Digital Storyboard help!!!!

[copperfish]

Hi, I would really like some help with doing storyboards in Painter and I wondered if any of you guys who do it regularly could answers some questions.

Firstly I would like to know what resolution you tend to work at and secondly how you work with the frames. What I mean is do you do each frame as a separate file or do a number of frames on a digital page?

When I storyboard I normally work with pen/pencils on an A4 (letter) sized sheet with three frames per sheet. This is easy for faxing and photocopy (but v. bad for email!). I'm desperate to get into using Painter - inspired by Mr Milligan of course - but had a few problems when I did my last lot of boards. I ended up doing each a seperate file and then using InDesign to lay them out into sheets. It was not very satifactory - I think it took longer to do the layout than draw the boards!

Any help and advice much appreciated.

Dominic

[Dan Milligan]

copper

Create a page that has blank frames on it (the aspect ratio with depend on the project.( 1:1.33, 1:1.85, 1:2.35) . Save this as your master template to be used over and over again. I save mine as a photoshop files. Nicely compatible with both Painter and Photoshop. Then I resave the page to my job folder (whatever movie I'm working on). Then I simple draw into the frames. I recommend drawing on a layer so you easily move the drawing around to better compose the scene. Once I'm finished I flatten the image and save it as a jpeg. Then I stuff or zip the folder and post it to my ftp site and email the client , they, in turn download the frames and place the drawing in their production book. And then they go and make a movie. And then people like you and I go and see the movie and pay way to much for the popcorn. But we quickly forget about that because the movie is so great and that because the director used us as the storyboard artist. Simple

Peace
Dan

[copperfish]

Hi Dan,

Thanks for your reply and the advice. Can I just ask you to elaborate a little? When you say " create a page with blank frames" do you mean a page that equates in size to a real world piece of paper - say A4/letter size? Or do you just create a page that fits all the frames you are doing for that sequence? I was just thinking about ease of printing and file size? Also what resolution do you work at for storyboards or does it depend on the job?

Hope I'm not being dense with these questions.

Cheers,

Dominic

[dbclemons]

From my own experience, I'd say work at a decent print size, 300DPI or better. If the client is only expecting to see a screen display, I'll send them a reduced copy, but very often they want to see a print later. Almost all the presentations I've had included a print demonstartion of some sort, even for game companies where everyone just looks at screens. They want the papers so they can better see the sequencing. If you work on each frame as a single page, you can composite them later - they fit the screen better this way.

-David

[Dan Milligan]

Hey Dom,

Yeah, A4 is fine. Something easy to print. As far a res goes. I never give them anything over 150 dpi. Most, if not all the time these are getting printed on a standard colour or b/w copier. 150 dpi is plenty.

here's a sample from a current film

http://homepage.mac.com/danmilligan/.Pictures/concept05/frames.jpg

Peace
Dan

[copperfish]

Thanks for all the help guys.

David - The little stuff that I have done in Painter has been at 300dpi but I don't think my stuff is ever viewed on a screen but just faxed or photocopied. I work mostly for TV drama so it is all a bit low tech if you know what I mean. They are just getting to grips with email!

Dan - Thanks for the illustration that makes it v. clear. Good to know about the dpi too. I'll bear all this in mind for my next job. Cool drawing by the way, very inspiring as always! I really want to persue my storyboarding with digital media so it has been good to get some advice from a master. Perhaps I'll post something soon - when it is up to scratch.

Cheers Dominic