Storyboard Job Interview *UPDATE*

[Marcatili]

Hey everyone,
A mate of mine that I studied film with (and who has since gone on to work on some pretty big films) messaged me this morning asking if I'd be interested in some storyboard work. Having studied film and now studying Fine Art, this is the exact kind of career I want to get into. I obviously told him I was interested.

Tonight I got a call from the AD of the production.
The job is to storyboard three music videos. The first one will be used to get funding for the second two, which means the first job is without pay.
I'm pretty confident I can do the work but the interview is tomorrow and I need to get a portfolio together.

All I've got is the storyboards I did for my own short film about three years ago which were good for my usage and the use of the crew but they weren't professional really. Otherwise I can show them my sketchbooks and some stuff I've done at art school of life drawing and things like that...I don't really have any sequential stuff prepared.

This is my first shot at a paying art gig and I'm gonna do my best but I think I need to lift the production value of my stuff in terms of professional presentation. Any tips on how to prepare and present good storyboards?
They didn't go into much about storyboarding at film school- at least not enough to be useful at a professional level. Fortunately I've seen a few professional storyboards first hand so I've got a rough idea of the layout and visual language they use.

I need as much help as I can get because they're shooting a test shoot this weekend and then moving onto the first shoot apparently. I need to hit the ground running on this.

Thanks to anyone who can give me tips and help!

[dbclemons]

Congrats, expat! That's good news for you.

My best advise would be to try and spend as much time as you can polishing up your sequentials. Showing anything else would only be superfluous to what they would really want to hire you for, and most studios aren't interested in the other stuff. You should demonstrate that you can communicate the plot very clearly and that you know how the language of film and camera work flows. Some tight pencils for presentations with a few shaded in markers is good. Some places like to see looser pencils as well. If you can add in some color work, that'd be nice. Doesn't sound like you have the time to work it up, but anything you can do to present yourself well, the better.

Good luck.

-David

[Marcatili]

Good news, they rescheduled the interview till two days away, which gives me more time to prepare. On the other hand it might leave me with less time to meet the deadline.
Thanks for your help David, now that I've got some more time I'll try and do some of what you said.
Thanks

[dbclemons]

Allright! Hope it goes well.

-David

[peterchoi]

Your working speed is an important thing. Try to be as quick as possible. You are basically setting up camera angles and elements for each shot, so each panel should be visually comprehensive.

Trust me, you don't really have to draw an elaborate illustration for each panel unless someone really ask for it. An ideal size for a panel is somewhere around 5 inch by 2 inch. 4 panels can fit into a letter-size paper.

I suggest you should use a grey marker and a prismacolor pencil. You will be able to do really quick sketches for each frame.

[CaptainInsano]

When you're explaining your boards, no matter how good they look it won't sell if you explain it like Ferris Buellers teacher, "okay... in the first panel, the guy gets out of bed...he's looking around....he's looking around.... he puts on his shirt."

You have scream and shout and ACT out your storyboards as your explaining them. "Whoa man! So first, the guy JUMPS out of bed" (here you pantomine with arms and wave them around frantically), "and he's LOOKING AROUND!!! The guy is freakin LOOKING AROUND man!!! But what's he looking for?!?!? ... HIS SHIRT!!!! (Here you pantomine with your arms and wave them around frantically).

You get the idea. Even the most crudely drawn storyboards can still get the job done if they capture the essense of the scene, along with your enthusiasm.

[Marcatili]

Hey guys,
Thanks for the help-
I got the job- at least the director is giving me a trial on one of the 'pro-bono' jobs.
What does that mean? I guess it means if he doesn't like my work he can still get the boards and find someone else in the meantime...although he did say it was only a trial to see how we work together and all that, he did say that if all goes well he'd like to keep me on for the music videos and hopefully some short film projects and things like that.
I suppose at this point I'm giving it a go and hopefully it turns into some paid work.

Thanks

[Marcatili]

Hey everyone
I finished the boards for the music video last week and the director seemed rather pleased. So pleased, in fact, that he's now passed my name on to another director for another project. This one's a short film and they're applying for some funding. My storyboards will be part of the package they send to the funding body to get the budget.
If the funding body gives us the funding for this project I'll actually be getting paid for this job! There are a couple of crew members (like the cinematographer) who have worked on some recent feature films too, which should help the project as well.
Not only that but both directors have mentioned that they have other projects in the pipeline and they're currently trying to build up crews that they can work with into the future. So hopefully that means ongoing work...

In other unrelated news, I was given the phone number for a local comic book publisher who is currently looking for artists, so there's another opportunity there but I'm not sure if that one's 100% concrete yet...

Yeah- just thought I'd update the thread and let y'all know how it went.

[loomer]

congrats man...sounds like it everything went over well. Now show us the storyboards!

[stoph]

sounds like everythings working out well. glad to hear it :D

[dbclemons]

:D Yahoo! And so it goes. Good to make connections, isn't it? Congrats!

-DC

[Marcatili]

I'll resize some of the boards and post them in the 'Finally Finished' section...

[stoph]

so do it already! :P

[Marcatili]

Okiedokey- you can find two pages here (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?p=525323#post525323)