figures 10-1 and 10-2 were finally chosen, and for purposes
of this book, are printed directly from the finished animatic. Notice the inclusion of
dialogue on some frames.
Frame 1. Establishing shot of Venice
Frame 2. Effie and John Ruskin together and initially happy.
Frame 3. Pan to CU of Effie and John.
Frame 4. Interior night. Ruskin’s family dining room with Effie, Ruskin and his parents
and servant.
Frame 5. Three shot, Effie in the center feeling uncomfortable. Ruskin is on the right
of frame, his father on the left of frame.
Frame 6. Cut to Ruskin’s mother being overly critical of Effie’s behavior at the
ball.
Frame 7. Cut to CU of Ruskin’s father doing the same.
Frame 8. An extreme CU of Ruskin looking shocked at Effie’s seemingly rude
behavior.
Frame 9. Another three-shot of Effie framed by the critical eye of her husband and
father-in-law, motivating Effie to leave.
Frame 10. Camera pans Effie as she leaves through door on right of frame, looking
upset.
After several viewings, you might decide, as we did, that additional editing could
be done.
178 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 10-1 Animatic frames 1 through 6.
Animatics: The Future of Motion Control 179
Figure 10-2 Animatic frames 7 through 10.
Looking at the animatic later, we decided to make some changes for the proposed
new version. Our new selections are in Figures 10-3 and 10-4. Note that this time,
most shots/sequences are taken from the original storyboards and only a couple
directly from the finished animatic.
Frame 1. Fade-in night shot, Venice.
Frame 2. Interior night Ruskin’s suite. Pan Ruskin’s sketches to CU of Ruskin’s hand.
Continue pan to MS of Ruskin. Note directional arrows.
Frame 3. Interior ballroom. Night. Effie makes her entrance on the grand stair-
case.
Frame 4. Medium CU of Effie dancing with duke.
Frame 5. Interior CU of Effie gazing into mirror. Ruskin’s VO: “scandal”
Frame 6. Medium CU of two-shot of Effie distracting Ruskin.
180 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Figure 10-3 Storyboard frames 1 through 6.
Animatics: The Future of Motion Control 181
Figure 10-4 Storyboard frames 7 through 12.
182 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Frame 7. Cut to Scotland. Interior night shot of the rented cottage. CU two-shot,
Millais places flowers in Effie’s hair.
Frame 8. Two scenes from different angles – 1) CU Millais sketching Effie and
2) Effie in left foreground with Millais sketching her in the BGD right of frame.
Frame 9. Medium CU, Ruskin looks over Millais’ shoulder at his sketch of Effie.
Frame 10. OTS, Ruskin critiques Millais’ sketch.
Frame 11. CU to exterior night. Camera pans left of frame to right of frame,
showing the stormy forest. Cut to a long shot of Millais tent. Cut to a silhouette of
Millais working on Ruskin’s portrait. Cut to medium shot interior tent where an angry
Millais kicks over stove and breaks his paint box on the rocks.
Frame 12. Cut to interior of the cottage. Night. Extreme CU of Effie reacting to the
current tensions in her life.
We felt that the newly chosen shot/sequence greatly enhanced the narrative flow of
script and could be the basis of another animatic.
Animatics can be a tremendous tool for any script and resultant hand-drawn storyboard.
Whenever I see one, I feel that my storyboards just came to life.
Tutorials
1. Having an animatic produced is expensive, but may be worth the price.
If you have a friend who works for a studio that makes animatics, then
do a segment of a storyboard that you have drawn.
2. Visit www.animatics.com for more information on animatics, and also
check out www.hiroadproductions.com, which has many diverse examples
of animatics.
3. Visit www.artofthestoryboard.com to view the animatic for The
Countess.
183
Anobile, Richard J., ed. John Ford’s Stagecoach. Darien House, 1975.
Barber, Barrington. Advanced Drawing Skills. Arcturus Foulsham, 2003.
Bare, Richard and Garner, James. The Film Director: Updated for Today’s Filmmaker, the
Classic, Practical Reference to Motion Picture and Television Techniques, Wiley 2001.
Barsacq, Leon. Caligari’s Cabinet and Other Grand Illusions, A History of Film Design. New
American Library, 1978.
Bayer, William. Great Movies. Grosset & Dunlap, 1973.
Behlmer, Rudy and Tony Thomas. Hollywood’s Hollywood: The Movies About the Movies.
Citadel Press, 1984.
Belazs, Bela. Theory of the Film. Dover Publications, 1970.
Bergala, Alain. Magnum Cinema. Phaidon Press, 1995.
Boorstin, Jon. The Hollywood Eye: What Makes Movies Work. HarperCollins, 1990.
Box, Harry C. Set Lighting Technician’s Handbook, Third Edition. Focal Press, 2003.
Bridges, Herb. The Filming of Gone with the Wind. Mercer University Press, 1998.
Brownlow, Kevin. David Lean. Faber and Faber, 1997.
Burum, Stephen. American Cinematographer Manual, Ninth Edition. American Society Of
Cinematographers, 2004.
Byrge, Duane, and American Film Institute. Private Screenings: Insiders Share a Century of
Great Movie Moments. Turner Publications, 1995.
Cameron, James and William Wisher. Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Applause Books,
2000.
Capra, Frank. The Name Above the Title: An Autobiography. Da Capo Press, 2001.
Castell, David. Hollywood 1970s. Gallery Books, 1987.
Chandler, Charlotte. I, Fellini. Cooper Square Press, 2001.
Clair, Rene. Cinema, Yesterday and Today. Dover Publications, 1972.
Cole, Alison. Eyewitness Art: Perspective. Dorling Kindersley, 1992.
Cotto, Mark and Shinji Hata. From Star Wars to Indiana Jones. Chronicle Books, 1994.
Dickinson, Thorold. Discovery of Cinema. Oxford University Press, 1971.
Dolan, Edward F., Jr. History of the Movies. Longmeadow Press, 1986.
Eisenstein, Sergei. Film Form: Essays in Film Theory. Harvest Books, 1969.
Farris, Edmond J. Art Student’s Anatomy. Dover Publications, 1961.
Faulkner, Christopher. Jean Renoir. Taschen, 2007.
Field, Syd. Four Screenplays: Studies in the American Screenplay. Delta, 1994.
Frayling, Christopher. Ken Adam: The Art of Production Design. Faber and Faber, 2006.
Geist, Kenneth. Pictures Will Talk: The Life and Films of Joseph L Mankiewicz. Da Capo Press,
1983.
Harris, Robert A. and Michael S. Lasky. Complete Films of Alfred Hitchcock. Citadel Press,
2002.
Appendix A
Additional Resources
184 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Hart, John. Lighting for Action. Amphoto/Watson-Guptill, 1992.
Haver, Ronald. David O. Selznick’s Hollywood. Random House Value Publishing, 1987.
Hay, Peter. MGM: When the Lion Roars. Turner Publishing, 1991.
Henderson, Robert M. D.W. Griffith: The Years at Biograph. Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
1970.
Hirsch, Foster. The Dark Side of the Screen: Film Noir. Da Capo Press, 2001.
Hirschorn, Clive. The Hollywood Musical. Hamlyn, 1991.
Hogarth, Burne. Dynamic Anatomy, Revised and Expanded Edition. Watson-Guptill, 2003.
Hollywood Creative Directory, 59th
Edition. Hollywood Creative Directories, 2007.
Hunter, Fil, Steven Biver, and Paul Fuqua. Light: Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic
Lighting, Third Edition. Focal Press, 2007.
Huss, Roy and Norman Silverstein. The Film Experience. Harper & Row, 1968.
Katz, Ephraim. The Film Encyclopedia, Fifth Edition: The Most Comprehensive Encyclopedia
of World Cinema in a Single Volume. HarperCollins, 2005.
Katz, Steven D. Film Directing: Shot by Shot. Michael Wiese Productions/Focal Press, 1991.
Kawin, Bruce F. How Movies Work. University of California Press, 1992.
Knight, Arthur. The Liveliest Art: A Panoramic History of the Movies. Signet, 1979.
Kolker, Robert. The Altering Eye: Contemporary International Cinema. Oxford University Press,
1983.
Konigsberg, Ira. The Complete Film Dictionary. Signet, 1998.
Lawton, Richard. A World of Movies: 70 Years of Film History. Delacorte Press, 1974.
Leish, Kenneth N. Cinema. Newsweek Books, 1974.
Long, Robert Emmet. The Films of Merchant Ivory. Harry N. Abrams, 1997.
Maltin, Leonard. The Art of the Cinematographer. Dover Publications, 1978.
Marsh, Edward W. and Douglas Kirkland. James Cameron’s Titanic. HarperCollins, 1997.
Mast, Gerald. Film/Cinema/Movie: A Theory of Experience. University of Chicago Press,
1984.
Mordden, Ethan. The Hollywood Studios. Alfred A. Knopf, 1988.
Movies Unlimited Catalog. Sony Pictures, 2006.
Multimedia Sourcebook, vol. 3. WWW, Internet Directory, Hi Tech Media, Inc., 1997.
National Society of Film Critics and Jay Carr. The A List: The National Society of Film Critics’
100 Essential Films. Da Capo Press, 2002.
Nelmes, Jill. An Introduction to Film Studies: Fourth Edition. Routledge, 2007.
Nowell-Smith, Geoffrey. The Oxford History of World Cinema. Oxford University Press,
1999.
Perard, Victor. Anatomy and Drawing. New York: Dover Publications, 2004.
Phillips, William H. Film: An Introduction, Third Edition. Bedford/St. Martin, 2005.
Pinteau, Pascal. Special Effects. Harry Abrams, 2004.
Pirie, David. Anatomy of the Movies. Macmillan, 1984.
Place, J. A. The Non-Western Films of John Ford. Citadel Press, 1981.
Reisz, Karl and Gavin Millar. Technique of Film Editing, Second Edition. Focal Press, 1989.
Renoir, Jean. My Life and My Films. Da Capo, 2001.
Robinson, David. History of World Cinema. Stein & Day, 1981.
Rogers, Pauline B. The Art of Visual Effects: Interviews on the Tool of the Trade. Focal Press,
1999.
Scarfone, Jay and William Stillman. The Wizardry of Oz, Revised and Expanded Edition.
Applause Books, 2004.
Selznick, David O. (author) Rudy Behlmer (editor). Memo from David O. Selznick: The
Creation of “Gone with the Wind” and Other Motion Picture Classics, as Revealed in the
Additional Resources 185
Producer’s Private Letters, Telegrams, Memorandums, and Autobiographical Remarks.
Modern Library, 2000.
Sharff, Stefan. The Elements of Cinema. Columbia University Press, 1982.
Sherle, Victor and William Turner-Levy. The Complete Films of Frank Capra. Carol Publishing
Corporation, 1992.
Silver, Alain and James Ursini. David Lean and His Films. Silman-James Press, 1991.
Silver, Alain and James Ursini. The Noir Style. Gerald Duckworth & Co., 2004.
Sinclair, Andrew. John Ford: A Biography. Lorrimer, 1984.
Singer, Michael. Batman and Robin: Making the Movie. Rutledge Hill Press, 1997.
Smith, Thomas G. Industrial Light & Magic: The Art of Special Effects. Ballentine Books,
1988.
Smith, Thomas Gordon. Vitruvius on Architecture. Monacelli, 2003.
Sobchack, Thomas and Vivian Sobchack. An Introduction to Film, Second Edition. Longman,
1997.
Sowers, Robert. Rethinking the Forms of Visual Expression. University of California Press,
1990.
Sperling, Cass Warner, Cork Millner, and Jack Warner. Hollywood Be Thy Name: The Warner
Brothers Story. University of Kentucky Press, 1998.
Spoto, Donald. The Art of Alfred Hitchcock: Fifty Years of His Motion Pictures. Anchor,
1991.
Spottiswoode, Raymond. Film and Its Techniques. University of California Press, 1970.
Stallings, Penny and Howard Mandelbaum. Flesh and Fantasy. HarperCollins, 1989.
Talbot, Daniel, ed. Film: An Anthology, Second Edition. University of California Press,
1966.
Tashiro, C.S. Pretty Pictures: Production Design and the History Film. University of Texas Press,
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Titelman, Carol. The Art of Star Wars, Episode IV, A New Hope. Ballantine Books, 1997.
Truffaut, Francois and Helen Scott. Hitchcock, Truffaut. Simon and Shuster, 1985.
Valasek, Thomas. Frameworks: An Introduction to Film Studies. Thomas Custom Publishing,
2003.
Webb, Michael, ed. Hollywood: Legend and Reality. Little Brown and Company, 1986.
Weinberg, Herman G. The Lubitsch Touch. Dover Publications, 1977.
Yule, Andrew. Losing the Light: Terry Gilliam and the Munchausen Saga. Applause Books,
2000.
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187
The following terms are geared to storyboard artists involved in the preproduction/
creation of actions depicted in pre-visualization of scenes selected from a script, with
visual accent on the actors blocked into a given scene and guided by the director’s
over-all vision of the film. Please note the sections on Lighting and Camera Angle
terms at the end.
Angles: Where to place a camera to best capture a scene. Basic: HI angle, LO
angle, normal or straight on angle or a tilted shot. See the angle terms at the end
of the glossary.
Animatic: A process that gives additional visual movement to a storyboard, re: pans,
zooms, montage, etc.—like seeing a preview of a movie acts as a visual substitute
for SFX in the final movie.
Atmospheric perspective: Depth in a scene that does not involve linear perspective
but only shades of black, FGD, medium grays, MGD, or vaporous grays in BGD.
Can also be referred to as aerial perspective.
Background (BGD): The space occupied by an area furthest back from the
foreground.
Blocking: Where the director places the actor within a given scene to convey the
action of the script.
Center of interest: Subject of the shot within any of the designated spots that occur
when the lines of thirds intersect.
Chiaroscuro: High contrast light and shade as in film noir.
Claymation: Three dimensional stop motion animation using clay figures.
Composite shot: One shot made up of or composed of several different visual elements,
i.e., live actors performing in front of CGI visuals, like miniatures, and/or
special effects.
Computer graphic imaging (CGI): Imagined and executed scenes created on
a computer. For example, in 300, only the actors were real; all backgrounds
Appendix B
Glossary
188 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
and background action were CGI’d and the live action of actors was composited
in.
Concept sketch: A “first impression” sketch from one’s imagination that visualizes
action in scene for the preproduction team. Pencils are great.
Concentric circles: Design factor. Circles or ovals that visually frame the center of
interest in a shot.
Continuity: Logical sequence of shots.
Converging lines (orthogonals): All of the straight lines emanating from or going
back to the vanishing point that has been positioned on the horizon line or eye level
line. Term used in drawings.
Depth of field: The space existing between FGD, MGD, and BGD and selecting
what forms should be in sharpest focus in any of these planes.
Divine proportion (golden rectangle): Basically the two-thirds to one-third elongated
spacing which dictates a proper well-proportioned rectangle.
Elevator effect: No matter how high we go or how far we move right to left, our eye
level, horizon line, and VPs go with us.
Eye level: What we see when we look straight ahead, facing the horizon line.
Film noir: French Term for dark cinema. Popular black and white films mainly from
the 40s and 50s. Used chiaroscuro high contrast light and shade.
Focus puller: Director of photography’s assistant who, with hand on focal ring of
lens, follows the action to keep it in focus at all times.
Forced perspective: Exaggerating the size of FGD elements to cause increased depth
in a shot.
Foreground (FGD): Frontal elements that frame the shot.
Framing: Composing the scene within the viewing field of the lens.
Gesture: The basic line of action that occurs when a figure moves.
Head length: Distance from forefinger to wrist.
Horizon line: Line opposite eye level.
Kinetic: Is active, ongoing, dynamic action. It is the opposite of mimetic action.
Linear perspective: Lines that recede to a single vanishing point on the viewer’s eye
level. Also called perspective lines or orthogonals.
Light plot: Diagram that indicates correct placement of lights for the actors and the
scenes in which they appear.
Maquette: Miniature model of a life-sized figure.
Middleground (MGD): the area between the foreground and the background.
Mimetic: Implied action; opposite of kinetic.
Mise-en-scene: Placement of actors within a given scene, tells us visually where the
action take place.
Models/miniatures: Rather than going on location, construct a miniature or model
in the proper scale, then through CGI, incorporate it into the final composite shot
where it appears to be the real full scale original.
Montage: Individual shots or images that conflict with each other (Eisenstein)
arranged in a pre-visualized continuity.
Off-center: Actors or action must be away from exact center of a framed shot, and
located either to right or left of frame.
One-point perspective: All lines converge to only one point indicated in the horizon
line.
Orthogonals: Another term for converging lines.
Overt action: Dynamic action that has a beginning and an end.
Persistence of vision: Retention of an image on the human retina, causing the illusion
of motion in films.
Perspective: The art of representing on a two-dimensional plane what the viewer
perceives as having three dimensions.
Picasso line: To illustrate the sculptural form of a face it is a line that follows the
contours of the face from forehead to neck – resulting also in a “profile” of its
own.
Point of view (POV): What the actor sees in the scene, a personal vision.
Glossary 189
190 The Art of the Storyboard: A Filmmaker’s Introduction
Postproduction: Editing, sound, addition of VFX, compositing, etc.
Preproduction: Storyboard artist’s main activity, working with the production
team, involving pre-visualization of elements that will be photographed in
continuity.
Pre-visualization (pre-viz): It is the drawings of the storyboard artist that illustrates
the visuals that will make up the narrative of the film.
Production: Actual filming of the shooting script: lights, camera, action!
Production sketch: A larger, more complete visualization of a certain scene.
Receding Planes: Areas of space that recede from the FGD, to MGD, to BGD in a
scene or shot.
Rule of thirds: Design principle. All framed (within the rectangle) shots are divided
into thirds either (or both) vertically or horizontally, resulting in the placement of the
center of action at any of the intersections.
Scene: A full visual realization of a narrative action that normally contains a beginning,
middle, and end.
Scenario: The storyline of a shooting script; follows the narrative action.
Sequence: A series of shots containing a section of the story-line.
Storyboard: Dear Reader, storyboarding is what this book is all about!
Special effects (SFX): Elements within a scene that are computer generated to give
added reality (or unreality) to a scene.
Thumbnail sketch: Small, quick concept sketches, illustrating first ideas.
Two-point perspective: Two separate vanishing points that occur at opposite ends
of the horizon line.
Vanishing point: One or two points on the horizon line to which all converging lines
will recede.
Visual effects (VFX): Term that has taken the place of Special Effects. Any effect that
is not real. Explosions, Superman, Spiderman, or Batman FLIES with no strings! (use
of BGD bluescreen or greenscreen). Both are indicated by the storyboard artist.
Voice-over (VO): Actor is off-camera and we only hear the voice.
LIGHTING
Eye light: Same as fill light, and gives an extra highlight in the actor’s eyes, even in
the dark.
Diffused light: Softer light on an actor’s face, created by putting a soft flame proof
material over key lights or the camera lens.
Fill light: An extra light that fills the shadows that result from the key light, also
referred to as reflected light or bounce light.
Hair light (also called back light): A light source placed behind the actor to highlight
the hair and or figure of an actor this outline of light separates them from the
background.
Hi-key lighting: Luminous or brightly lit settings, for comedies, musicals, etc.
Key light: The main light source (usually tungsten/halogen) that lights the actor.
Low key: Lighting darker, with more contrast, stronger light and shadows, for film
noir, dramas, suspense, murder mysteries, etc.
Rim light: Side light on an actors face, or placed behind the actor to the left or right
of the face.
CAMERA ANGLES
Close-up (CU): Full face shot of actor(s) or up close shot of objects.
Establishing shot (EST): Shows the placement of the actor(s) for the audience.
Extreme close-up (EXT CU): So close you see only actor’s eyes.
Long shot (LS): Shows the actor(s) or objects in the distance (background).
Medium shot (MS): Shows the actor(s) or objects in the MGD.
Over-the-shoulder (OTS): Taken over-the-actors-shoulder; must stay consistent (on
same shoulder) for an actor.
Panoramic (pan): The camera moves horizontally to take in a panoramic scene.
Tracking shot: The camera is mounted on wheels and moves smoothly on a track
to follow the action. Sometimes a similar “dolly” shot is used, where the camera is
pulled or pushed on a cart, like the crab dolly that moves in circular motion.
Zoom shot: The focus goes from wide angle to CU with a zoom lens.
Glossary 191
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193
Index
8½ as preplanning example, 10, 12
300 as dynamic action example, 123,
124
400 Blows as film noir example, The,
103
2001 as 3D design element example,
106, 107
action illustrating, 111–130
300 example, 123, 124
Anything for a Laugh examples, 123,
124, 125–127
Citizen Kane as combination of
actions example, 119–120
computer graphic imaging examples,
112, 113, 114
concept versus elaborate drawings,
117
Dr. Strangelove as implied action
example, 120, 121
Hamlet as dimensional space
example, 121, 122
Hard Day’s Night as overt action
example, A, 115, 116
humans. See Humans in action,
drawing
implied action, 115, 116, 120
Lost Horizon example, 121, 123
overt action, 115, 116
Peacemaker example, The, 118–119
Reign over Me as implied action
example, 114, 115, 116
Seventh Seal satire example,
117–118
Stagecoach example, 127–130
stick figures to stacked figures
illustration, 115
Superman Returns examples, 111–
114, 115
vanishing point example, 121, 122
Adam, Ken, 81
Adamson, Andrew, 5, 34
Adventures of Baron Munchausen, The,
as preproduction plan example, 24
as special effects example, 60, 63,
66
as visual effects example, 31, 32
Alberti, Leone Battista, 21
Alexander Nevsky, 14, 26
Amacord, 99
angles definition, 187
animatics, 175–182
Countess example, the, 176–182
definitions, 175, 187
editing, 176
E.T. use of, 146
real-world, 176–182
sequencing, 175–176
special effects, 176
Anything for a Laugh as illustrating
action example, 123, 124,
125–127
Apocalypse Now as light and shadow
example, 97
atmospheric perspective
definition, 187
example, 85, 86
attic view, 55, 56
back light. See hair light
background (BGD)
definition, 187
examples, 46, 47, 81
importance with action illustrating,
111
Barrymore John, 144
Basevi, James, 18
basic shapes, Paul Cézanne on, 37,
38, 40, 41
Batman, 83, 84
194 Index
Batman & Robin as action direction
example, 100
Battleship Potemkin, 14
as conflict of forces at work example,
106, 108
as editing example, 166, 170
Odessa Steps scene as memorable
action sequence example, 26
Russian Revolution summarized in 75
shots example, 151
Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and
claymation, The, 60, 66
beginnings, storyboard’s, 1–7
Dayeux Tapestries (1050), 1
early artists, 1
Egyptian hieroglyphics, 1
Sunday comics, 1, 3
Berger, Howard, 5
Betty Boop, 1, 15
Birds as importance of storyboards
example, The, 19, 20
Birth of a Nation
as depth of field example, 142, 143
as montage example, 26
Bitzer, Billy, 142
black and white, 103–104
blocking definition, 187
Blood of the Poet, 30
Bogart, Humphrey, 83
Box, John, 146
Brando, Marlon, 164
Breathless as film noir influence, 103
Bride Wore Black, The, 104
Bridge to Terabithia’s special effects as
example of importance of
storyboarding, 25
Bruckheimer, Jerry, 4
Brunelleschi, Filippo, 71
budget preparation and storyboarding,
27, 28
building the storyboard, 55, 57–60,
61–62
questions to ask, 57
Venus Mountain as example, 57–60,
61–62
Cameron, James, 21
Capra on preproduction importance,
Frank, 11, 24, 121
cartoon-style storyboard process, 15
Casino Royale
as proportion example, 86–87
as stunning visuals example, 21
center of interest
definition, 187
designing frame/shot using, 42
examples, 43
framing for, 69
placement, 38
Cézanne on basic shapes, Paul, 37,
38, 40, 41
CGI. See computer graphic imaging
Chaplin, Charlie, 9
Cheadle, Don, 115
chiaroscuro
Citizen Kane example, 119, 120
definitions, 144, 187
film noir and, 103
Ivan the Terrible Part II example,
144, 145
Sin City example, 103
Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the
Witch and the Wardrobe, 5, 33,
34
Cinderella, 1
Citizen Kane
as action examples, 119–120
as basic components example,
54–55, 56
budget and, 10
as lighting example, 144, 145
shooting, 156, 159
visual presentation of, 18
claymation
Beast from 20,000 Fathoms as
example, The, 60, 66
definition, 187
close-up
definitions, 49, 191
key light and, 131
Cocteau, Jean, 30
color importance, 98–104
Batman & Robin example, 99, 100
black and white, 103–104
blue, 99
comedy versus tragedy colors, 99
GamFusion filters, 98
Gate of Hell example, 102
Index 195
green, 101
Lust for Life example, 102
mixing colors, 99
monochromatic colors use, 102
orange, 102
Quiet Man example, The, 101
red, 99, 101, 102
Renoir on, Pierre-Auguste, 102
subtlety, 101
Thief of Baghad example, The,
101–102
To Catch a Thief example, 101
yellow, 99
components, basic, 37–68
Adventures of Baron Munchausen
example, The, 60, 63, 66
Beast from 20,000 Fathoms example,
The, 60, 66
Gladiator example, 60, 63
Gone with the Wind example, 60,
64–65
Terminator 2 Judgment Day example,
63, 67–68
composite shot definition, 187
composition and design. See design
and composition
computer graphic imaging
definitions, 4, 187–188
films enhanced by, 4
Pirates of the Caribbean use of,
4–5
Superman Returns examples, 112,
113, 114
concept artists, demand for, xi
concept sketch definitions, 9, 188
concentric circles definition, 188
continuity definition, 188
converging lines (orthogonals)
definition, 188
Cooper, Merian, 5
Coppola, Francis Ford, 163, 164
Countess as animatics example, The,
176–182
Creation, 5
CU. See close-up
Cukor, George, 27
Da Vinci Code, 21, 22
Daniels, William, 142
Day for Night as color versus black
and white example, 103, 104
De Bont, Jan, 21
de Jong, Eric, 20, 23
Dean, James, 148
Del Toro, Guillermo, 25
DeMille, Cecil B., 9, 11
Depp, Johnny, 98
depth of field, 137, 138, 139–142,
143
analogy, 142
Birth of a Nation as example, The,
142, 143
definitions, 137, 138. 188
Doctor Zhivago as example, 146
examples, 138, 139–141
Giant as example, 148, 149
Ivan the Terrible Part II as example,
144, 145
long lens and, 139
sketch illustrating, 140
design and composition, 105–109
2001 as example, 106, 107
Battleship Potemkin as example, 106,
108
book for reference, 107
example, 105
Tiko and the Shark as example,
105–106
Devil and Miss Jones, The, 109
diffused light definitions, 131, 191
director of photography, 27–28
director’s vision, 27–36
Disney, 21
era of, 1
hand-drawn animation, return to, xi
Pirates of the Caribbean, 4, 5
as pre-visualization procedure
pioneer, 7
redefining use of storyboard, 15
Disturbia as double imagery example,
172
divine proportion (golden rectangle),
37
constructing, 37, 39
definition, 188
example, 38
Doctor Zhivago as light source
example, 146
196 Index
Douglas, Kirk, 102
Dr. Strangelove as implied action
example, 120, 121
drawing skills, developing, 47–49,
50–54
line of action, 49
practice, 47, 49
sketches example, quick, 48
Duel in the Sun as rule of thirds
example, 153, 154
Duncan, Robert, 156, 160, 161
dynamic design, 172–173
editing, 166–172
animatics, 176
Battleship Potemkin as example, 166,
170
Disturbia as example, 172
French Connection as example, The,
166, 167
Rear Window as example, 168, 171
Sheriff as example, 166, 168, 169
storyboards as editing tool, 166
Eisenstein, Sergei
as Battleship Potemkin director, 106
beginnings of storyboarding and, 9,
15
editing lions scene, 166
entire Russian Revolution in 75 shots
by, 151
Ivan the Terrible Part II sketches, 10,
14
montage and, 161, 166
Odessa Steps scene from Battleship
Potemkin, 26
as set and costume designer, 14
as trained artist, 11
elevator effect
definitions, 75, 188
examples, 79, 80
Ellenshaw, Peter, 30
EST. See establishing shot
establishing shot definitions, 49, 191
E.T.
analytical sketch from, 147
animatronics use, 146
EXT CU. See extreme close-up
extreme close-up definitions, 49, 191
eye level
definitions, 72, 188
elevator effect and, 79
examples, 73, 74, 75, 134, 138
reason for, 76
eye light
definition, 191
positioning, 131
Family Plot as Alfred Hitchcock’s last
film, 20
Fantasia storyboards, 17
Felix the Cat, 1
Fellini, Frederico, 10, 12
Ferretti, Dante, 31, 81
fill light
definitions, 57, 191
E.T. as example, 146, 147
example, 134, 138
image enhancement and, 131
reflector as, 133
as softener of facial shadows, 134
uses, 131
film design, great, 89
film noir
chiaroscuro and, 144
comeback of, 103
definitions, 103, 188
World War II and theory behind,
103
Fleischer, Max, 1, 15
Fleming, Victor, 11, 15, 18, 27, 107
focus puller definition, 188
forced perspective
definitions, 77, 188
Forrest Gump as example, 146, 148
James and the Giant Peach as
example, 25
Ford, John, 9, 11, 18, 127, 130, 163
foreground (FGD)
definition, 188
examples, 46, 47, 81
framing, 69
Forrest Gump
as forced perspective example, 148
as one-point perspective example,
146, 147
Foster, Lanny, 57
Index 197
framing
definition, 188
foreground, 69
Frears, Steven, 33
French Connection as editing example,
The, 166, 167
Freund, Carl, 81
Fu Project
concept sketches for, 156, 160, 162
promotional piece for, 159, 161
as special effects in storyboard
example, 29
function of storyboard diagram, 16,
152
Garbo as backlight example, Greta,
142, 144
Garmes, Lee, 15
Gate of Hell as color use example,
102
genres using storyboards, xi–xii
Gertie the Dinosaur, 1, 2
gesture definition, 188
Giant as depth of field example, 148,
149
Gilliam, Terry, 24, 31, 60
Gladiator, 18, 60, 63
Godard, Jean-Luc, 103
Godfather as montage example, The,
163–165
Gone with the Wind
approving storyboard sketches for,
17
borrowing from Disney for, 10
montage and, 162
production cost, 28
Selznick’s peak and, David O., 107
storyboard examples, 18, 60, 64–65
storyboarding importance for, 15, 27
Good Night and Good Luck as black
and white comeback example, 103
Grand Hotel as lighting sources
example, 144
Grant, Cary, 101
Grapes of Wrath, 18
Griffith, D.W.
Birth of a Nation as light source
example, 142
as creative visionary, 9
film grammar development and, 26
Intolerance sketch, 11
montage and, 161, 162
preplanning of, 10
hair light
definitions, 57, 191
E.T. as example, 146, 147
example, 86
function, main, 131
Garbo and, Greta, 142, 144
key light versus, 134
placement, 131
sun as, 132
Hamlet as graduation of tones and
action example, 121, 122
Hard Day’s Night as overt action
example, A, 115, 116
Harry Potter series, 4
Harryhausen on learning about
storyboarding, Ray, 5
Hawks, Howard, 85
head length definition, 188
Herrmann, Bernard, 155
hi-key lighting definition, 191
Hitchcock, Alfred
attic view use by, 55, 56
Family Plot as last film of, 20
graphic images remembered in films
of, 19
North by Northwest sketch, 19
Psycho as black and white example,
104
Psycho as variety of angles to set
mood example, 153
Rear Window, 18
Rebecca, 107
as storyboarding proponent, 19, 20
To Catch a Thief as color example,
101
Vertigo as perspective example, 85
horizon line
definition, 188
examples, 73, 74, 79
explanation of example, 72
Host, The, 60
Howard, Ron, 22
198 Index
Hudson, Rock, 148
humans in action, drawing, 89–96; see
also action illustrating
anatomical model, 89, 92, 94, 112
figure running drawing stages, 90
head proportions, 92, 95, 96
proportions, 90, 92, 94–96, 114
proportions accepted universally
diagrams, 95, 96
rough sketches of motion, 89, 91
from stick figures to stacked figures
illustration, 115
Huss, Ron, 3
Huston, John, 81
implied action
definition, 115
Dr. Strangelove as example, 120,
121
example, 116
Reign over Me as example, 114,
115, 116
Incredibles, The, 1
Indiana Jones and the Temple of
Doom, 18, 37
Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), 4, 21
Intolerance, 11, 26, 161
introduction, xi–xiii
Ivan the Terrible
Eisenstein and, Sergei, 26
as lighting source and depth of field
example, 144, 145
sketches of, 10, 14
Iwerks, Ub, 1, 15
Jackson, Peter, 5
Jarita, Hiro, 24
James and the Giant Peach as forced
perspective example, 24, 25
Jaws, 18
Joan of Arc, 1
Joon-Ho, Bong, 60
Jurassic Park, 1, 18, 21, 60
Keaton, Buster, 9
Kelly, Grace, 101
key light
close-ups and, 131
definitions, 57, 191
examples, 134, 137, 138
hair light versus, 134
reflector as, 132, 133
sun as, 134
kinetic definition, 189
King Kong, 5, 15
Kingdom of Heaven sketch showing
camera and boom placement, 28
Kubrick, Stanley, 121
Kurosawa, Akira, 35
La Cava, Gregory, 24
La Dolce Vita, 10
Last Ten Yards as interpretation
sketches after script meeting
example, The, 156, 157–158
law of content, 85
Lawrence of Arabia, 18
Lean, David, 18
Leigh, Janet, 153, 154–155
Lester, Richard, 115
Leven, Boris, 148
light sources, 131–137, 138, 139
artificial light, 131
Citizen Kane as example, 144
determining intensity, 133, 134
Doctor Zhivago as example, 146
eye light. See eye light
fill light. See fill light
hair lights. See hair light
indicating, 131
key light. See key light
lens knowledge importance, 137
reflected light, 131, 132–133
studio lighting diagram, 136
line of action
definition, 49
example, 53
linear perspective, 153, 189
light and shadow drawing, 89, 93,
96–98
Apocalypse Now as example, 97
Pirates of the Caribbean as example,
98
Psycho as example, 104
light(ing) plot
definitions, 134, 189
example, 139
Index 199
Lion King, The, 1
Lodger, The, 20
long shot definitions, 49, 191
Lord of the Rings
as digital revolution example, 4, 5
sketch, 6
Wooten and, Ben, 9
Lost Horizon, 121, 123
Lost World, 5
low key definition, 191
LS. See long shot
Lubitsch, Ernst, 18, 24
Lucas, George, 20, 21
Lust for Life as use of color example,
102
Madagascar, 1
Maltese Falcon, The
as film noir example, 103
as one- and two-point perspective
example, 83
maquette(s)
definition, 189
Pirates of the Caribbean as example,
4
Marais, Jean, 30
Marsden, Scott, 112
McKay, Winsor, 1, 2, 15
McKeown, Charles, 24
McQuarrie, Ralph, 21, 30
medium shot definitions, 49, 191
Méliès, George, 1
Memoirs of a Geisha, 46–47
Menzies, William Cameron, 15, 17,
27, 60, 109
Messmer, Felix, 1
Metz, Christian, 3
Mickey Mouse, 1
middleground (MGD)
definition, 189
examples, 46, 47, 81
Mifune, Toshiro, 35
mimetic definitions, 166, 189
Minnelli, Vincent, 102
mise-en-scene
definitions, 19, 189
Lost Horizon as example, 121
sketching as practice for, 149
Mission Impossible and special effects,
21
models/miniatures definition, 189
montage, 160, 161, 162–165
definitions, 160, 161, 189
Godfather as example, The,
163–165
Gone with the Wind as example,
162
Eisenstein and, Sergei, 161, 166
Griffith and, D.W., 161, 162
plot lines consideration for, 162
Stagecoach as example, 163
tempo and, 166
motion control future. See animatics
MS. See medium shot
My Darling Clementine, 18
Ninotchka, 18
North by Northwest storyboard, 19
Number 23, The, 25
O’Brien, Willis, 5
O’Hara, Maureen, 101
off-center
definition, 189
example, 33
framing, 69
one-point perspective
definition, 189
examples, 7, 32, 70, 78, 83, 85
Forrest Gump as example, 146, 147
vanishing point and, 69, 72
Orphee as fantasy world example, 30
orthogonals
definitions, 72, 189
examples, 76, 77
vanishing point and, 72, 75
Oswald Rabbit, 1
OTS. See over-the-shoulder
over-the-shoulder
definitions, 54, 191
example, 55
True Grit as example, 54, 55
overt action
definitions, 115, 189
example, 115
200 Index
panoramic (pan) definitions, 54, 191
Pan’s Labyrinth, 25, 28
Parks, Gordon, 81
Peacemaker as illustrating action
example, The, 119
people who benefit from storyboard
artists’ talent, 4
Perkins, Anthony, 153, 154–155
persistence of vision definitions, xiii,
189
perspective
adding reality with, 69–88
Batman as example, 83, 84
beginning artist and, 76
Brunelleschi and, Filippo, 71
Casino Royale as example, 86–87
classic film examples, 81, 83–87
definitions, 69
example, 81
Fox logo redesign as example, 83,
84
Maltese Falcon as example, 83
one-point. See one-point perspective
Red River as example, 85, 86
Vertigo as example, 85
Petrie on approaching a new project,
Ronald, 27
Phantasmagoria, 1
Picasso line
definitions, 95, 189
illustration of, 96
Pirates of the Caribbean
computer graphic imaging use in,
4–5
as light and shadow drawing
example, 98
as visual presentation good example,
18
point of view definition, 189
postproduction definition, 190
POV. See point of view
preproduction
definition, 190
storyboard artist as team member,
9–26
storyboard as tool for, 1, 3
pre-visualization (pre-viz)
animatics. See animatics
definitions, 9, 190
illustration, 16
interpreting, 9
pen and pencil use for, 37
storyboard as tool for, 1, 9, 16, 26
production definition, 190
production sketch definition, 190
Psycho
as attic view example, 55, 56
as black and white example, 104
Hitchcock and, Alfred, 19
as light and shadow drawing
example, 104
shower scene breakdown, 153,
154–155
as variety of angles to set mood
example, 153
Queen, The, 33
Quiet Man as color use example, The,
101
Raiders of the Lost Ark and Steven
Spielberg’s storyboard sketches, 37
Rashomon, 35
Rear Window, 171
Rear Window (1954) as visual
presentation great example, 18
Rebecca as black and white example,
107
receding planes
Brunelleschi and, Filippo, 71
definition, 190
example, 72
importance of, 71
Red River
as atmospheric perspective example,
85, 86
as creating sense of proportion
example, 89
Reign over Me as implied action
example, 114, 115, 116
Renoir on color use, Pierre-Auguste,
102
rim light definition, 191
rule of thirds, 37–40, 41–46
center of interest placement, 38
definitions, 38, 190
Duel in the Sun example, 153, 154
examples, 42–46, 52
Index 201
ignoring as faux pas, 86
utilization of, 40
Sandler, Adam, 114, 115
scene definition, 190
scenario definition, 190
Schindler’s List as black and white films
comeback example, 103
Schulberg, B.P., 151
Schumacher, Joel, 25
Scorcese, Martin, 81
Scott, Ridley, 18, 60, 166
Searchers and James Basevi’s
conceived compositions, The, 18
Selick, Henry, 24, 25
Selznick, David O.
attention to detail by, 18
book about, 107
Disney preplanning animation
techniques use by, 10
as Duel in the Sun producer, 153
as Gone with the Wind producer,
15
storyboarding Gone with the Wind,
15, 27
sequence definition, 190
Seven Samurai, The, 35
Seventh Seal satire as action example,
The, 117–118
SFX. See special effects
Sherman, Eric, 3
Sheriff as editing example, 166, 168,
169
shot and its dynamics and function in
storyboard, 151–173
Citizen Kane as example, 156, 159
condensing entire Russian Revolution
into 75 shots, 151
dynamic design, 172–173
editing. See editing
extraneous details, 156
Fu Project as example, 156, 159,
160, 161, 162
Last Ten Yards as example, The,
156, 157–158
montage. See montage
questions about content of shot, 153
Psycho as example, 153, 154–155
unity of action, 153
shot angles, 49, 54–55, 56
Shrek, 1
Silverstein, Norman, 3
Sin City as black and white film
comeback example, 103
Singer, Bryan, 111
Sinking of the Lusitania, 1
Solomon, Charles, 1
Song of the South as pre-visualization
procedure pioneer example, 7
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 1,
7
Snyder, Zack, 123
special effects, 176
Adventures of Baron Munchausen as
example, The, 60, 63, 66
animatics, 176
components, 29
computer graphic imaging influence
on, 4
definitions, 4, 29, 190
importance of storyboarding for, 25,
28
Mission Impossible and, 21
Twister as example, 21
Spiderman
as digital revolution example, 4
as visual effects example, 21
Spielberg, Steven
Stagecoach
as action illustrating example,
127–130
as montage example, 163
Star Wars
McQuarrie and, Ralph, 30
trilogy storyboarding, 20, 21
Stein, Gertrude, 151
Steiner, Max, 60
Stewart, James, 85
Stockler, Bruce, 5
storyboard
basis of, 25
building, 55, 57–60, 61–62
components and principles of,
37–68
definitions, 1, 190
evolution of, 9–10
function diagram, 16, 152
purpose, 3
202 Index
structural make-up diagram, 152
world created from, 19
storyboard artist
concept sketch, 9
job of, 5
listening importance, 36
as part of preproduction team, 9–26
people benefited by, 4, 5, 9
as pre-visualization interpreter, 9, 16,
26
skills needed, 27
as visual spine of screenplay, 18
Strike, 26
Superman Returns
as action, adventure, and superb
visuals example, 111
as digital revolution example, 4
Tartaglione, John, 123, 125–129
Taylor, Elizabeth, 148
Terminator 2 Judgment Day
as morphing example, 21
sketches from, 63, 67–68
Thief of Baghdad as superb use of
Technicolor example, The,
101–102
Throne of Blood, 35
thumbnail sketch
definition, 190
on-the-spot, 9
Tiko and the Shark as design and
composition example, 105–106
Tisse, Eduard, 15
Titanic
cost of, 28
as visual effects example, 21
To Catch a Thief as color use example,
101
Toland, Gregg, 10, 55, 81, 144, 156,
159
Tom, Winnie, 176–177
Touch of Evil an storyboarding scenes,
10–11, 13
Toy Story as effect on Disney’s handdrawing
facility, xi
tracking shot definitions, 54, 191
Trip to the Moon, 1
True Grit as over-the-shoulder shot
example, 54, 55
Truffaut, Francois, 103, 104
tutorials, 7, 26, 36, 68, 88, 109, 130,
149, 173, 182
Twister as special effects example, 21
two-point perspective
corners and, 75
definition, 190
examples, 74, 78, 83
vanishing point (VP)
definitions, 69, 190
elevator effect and, 79, 80
examples, 7, 70, 73, 74, 81, 82,
120, 122
explanation of examples, 71, 79
eye level and, 72
movement of, 75, 80
one-point perspective and, 69, 72
orthogonals and, 72, 75
Venus Mountain as stick figures
interpretation of script examples,
57–60, 61–62
Vertigo as adding reality with
perspective example, 85
VFX. See visual effects
Villar-Hauser, Ludovica, 176
visual effects
Adventures of Baron Munchausen as
example, The, 31, 32
animatics as stand-in for, 176
computer graphic imaging influence
on, 4
definitions, 4, 190
Spiderman as example, 21
Titanic as example, 21
VO. See voice-over
voice-over definition, 190
von Sternberg, Joseph, 57
von Stroheim, Eric, 9
War of the Worlds budget, The, 25
Wayne, John
Quiet Man, The, 101
Stagecoach, 127, 163
True Grit, 54, 55
Welles, Orson
checking setup for shot, 156, 159
Citizen Kane as action examples,
119–120
Index 203
Citizen Kane as stunning visual
presentation, 18
close collaboration with Gregg
Toland, 10–11, 55
key light example, 144
Touch of Evil, 10, 13
Wheeler, Lyle, 15, 17, 27, 60
Willis, Gordon, 163
Wizard of Oz as stunning visual
presentation example, 18
Woman to Woman, 20
Wood, Sam, 27
Wooten, Ben, 9
Wyler, William, 11
Young, Freddie, 146
zoom shot definitions, 54, 191