Animation!

[Ivory_Oasis]

I was curious if anyone around that is involved in the animation industry could tell me how long storyboard artists have to complete a 20 minute episode normally? Also, how many storyboard artists typically work on these types of projects? Do they divide the episode up to different storyboard artists if there are multiple people working on it? (like, one person would take the first half...another would take the 2nd half?).

Also, im curious what level of artistic skill is needed in this type of work. It seems the storyboards are very simple sometimes... so more about knowledge of camera angles and perspective and less on ability to really render out anything?

I know there has to be some animation people floating around :P Lately I been getting really interested in this type of thing...just can't really find much information around.

[egerie]

I can only talk from my own and old experience. Things probably changed since then but here goes:
Some production houses have more than one boarder around, some have a single one. It always depends on budget and the quality of the boarder(s). I've worked with a TREMENDOUSLY good one who had 5 to 10 days to make a full board in top notch condition. Everything had to be on model and perspective flawless. The reason behind this is that sometimes, the layout department sucks so bad that when you have a good boarder, animation keys are taken straight from the storyboard (and sometimes, cheap animation studios don't even look at the layout packs...).

On quality, perhaps you're confusing storyboards and beatboards? Beatboards can be "simpler" in depicting what's going on like perspective and such because it needs to be shelled out very fast. I know Pixar's beat boards are done this way in order to be flexible at such a crucial step in pre-prod.
It's possible in some industries or on some productions that the storyboard is loose. It's always a question of what it's going to be used for in the end. For instance, it wouldn't be necessary to go full detail and rendering on something that would be 3D animated afterwards... Then again, even Hitchcock's storyboard were peices of art on their own... I would venture that it's always better to first know your cinematography down pat, be good at perspective and be a proficient draftman. If you DO have all three, it'll be a lot easyer getting gigs than not being able to draw your way out of a paperbag... :)

Google is your friend on that. I'm sure AWN has some good links too.

[Ivory_Oasis]

Thanks a bunch egerie :) I hadn't even heard of the beat boards before!

5-10 days seems sooooo fast, but I guess with practice a lot of things like the different camera angles and typical shots that repeat kind of start to become 2nd nature.

Before I started googling for storyboards... I hadn't really seen any. People don't seem to post them much on sites like this (i wonder why?). It's hard to find out a standard level that is expected in the industry... or maybe there isn't one? That it just is different depending on who is doing it and for what?

Hmm I hadn't heard of AWN before either... *goes to google*

[Bowlin]

egerie - What are layout packs?

[egerie]

Ivory_Oasis : Yeah it's fast but if you practice a lot on getting better visually, speed becomes second nature. :) Storyboards usually are preprod material. I know of ONE storyboard artist (http://www.danmilligan.com/) on conceptart and he's probably one of the best in the world... He posted some shots some months and years ago; Search for it!

Bowlin: Layout is the phase between storyboard and animation. Basically a pack is a stack of scenes, each in a folder with it's number, etc. A layout is composed of sheets of the Background (sometimes in wide format for panning), Underlay, Characters layer 1 pose A, Characters layer 1 pose B, Characters layer 2 pose A, ... , Overlay, Camera moves with field guides and anotations. Everything needs to be on model, with shadow lines (usually in red) and cleaned up.

AWN is the bomb for anything that touches traditional animation and now also CG.

[Slothboy3000]

Could I ask why beat boards are sketchier? I know beat boards are for getting the 'beats' of a scene down, but then isn't that the same as storyboarding? Or is the latter just a more polished version? I assume there must be more to storyboards like getting more in depth with a scene....but then if the beats are there, what else is there to do?

[Kraus]

No manual skill is necessary for storyboarding. You can make stickmen, as long as you know your cinematography, and can read your own stickmen board after. I rarely spend any time or skill on story boards for my own projects, because i know the animation will be in 3D (hell i sometimes storyboard straight in 3D) and so all i need is a quick visual que to what i wanted. And most of the time it ends up not being what i storyboarded at all sinse it's so easy to modify the shot in 3D and i allways get cooler ideas on the fly.. Sometimes a 'lika' reel helps define the timing of the scene.. Lika reel is basicly an animated montage of your storyboards, to define the timing of cuts, pans and whathaveyou.

The action that is happening: every move characters make and the way they make it, now that should be specific.. But that takes the skill of being able to visualise motion clearly.

Keep in mind, i'm not in the industry so i'm talking about my personal, 3D workflow.. I would sooner shoot myself than dabble in timesheets and whatever else goes into professional 2D animation.

[AlexEh]

Oh wow I better go join up on AWN since I've become very interested in animation woo.