KVCC: AAMT 173 - Storyboarding

Storyboarding is generally one of the first parts of the animation pipeline. In more modern pipelines, the team might come back to storyboarding later on, to rework or flesh out ideas.

Storyboarding is often a series of quick sketches. It can be done with either digital or traditional means. Physical pen + paper or digital paintings, it doesn’t matter.

The key idea is that it’s done fast. For the initial rough draft, the artist might spend as little as 30 seconds on each image.

Once all frames are done, the artist might go back and do a “more finished” pass, but even these should still be quick and sketch-like.

The purpose is to quickly iterate over the main points of a story or scene, putting it on paper so other members of the team have a clear idea of what the narrative will be.

This allows everyone to be on the same page for future stages of the pipeline. It also allows more constructive group-development of the narrative, as it’s easier to discuss concepts that are clearly formed on paper.

An Animatic is often made after the initial Storyboard, Character Design, and World Building have been completed. Animatics are particularly applicable to the 2D animation pipeline, where it can be directly used for the next steps.

Generally, the Animatic takes frames directly from the Storyboard, putting them in an animation program such as Adobe After Effects. These frames are timed to approximate and test scene timing for the final product.

This often includes adding rudimentary sound, such as early voice acting, or some sample music. Sometimes it also includes very quick coloring (for mood) or quick, sketchy animations for critically important scenes and actions.

The goal is to check for mood, timing, and story beats early on, when it’s much easier and cheaper to make adjustments. In particular, Animatics are extremely useful for getting an initial feel for camera angles and story pacing.

Artists can find issues early on in the pipeline, and make large adjustments with minimal repurcussions at this stage.

It also gives the rest of the team reference for what they’re creating. For example, the static images of a Storyboard can only do so much for setting mood. But adding timing and color in relation to these images, plus some basic sound, can really convey the intended tone and feeling.

Overall, the Animatic is often fairly quick and looks fairly sketchy. The real effort to make everything pretty/finalized comes in later stages.