Storyboarding (Week 10)

This week was all about preparing for our group projects and for our own self animation, on our world ‘Dream World’. Sarah had given us an informative presentation on the importance of a good storyboard and how it could be beneficial in helping us create and plan our animation, so that finalising it is made much more simple.

She showed us a recap on the different angles which we could position our storyboards in order to create depth within our animation shots and to give the audience a detailed view into the world we our creating. She had also explained to us that a good story board has general set templates and annotations that help the creator know how to shoot their animation and to jot down any changes or specials details they want to create within their drawing.

However she had also explained that if you have created a storyboard that needed further explaining, it does not have a clear narrative of what the story outline is and the actions of the characters. This is not a successful storyboard to create and should be re-thought to be drawn more specific or that the story is not catching enough to the audiences attention. This is something I am always cautious about when designing a storyboard, as I always feel like maybe the story really doesn’t appear to others and is only something I understand as I am the creator. Although this may be the case it is always better to get some other opinions from your peers as you could be over analysing your work to a point were you are confusing yourself and your direction.

This is why for my final storyboard I had asked my family what they gathered the story was which I was trying to narrate and if it clear enough that my story is about a young girl who is feared of death and getting old.

The storyboards which are included within this drawing is a rough idea of what I wanted to draw and create for my animation. These drawings were tasks that Sarah had given us to practice in drawing our storyboard, setting down the camera angles and extra components and also giving us an idea of how we would annotate our work. These drawings were a few quick sketches I had thought up and were a rough expression of what the story for my animation was, which up until that point was just a couple of thoughts inside my head. In a early brainstorm I created an idea that my character was going to be dropped down into a graveyard of death, begin running from her fear and fall into a puddle. This puddle was going to then show her how she had aged quickly and that her fear was now her reality. It was nice to finally see a quick set of thoughts I had about what my story may be, was beginning to develop and I was eager to develop it more.

This storyboard is the groups method on how we were going to combine everyone’s separate animations and fears together within one animation. We included everyone’s fear such as Kerrie’s beginning and ending sequence of her fear of existential fear its self, Michael’s fear of spiders for scene three, Oisin’s fear of technology for scene four, Matthew’s fear of drowning for five, Aveline and height for six and finally me for the end and the fear of death. I thought this sequence of everyone’s animations coming together for our group animation seemed a really smooth way to include everyone’s work and as a transition between all dreams. I think you can see how this team of people within Dream World are a really great group of people who work together and are great in including everyone. I think Dream World was the best group I had joined and I was glad I had pushed myself out of my comfort zone and joined the group when I had the chance. This then lead to me being involved in a well organised group of people, who were eager to work effectively and within time of the deadlines, allowing everyone to include their part, having less worries about completion or lack of time and just designing a well animated piece of art.

This image is some of the planning our group had brainstormed together in order to give us the most time to work accordingly on our animation and it was a well thought out and effective plan as we had achieved what we set out to do within our group.

This is the final storyboard that I created and I had felt that it was detailed and with a good narrative to use for my beginning template of my dream world animation. I used nine storyboarding boxes and used them effectively, filling each one with an important movement, change in scenery, story development and enough detail to allow the audience an idea of what I was trying to narrate.

I had my family a quickly analyse my work and they had all understood effectively my short story and fear concept of getting old and death. The self annotations were confusing at the start and I wasn’t too sure what to include in order to benefit me in my upcoming animation, but overall the storyboard and annotations helped me finalised my story ideas and made me more confident in my animation.