Storyboarding: What do I need and who do I talk to?

[NoUseFrAName]

Hi there, a question(or 2 or 3) that's maybe not exactly about concept art, but still something someone here might know about....

How does one go about getting employed as a storyboard artist? particularly for film or television work?(although doing game cinematics might be fun as well)

Kind of broad, I know, so I guess to be more specific, I'd like to know:

a)what a person needs to have in their portfolio to get this type of work. A completely boarded script? Does it have to include slugging notes if it's not for animation purposes? What format should they be in?
Would 2 or 3 samples of 3 to 5 minute clips suffice?
Would it be wise to present video of an animatic of the boards as well? and the aspect ratio, better to draw widescreen or television size?

b)who would a person approach about getting this type of work? Would the recruiter option that's been suggested for game related work be effective?

c)not so important to me at the moment, but what type of money can be made doing storyboards? I've hear as much as 30 dollars for a single drawn panel, and up to 60 for coloured panels. Is this an exaggerated estimate(it seems that way to me, since only 7 drawn panels would put you over 200 dollars-and 7 panels isn't exactly a lot of work if the level of detail only has to be enough to imply what's in the scene...right?)

I love drawing and redrawing things fast, and this seems like it would be a most enjoyable job for me

thank you for your time and help<

Rob

[hatee]

www.famousframes.com

[NoUseFrAName]

thank you, that site, aside from being informative, has some very cool stuff that would've been nice to see featured on some dvds!

-Rob

[Wacom Knight]

On Yahoo Groups (believe it or not) I can't remember the name of the group, this was like a year ago, but there were 3-4 top movie story board artists. THey rarely answered newbie questions, but would post openly to each other, it wasn't uncommon for them to travel to movie sets with pen paper and laptop, and get 10-20,000 dollars per month. NO JOKE, this is true, sure its the elite of storyboarding, but the potential is there. I have seen jobs on Gamejobs.com looking for concept artists (whom also know 3D) offering relocation positions for 40-75K per year. Thats what I am working toward right now (with Maya), I ahve a family, but for that kind of cash and the way the industry/eco is tight right now, it would be welcomed!

goodluck, they are out there, you just ahve to were many hats.

[NoUseFrAName]

wow. 20 grand per month? that's extraordinary....
I'll most definitely have a look for that Yahoo group. Thank you so much.

I know what you mean about wearing many hats...I've taken classes in comic illustration, classical animation and 3D animation(with Softimage XSI), film editing and digital filming.....all incredibly fun.
Having dropped out of my 3d animation program(various reasons) I've been working hardcore on my 2d portfolio...
I had no idea that it was possible to just wander onto a movie set and get jobs storyboarding......
...it's genius really....I've been wanting to go check out some movie sets being new to the city and all, but I've neglected to do so, deciding to spend the time on my 'folio instead....

Do you have any idea how a guy would go about approaching a director(or whoever else one should approach first) about doing some boards? In a tactful way of course so as not to seem like an incompetent unprofessional newbie...

Thanks again Wacom Night, I'm further inspired!

-Rob

[NoUseFrAName]

...also, how do you find out where people are filming?

-Rob

[ansonjew]

$20,000 per month sounds enticing, but very few people can pull together that many days of work at that dayrate consistently throughout a year. And while a good portfolio is important, a REALLY big part of it is who you know and how well you get along with them. It's mostly about if people have a reason to trust you or not. Then there's the whole business of the unions and all that.

Here's an article you might find interesting:

http://www.hollywoodcomics.com/faq.html

Anson

[NoUseFrAName]

awesome article man, thank you!

....the internet is such an unbelievable resource...I love it!

-Rob

[Karen K.]

20K a month? For how long? Pre-production on live action, as far as i've heard, doesn't usually take that long... Also remember, if its considered freelance, half of your paycheck is going to the gov't ;P

Damn I'd like to know what projects they're working on ;)

Your best bet for finding work in storyboarding is... TV.

TV is a great way to break into storyboarding. Usually you get hired on as an assistant first before they'd give you a lead position. Storyboarding is one of the few positions left in *animation* that aren't being shipped overseas. As for live action, I have less experience in that ;P

There's a great book called Setting Up Your Shots by Jeremy Vineyard that's geared more towards live action. I highly recommend it :)

Also, I'm not sure where you live, but if you're in California, particularly Southern California, I can't recommend highly enough:

http://www.theanimationacademy.com

Hope that helps :)

[NoUseFrAName]

thanks Karen!
I've taken animation courses at Ai of Vancouver/Burnaby (formerly the Center for Digital Imaging and Sound)
and I've done a lot of comic book type studying, so essentially a lot of what seems to go on at that Animation Academy.
I'd definitely love to take more classes though......
....too bad the ol' wallet is looking pretty empty lately....

So far as getting the job goes, how (if you don't mind me asking) did you get the jobs you've had?
I mean, what in particular did you have to show? and who did you show it to?
was it in person? via snail mail? or on the net? did you work for the people/company before getting that job you wanted? or could you just start off as a storyboarder right off the bat?

thanks in advance!

-Rob

[FlipMcgee]

Watched the New Adventures of Spiderman DVDs vol. 1 & 2 recently, with the commentaries on.

If I remember and heard correctly the Director mentioned that for one episode there could be as much as 2000 storyboard panels needed. He didn't mention but there could be hundreds more of panels that were junked due to revisions.

The director also explained that storyboards have to describe every facial emotion, every gesture, every camera change, etc., in the process of making an episode. Which you guys already know, I'm sure.

Given the realities, I'm thinking you must have fingers of steel to be able to pull in 20K per month :D

[NoUseFrAName]

are you talking about the 3D one that Mainframe was making?
I'll have to check those dvds out.

I wonder about the differences in boarding for animation and for film.
For animation, especially for tv, the boarders are responsible to do slugging(the timing of the shots, down to the frame for the whole 22 minute episode or whatever it is.) as far as I know....
For film, where the shots get edited a lot during post production, timing isn't quite as nitpicky, right? I mean it's not like you'll build an animatic with the whole film timed down to the last frame before the director yells "Action!".
Plus, in storyboards for film, is it as necessary to show every single little emotion? or is it assumed that much of that will be left up to the actors and the director?

...of course the more you show in your panels the more life they'll have and stuff, so expressions are important in both types of boards....
....but with animation, a lot of it is about cutting corners...reusing animation and backgrounds and stuff....telling your shots simply so the communication is very clear....and so the animators have less work.
I'm just wondering though, if the differences in the main uses of the boards(timing and expression for animation vs. camera angles and choreography for film) makes the jobs all that different.

-Rob