"Art of Brave" Book Signing and Talk at Gallery Nucleus This Saturday

This Saturday, June 23, Gallery Nucleus  is hosting an "Art of Brave" panel. Present, signing and speaking-and in the case of the two esteemed Pixar artists, showing-will be myself, story artist Emma Coats and visual development artist Paul Abadilla.

Nucleus, by the way, is a great space, and always has interesting art in its constantly changing exhibits and on sale in its store-often by animation artists exercising their creative urges outside of their day jobs. It's well worth a visit when in Southern California.

See you there!

Art of BRAVE Artist Panel & Book Signing

Opening Reception / Saturday, Jun 23 12:00PM - 3:00PM

Gallery Nucleus

210 East Main St, Alhambra CA 91801
Store 626.458.7482 Gallery 626.458.7477

On Story: Life is in the details

If anything from my experience of the last 15 years or so has made itself clear to me as a story truism, it's that the importance of the smallest details matter.

The difference between a dull scene or stock character and one that breathes, that thinks, is in the details. Details spring out and suggest themselves when the story artist believes in a character's reality no matter how superficially unlikely the scenario they're placed in might be.

There are times when a story artist is given a sequence that's already laid out pretty extensively: the characters must say this or that, do this, that and the other thing, get from here to there. You might think that that would be a boring sort of sequence to work on. Not necessarily.

Of course one wants to be as creative as one can, but in putting a feature film together there's not always an opportunity to start from scratch(and if there always is, the film's probably in trouble). Does that mean there's no room for the story guy to have fun, to make an impression, to enhance or "create" the scene? Far from it. But you'd better believe in the characters you're working with.

If you do, wonderful things can happen. Some of it might wander off in a direction that will result in the kibosh being put on the sequence in whole or in part--a great big old redo. But sometimes (often enough if you're both lucky and inspired) a sudden, truthful idea will pop up out of nowhere and work so well it's just got to go in. No one planned for it until it struck--you didn't see it until you were least expecting it, surrounded at your desk by crumpled paper and worn down stubs. Suddenly it's there, and it seems exactly the thing the character should say or do at that moment. If it really is as right as it feels, it'll make it into the film. You'd be surprised how often that happens in spite of any and all obstacles.

This to me is the most exciting, rewarding part of my job, but it's not a daily occurrence--it couldn't be. Films just don't play with too much going on at every second, all the time. They flow in a narrative dance in any of a million permutations, all with one commonly understood goal: to tell you a story.

And I should mention that the function of your storyboards is twofold: not only are you designing the action within the frame, but most importantly you're responsible for setting the mood and emotion of the scene--that's how it's supposed to be, anyway. This really can't be stressed too strongly. The times that a completely flat, emotionless story sequence didn't work in boards but came to life in animation, out of nowhere, is exactly zero. Can sequences be plussed by animation? You bet, and they almost always are--hugely. The medium is about moving drawings/characters, after all. But plussing has to start from something. The drawings needn't necessarily be fancy, but they must certainly read and communicate.

We in animation have a big hurdle, a doozy: we have to take a two-dimensional, stylized design of a character and entice the audience into caring about it. I believe the key to doing that is to lend the characters your faith while you board them--to invest them with little parts of your life in the form of those little details.
All of this comes from you, from your own real, personal experience and your unique observations. To have to squeeze the wonky story-peg into a predetermined hole doesn't always work. Often these characters take over, just a bit. Or a bit more than a bit. To know when and how to apply your observation and build each character a soul--that's where your day to day story experience hopefully takes you.
It's why I do this job, why I love it. It's like climbing a mountain that grows as I grow. The mountain is impossibly huge, but it can be conquered at the most unpredictable times if you keep your imagination open and remember to mine truth from the little details of life.

A Disney Story Session-for the Camera, 1951

I came across this today and thought I'd post it; I haven't seen it elsewhere although as one of many hundreds of such photos taken for publicity purposes, it's likely floating around somewhere. So here's a pretend-impromptu story session for "Alice in Wonderland" with some of the gentlemen of Disney's story department, including its first head, Ted Sears. Walt's holding the glasses he'd rather not be photographed in...actually, perhaps it really was an actual meeting. I wonder how many shots exist of Walt wearing his cheaters? There are some stats of Mary Blair's paintings down there amid the Milt Kahl model sheets; the sequence on the boards behind them is the Queen of Heart's croquet game.
The caption affixed to the reverse is reproduced here also. Erdman Penner, on the far right, died in 1956 aged 51; Ted Sears died two years later at just 58 years old. Winston Hibler passed away in 1976.

Just for the heck of it, here too is an example of one of Ted Sears' Christmas cards, upon which he expended a good deal of ingenuity and charm, and featuring his young family. This example comes from the Flickr stream of one molliesc, who posted a trove of them.

Actually, every scene DOES get the storyboard treatment

Time magazine's online edition has a "behind the scenes" slideshow featuring Pixar's next release, Brave. Worth a look to see some nice photos of the crew(including one showing directors Brenda Chapman and Mark Andrews on a Scottish hillside covered in heather), but the accompanying captions by Jared Miller include one major error. Alongside a story panel from the sequence "The Prize" Miller writes[emphasis mine]:

Not all scenes get the storyboard treatment, but this one, called "The Prize," closely matches the scene as it appears in the completed film.

It's an odd aside, one that really only makes sense in live action where, as a matter of course, storyboarding is usually reserved only for particular scenes and sequences. As readers of this blog know, animated features are storyboarded from start to finish, top to bottom, left to right and every which way imaginable, over and over and over again. All the scenes in Brave did and do "get the storyboard treatment". Mr. Miller's assertion that it's not done for every scene is a major boner...if you're a story artist at least.

Not incidentally, the sequence as boarded is an impressive one-and the panel above of Merida taking aim is from the Time feature. There'll be much more of the boards in the forthcoming Art of Brave book. Available for pre-order now at a generous discount-a handy link's over there to the right. Yes, I just had to mention that.

Torch Tiger tales

Cover painting by Paul Felix

Last year the story department at Walt Disney Feature Animation put together an amazing book, "Who Is Rocket Johnson?" just in time for the San Diego Comic Con. It sold out in very short order, and remains a bright gem of a compilation. Utterly unique and as representative of the talents at work at Disney as anything could be. One should never miss the chance to see--and own--the personal work of men and women like this-mostly story, a couple of directors and animators in there too-who are at the top of their game.

No sooner had he pulled the first copies of Rocket Johnson out of the box than the chief instigator of the project, Paul Briggs, laid plans for this year's book: "What Is Torch Tiger?"

Well, the books have arrived and as was done last year, Briggs and the gang are kicking off its official debut with an Ebay auction for a special copy of this beautiful book-signed by all the participating artists, as follows:

Steve Anderson
Aaron Blaise
Paul Briggs
Kevin Deters
Rob Edwards
Mike Gabriel
Nathan Greno
Don Hall
Byron Howard
Trevor Jimenez
Mark Kennedy
Joe Mateo
Nicole Mitchell
John Musker
Jeff Ranjo
Aurian Redson
Jeremy Spears
Lissa Treiman
Josie Trinidad
Chris Ure
Mark Walton
Dean Wellins
Stevie Wermers
Chris Williams

And as if that lineup isn't enough, there are also some pin-ups by:

Andreas Deja
Andy Harkness
Jeff Turley
Jin Kim
Shiyoon Kim

Remember, all these artists have signed the special copy now on auction at Ebay. The actual book itself doesn't otherwise go on sale until Comic Con opens next week, so if you can't make it to the Con and would like to both snag a lovely, brilliantly produced book and have every penny of your bid go to a worthy charity--the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, click on this link and give it a go. I did last year--and was outbid. Well, try, try again. You won't be sorry and you can write off your winning bid, both feeling good and having something rare and good to read at hand.

Torch Tiger Signed edition plus extra goodies Ebay Auction

I haven't seen all the stories, but since I did see this one and I can't help embarrassing him I want to add that it'd be worth it for Jeremy Spears' story alone. He did a wonderfully atmospheric tale with appealing characters and fantastic staging, completely lovable.
Now multiply that times 30 and that's Torch Tiger. They've each put their hearts and souls into their own versions of the theme and always, of course, had to navigate their day jobs at the same time, with the redoubtable Briggs cracking the whip and wrangling the printers on top of everything else. What's that bit that Bud Plant always adds? "Highest Recommendation"

Leo Matsuda

He's amazing, that's all.
Leo Matsuda
The above from his blog--his impressions after watching "The Wrestler". Click to enlarge. And be sure you head over & visit his other work.

Feast your eyes-appeal and style

If you don't visit Michael Sporn's blog (or "Splog") regularly, you miss not only his great reports on animation life on the east coast, but also many things like these stunning boards from the Disney short "Melody: Adventures in Music". The artwork is loaned to Mike from his good friend and a man who needs no introduction to readers here, John Canemaker, whose collection is something else again.

Lots more where this came from--and again, it comes via John Canemaker and Michael Sporn.

Go there now!

Coming in October

224 pages. Bill Peet. Joe Rinaldi. Don DaGradi. Roy Williams. Ub Iwerks. Burny Mattison. Vance Gerry. And probably some other people we know.

the New York Times reviews a new film...

From A. O. Scott:

"The first 40 minutes or so of “Wall-E” — in which barely any dialogue is spoken, and almost no human figures appear on screen — is a cinematic poem of such wit and beauty that its darker implications may take a while to sink in."

Wow. And that's only the first sentence.
I haven't seen it yet. Those of you that have, I'd love to hear your impressions.

Rocket Johnson!

From Paul Briggs here finally is the announcement of a project that an awful lot of guys have been working on in their spare time-of which they have precious little. Nevertheless, somehow they all pulled it off.
I was lucky enough to see most of the book and it's a must-have. Talk about a roster of names; some very familiar, some you may not yet know-but all have done terrific work.
Here's Paul's email press release:

"Who is Rocket Johnson?" is a 72 page graphic novel anthology being self-published by Walt Disney Animation Studio's Story Artists and Directors. It's an all-ages book in which every artist answers the question: "Who is Rocket Johnson?"
It will be sold exclusively at booth 2302 in San Diego (http://www.comic-con.org/) and is a limited edition of 1,000 copies.

Cover painted by:
Paul Felix

Artists contributing stories:
Steve Anderson
John Musker
Dean Wellins
Mike Gabriel
Kevin Deters
Paul Briggs
Tom Ellery
Sam Levine
Nathan Greno
Don Hall
Mark Kennedy
Aurian Redson
Daniel Chong
Tron Mai
Lawrence Gong
Joe Mateo
Michael LaBash
Chris Ure
Bruce Morris
Mark Walton

Featuring pin-ups by:
Glen Keane
ChenYi Chang
Byron Howard
Arthur Adams

That's some lineup. For more information visit the official website.

Edited to add: Briggs informs me that at the present time there aren't any plans to do more than 1000 copies, take advance orders, or do any mail order at all. That means that if we want one we'll all have to plan to be at the Rocket Johnson booth at San Diego during the Con-probably early in the week. I feel positive that sketchbook resellers such as Stuart Ng and Bud Plant will be picking up multiple copies to offer at their own outlets, but with only 1000 available to begin with those too should sell quickly. I have to think it likely that when the initial run does sell out, more will be printed-eventually. But for now look for it only at the Con.

Coming soon....

...no, not Indy IV.

If you don't already have Paul Briggs bookmarked, you'd better be doing it now.
Not only does he post wonderful sketches, but as he puts it, "Get ready" for an announcement of something very soon, revealed on his blog. Believe me, you're all going to be interested in whatever it is.

Dog days of summer-animal analysis

Michael Barrier has quite a few interesting emails and links lately; one that pushed one of my animation hot buttons grew out of his and others' reactions to "Ratatouille". It involves the handling of animals as characters in animation. Mike links to a post by caricaturist, Sheridan College instructor and blogger Pete Emslie. Pete's thoughts are fairly brief but clear and pointed, and as he says, there are many permutations to the types of characterizations he lists in his post.

Barrier himself writes something I couldn't put any better:

"To me, anthropomorphism like that in so many Hollywood cartoons has most often been a sign not of infantilism—the common accusation—but of an openness to the potential of artistic devices that more fastidious minds reject out of hand. You can do things in animation and the comics with animal characters that you can't with human characters; and as Pete's handout suggests, the more alert the artist is to the possibilities and limitations inherent in the different kinds of animal characters, the better the odds that something exceptional will result."

Boldface is mine. The misuse or dismissal of this truism Barrier mentions has frustrated me in the process of doing story on a couple of projects in the past, before my present job.

There were instances where opportunities to add something special were missed, involving animal characters that while able to "talk" didn't ever speak to human beings and were supposed to be real animals in a "real" environment.
Those projects worked from a script, but there was (supposedly) ample room for some visual, physical interpretation and ideas from the story artist. In some cases, however, I found myself thinking that the characters--instead of being birds or dogs--could have been mice, cats, horses or buffalo and virtually nothing but the character design would have changed.

There was literally no thought given to how a dog would react to a situation versus a parrot. It was all plot and dialogue, all the time. The fact that a story might revolve around a canine in a human household was only a gloss, not the crucial factor it should have been.
As someone who's lived with dogs, parrots, horses, fish and cats(to name a few), this really drives you around the bend in its waste of potential animation gold just sitting there waiting to picked up, drawn and presented to the audience. So, whether it makes it into the film or not, you continually try to insist on not just having a character get from A to B, but have him get there the way a puppy would. This doesn't mean cramming all kinds of diversions and asides into a scene but being judicious about where, when and how much depending upon that character at that moment.

Few films achieved this as brilliantly as in the handling of all the animals in "Lady and the Tramp". It's a lesson in thinking along those lines, and in the process turns scenes that might be a heck of a tough sell today("they put the puppy to sleep in the kitchen with a newspaper, but she won't stay put") and turns it into the universal, lovingly familiar experience that everyone who's ever raised a dog has experienced--and as a bonus we get to see it from not only the humans' but the puppy's point of view. It's scenes like that, just as much as the old "Bella Notte" number or "He's a Tramp" that make this a classic. Incidentally, those musical numbers are both examples of the story crew really pushing the limits they've set for themselves in terms of how anthropomorphized the dogs are--but (in my opinion at least) they get away with it as they do all through the film by never leaving out the "dogginess" they need to sustain the fantasy and tether it to reality.

This isn't to say that degrees of "faithful" anthropomorphism can't be mixed within a film with success in the best efforts of animation. I stumbled on a bit of "Dumbo" on TV yesterday, and the crows, Timothy Mouse and the Stork have little relation to their real life counterparts other than the use of their wings-those that have them-and the fact that they have beaks or tails. In "Dumbo" the brasher characters are also "free"--free of the strictures of being working circus animals, they can come and go as they wish and boss about or rag on human beings and animals alike, acting as a Greek chorus. They exist in a kind of limbo between the "real" elephants and kangaroos and tigers and the full-on humans such as the ringmaster. Timothy would gain little or nothing to push more elements of real mouse onto him--he doesn't need it. He's more [Fred]Moore than Mouse.

images courtesy of this site
Obviously one could go on about this all day--"Ratatouille" offers a lot to chew on on this subject, and I've already written a bit here and elsewhere about how well I thought those animals were handled, with attention paid to extreme subtleties of rats that made for an almost subliminal layer of reality to Remy and the others(but especially Remy). I don't know how much was instigated by the animators, but knowing Bird I would surmise that there are no accidents in anything on that score; the phrase "with a gimlet eye" was invented for Brad Bird, believe it.

Still, there are some shots where I'd sure like to wring that animator's hand.

Even a Rat Can Dream

On Friday the crew of the film I'm working on went to the movies together.

Although this is a fact of life well known within our industry, for the benefit of others I should describe the symbiosis of everyone working on animation--in particular on the grueling, long-form, long gestated projects shown in theatres.

It's hard not to notice that animation fans, critics and writers often assume that the various studios have the mien of warring camps. Certainly they are all in competition in the marketplace. But it would be a mistake to think that there isn't a mutual and healthy atmosphere of respect among the artists and productions. There is. And while film feifdoms must by necessity remain apart and secretive for obvious reasons, the small world of animation is so cross-pollinated that on a personal level virtually all of us are invested in what's going on all over California and really, in the world at large.
So, when a new film comes out of some importance everyone is eager to see it.

"Ratatouille" is an anomaly of sorts for the director and screenwriter. Begun by Oscar winner Jan Pinkava, the story of a french mouse with an exceptionally sophisticated palate just didn't sound like the sort of project that Brad Bird would be drawn to. But this director is also an exceptionally sophisticated screenwriter, and the resulting film is the best recent example of a true modern fairy tale. Light, elegant, sweet, gentle--but with the fillips of danger and the threat of death that all the best fairy tales have. I walked out of the theatre into hard, hot Burbank thinking of the old New Yorker writer E.B. White.

There've been films made of White's children's books, most notably "Stuart Little" and "Charlotte's Web", but none have come close to capturing the style and elegance of White's stories(if you haven't read them for yourself, you should-no matter how old you are.). "Ratatouille" does, and it's because of the writing first. Mind you, as Bird has said and as is obvious, a screenplay isn't just talking, and neither is this story. People and rats talk, but only to their own kind and only when they have something to say, and it's worth noting that Remy, the hero, spends many scenes unable to speak at all--and those are probably his best scenes.

White had a talent for creating "real" animals living in a human world, possessed of nuanced personalities yet not quite human. One of my pet peeves is when animals are used in a supposed naturalistic fashion--that is, in a story where they are perceived as mere beasts by humans, but instead of exploiting the unique and familiar animal characteristics every person recognizes the choice is made to turn them into little people who only look like animals. Sometimes that serves a movie best. More often it doesn't.

Remy uses his hands as rats do--but along with doing so in an anthropomorphic fashion, he also frequently does things as a rat would do them, albeit if he had human intelligence. The scene where he almost escapes the sure-death of the kitchen for the first time but can't resist correcting the soup is a great example of this kind of character animation. The thousands of choices made by director first and all the animators(as well as the story crew)afterwards add up to that E. B. White perfection of fantasy becoming believable and natural.

Remy makes breakfast for Linguini; he never gets to nibble his own tiny omelet, though

One thing one knows in a Bird film is that he will never, ever write down to the audience. I don't believe that any screenwriter aims to be patronizing, but Bird goes one further every time out. If every soul in a seat doesn't "get it", well, they can follow along with the mood and it's on to the next scene. The first appearance of the aesthetically severe food critic Ego was one of my favorites; there's no way that a lot of kids in any audience will understand what he's talking about, but they'll know he's dangerous, somehow. The danger he happens to pose is the loss of a Michelin star or two--and what a film, that can make the hoi polloi give a damn about that? But it works.

It's supposedly Remy's story, but it's really about what happens when he's in a certain situation, rather than all about him alone. This is a fireside yarn, an anecdote, a fairy tale about one little rat, a hapless guy and a once-great restaurant in the greatest epicurean city in the world and what happens when they all come together at the same place and time for a couple of weeks.

I haven't mentioned how it looks. It looks like good food smells and tastes. It looks like the best sort of caricatured reality...no, not reality. Well, it looks delicious. I mean delicious animation.
Wonderful vocal performances. Loved the way Lou said "little chef" with real affection. I had no idea that Garofalo was Colette til the end. Great score. Beautiful lighting (which did look like Paris light to me as I remember it; I'll have to take it up with Michael Barrier via email, but I'd swear that some of the light-on-buildings in the film looked a match for the early-morning video I took, posted on my Sketchbook blog).
Fantastic end credits--this last is a particular issue with me; animated films really should exploit their credits, front and back, by making them as visually pleasing and creative as possible. It doesn't happen often enough. This one does.

And it just so happens that the very last line in the film happens to be the one thing I ask of every movie I go to see (and all too often don't get).
To have ended on that phrase, that invitation, that challenge put a silly smile on my face that lasted all the way into the murderously hot afternoon sunshine, to my car, and all the way home.

Addendum: I deliberately avoided all newsy articles, spoilers and film reviews of "Ratatouille" before I saw it, so now I've got a bit of catching up to do.
By all means check out this review by Scott Foundas in the L.A. Weekly. Very well written as well as touching on many things I didn't. Same reaction, though.

And one more thing: not just by the way: congratulations to Jim Capobianco for a wonderful credit on a wonderful film. Way to go, fella.

And lastly, it did make me hungry.

"EVERYTHING old is new again"(and again and again and again)

The title of this entry has quotes around it because it's an old, old aphorism.
[aph·o·rism [af-uh-riz-uhm]: a terse saying embodying a general truth, or astute observation, as “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”]

A cursory scan of a few reviews of a certain just-released animated film forced me to the laptop for this brief post. One of the more positive ones is sub-headlined, "Though impressive, the 3-D retro-futurist look and time-travel plot feel almost old-fashioned."

The first thing I think--instantly--is, "what exactly is "wrong" with "old-fashioned"? The reviewer is apparently implying that certain large elements are tired, been-there, seen-that--but when those elements are a lonely boy, or a beautifully-moderne design of the future...what the heck? I'm sincerely baffled with the problem.

See, as far as I can tell, every element of storytelling was "done" by the time those cave paintings were drying in France.
My previous post was a nod to a film from 1959, an "old" movie--a black and white movie, for heaven's sake--and moreover a film that was set in the jazz age of gangsters and flappers...old-fashioned stuff even then, 50 years ago. Describe any of the plot contrivances and see if someone doesn't say "but they did that in The Untouchables/Road To Perdition/Gloria/The Professional!" It neither takes away from or diminshes any of the subsequent movies that they share situations and themes. And I'm not even adressing the drag aspect.

Anyway, I haven't yet seen the film in question. In a few hours I will have. I'm looking forward to it.

But not having seen it, I can't defend anyone's take one way or the other. What I can do is protest the lazy fallback of too many film writers vis a vis animation these day--these reviews where the reviewer is bored to tears not because the movie is slow, or lousy, or stupid, or poorly-done(in fact, I've noticed that increasingly animation's artistry is virtually--gah! no pun intended --ignored as almost irrelevant...and when it is criticized, it's done from what often seems a very uninformed observer).

No, the reviewer is bored, or jaded, and why? A sighing plaint of "but...this is all so old fashioned. We've seen orphans before(really? Where lately?), singing frogs before (as if the existence of the short "One Froggy Evening" meant that 60 years later a filmmaker is risking ridicule if he uses a frog in an animated film, no matter the context? You've got to be kidding--yet a writer made just that beef in his review)".

And to them I say, well, [see post below]: did any of the characters come alive for you? Did you settle down and believe in any of it for any amount of time? Were you entertained, or is this all an intellectual reporter's excercise in animation overload?

There's no percentage in arguing reviews, none. But I do mind, and am bothered, when the reviews seem so disconnected from the actual film itself, and more a general indictment of my profession.
It's unfair and anti-film to look at ANY film and review it as if it owes its impact to any other film. This is where I guess a writer has to pretend as hard as he or she can that they haven't seen every. single. film. released in the last 10 years, and compare them to one another. Because each is made to be seen for the first time, and especially in the case of family audiences, many of the viewers will have seen none of the preceding movies that a new one is "too much like". When they do each and every individual film will stand--or fall--on its own merits.

And personally I suspect good movies are good not because everything in them is new! but because the things in them are old: warmth, humor, wit, friendship, awe, drama.

I hope this little screed makes some sense.

In a story, it's the little things that count-a sort of manifesto

If anything from my experience of the last 15 years or so has made itself clear to me as a story truism, it's that the importance of the smallest details matter.

It's that the difference between a dull scene or a stock character and one that breathes, that thinks, is in the details. Details spring out and suggest themselves when the story artist believes in a character's reality no matter how superficially unlikely the scenario they're placed in might be.

There are times when a story artist is given a sequence that's already laid out pretty extensively: the characters must say this or that, do this, that and the other thing, get from here to there. Now, you might think that that would be a boring sort of sequence to work on--not necessarily.

Of course one wants to be as creative as one can, but in putting a feature film together there's not always an opportunity to start from scratch(and if there always is, the film's probably in trouble). Does that mean there's no room for the story guy to have fun, to make an impression, to enhance or "create" the scene? Far from it. But you'd better believe in the characters you're working with.

If you do, wonderful things can happen. Some of it might wander off in a direction that will result in the kibosh being put on the sequence in whole or in part--a great big old redo. But sometimes (often enough of you're both lucky and inspired)a sudden, truthful idea will pop up seemingly out of nowhere and work so well it's just got to go in. No one planned for it until it struck--you didn't see it until you were least expecting it, surrounded at your desk by crumpled paper and worn down stubs. Suddenly it's there, and it seems exactly the thing the character should say or do at that moment. If it really is as right as it feels, it'll make it into the film. You'd be surprised how often that happens, in spite of any and all obstacles.

This to me is the most exciting, rewarding part of my job, but it's not a daily occurance--it couldn't be. Films just don't play with too much going on at every second, all the time. They flow in a narrative dance in any of a million permutations, all with one commonly understood goal: to tell you a story.

And I should mention that the function of your storyboards is twofold: not only are you designing the action withon the frame, but most importantly you're responsible for setting the mood and emotion of the scene--that's how it's supposed to be, anyway. This really can't be stressed too strongly. The times that a completely flat, emotionless story sequence didn't work in boards but came to life in animation, out of nowhere is exactly zero. Can sequences be plussed by animation? You bet, and they almost always are--hugely. The medium is about moving drawings/characters, after all. But plussing has to start from something. The drawings needn't necessarily be fancy, but they must certainly read, and communicate. The more direct and meaningful the better. Otherwise the animator really is left with nothing to work with.

We in animation have a big hurdle, a doozy: we have to take a two-dimensional, stylized design of a character and entice the audience into caring about it. I believe the key to doing that is to lend the characters your faith while you board them--to invest them with little parts of your life in the form of those little details.

All of this comes from you, from your own real personal experience and your unique observation. To have to squeeze the wonky story-peg into a predetermined hole doesn't always work--often these characters take over, just a bit. Or a bit more than a bit. To know when and how to apply your observation and build each character a soul--that's where your day to day story experience hopefully takes you.

It's why I do this job, why I love it; it's like climbing a mountain that grows as I grow. The mountain is impossibly huge but it can be conquered at the most unpredictable times, if you keep your imagination open and remember to find truth and realness in the little details of life.

More Toadying: Paul Fisher again

The irrepressible Paul Fisher as drawn by the inimitable Dave Pimentel

The other day's post about my colleague Paul Fisher was based on a single drawing of his that I've had pinned to my wall for the past several months--that one of the Toad closely examining...something or other. Here then are a few final panels--albeit 2nd generation xeroxes scanned on my dubious flatbed--from one of my favorite scenes in "Flushed Away", sequence 1750: the Toad/celphone business. For those who haven't seen the film yet, the Toad is speaking via celphone screen to the heroes; his arms and legs are actually those of another character.

This is a prime example of a story artist doing his thing in sync with the characters in a scene he devised himself. These are mostly in sequence with a couple of my favorite wild card panels tossed in. The entire thing consisted of several hundred story sketches..
And as always, remember: all the images in this post save the caricature are ©2006 Dreamworks Animation.

Enjoy!

Toad in the hole: Paul Fisher

Paul endowed the Toad with a generous helping of himself: a not-so-thwarted thespian-megalomaniac. All images copyright 2006 Dreamworks Animation and Aardman.

I generally make it a point not to mention anything that pertains directly to something I personally have worked on, but I do enjoy pointing a finger at those artists I work with or near that deserve special mention.
Patrick Mate, Devin Crane, Dave Pimentel and Donnachada Daly have all had blurbs from the Blackwing Diaries, and so with today's release of the Aardman/Dreamworks production "Flushed Away" I'd like to direct you to the "heart and highlight"[Paul's words, written for Ian McKellan's Toad] of that production: its prolific and very funny head of story Paul Fisher.


left to right: a barely visible Mark Kennedy, Paul Fisher, Jenny Lerew, and Ash Brannon at Calarts--all veterans of the class of '87-90. I believe I'm actually on the phone to Don Knott's agent in this shot. He really should have done Mark's film.


another rough board drawing; Le Frog and a compatriot
Paul had a habit on this production of drawing all his boards very, very small, then knocking in the tone and blowing them up on the xerox to pin up on the boards. These measure a little less than the size of a playing card; the size of our actual story pads is much larger, but both keep to the same filmscreen ratio.
So, being relatively tiny these are also fairly rough or loose drawings, but they're just right for the places they fill in the story.

Paul has a particularly keen feeling for nuance in a character's performance--and, better than that an eye for the absurd in every circumstance. Like all good artists, these guys are utterly real to him when he immerses himself in a scene, which in my opinion is why he's able to get real laughs and a genuine sense of life from his cast.

These drawings are basically scraps I culled from his floor over the past several years of "Flushed Away"(well, maybe from a shelf or the seat cushions of his guest chair--this stuff is everywhere; I'm sure all story artists can relate). There are only about 25,000 more where these came from. Put together they make for some great sequences and he isn't a bad boss, either.
Congratulations, Paul--see you on the other side of the weekend. And many thanks to our directors, Sam and David, too.
Cheers!

tags technorati : flushed away, aardman, animation, storyboarding, drawing

The Myth of 'Pretty'

For the fresh, aspiring animation artist story is a mystery, loaded with questions. How should the panels look? How finished off and detailed must they be? And--here's one I've been asked many times, and wondered myself as a kid--how long is it supposed to take to draw each panel? It's as if there's a set average all professionals meet. Who knew?

The answers to those questions can be surprising. You start out, stumbling, learning as you go, picking up what you need, hoping you're doing it "right"--and even after some time in the business, you can still have an epiphany about the craft. I had one a long time ago, about what I'll call pretty drawings.

I was walking down the hall at work, and passed by a recently pitched story sequence. The drawings were pinned to the board, leaning against the wall waiting to be sent to the editorial department. I stopped and looked it over. The ideas were funny, but I was surprised by how raw some of the drawings looked. They weren't what anyone would call "pretty"; they had no background to speak of, seemed a mass of lines, and were hardly recognizable as the characters. At first look, nothing slick or attractive or special about them. This stood out to me at that moment in stark contrast to many of the boards I'd seen up til then.

Keep in mind that the walls of any story department are lined end to end with boards covered in drawings, many with really gorgeous displays of draughtsmanship--rendered volumetrically, loaded with mood, eye-popping. Stuff you stand in awe of and gape at. I was immediately attracted to these panels. I envied them and admired them and felt challenged and crestfallen and inspired by them. I'd sneakily pull them down and xerox them. I'd think of them as gauntlets at my feet. I'd ponder the technique used by this or that artist--should I stay with the prismacolor? Go for that brush pen? Color somewhere? No? What? If I was especially stuck, I'd think grimly that the story about Fred Moore needing his special particular pencil before he could start a scene and think it wasn't so cute and hilarious as all that, after all.

So upon looking at these particular drawings on this board, seemingly tossed off with a marker, I was somewhat dismissive. The thought likely crossed my mind that it could have been drawn better. It wasn't too long afterwards that I saw the same drawings on the story reel. And I really learned something.

What I learned seeing the drawings up on the screen in sequence was this: the un-pretty "mass of lines" worked unerringly from shot to shot; the acting and attitude was clear and the gags--which sprung from personality, always a huge plus--landed pow! right on the nose. It was clever, fast-moving and there wasn't a damn thing I'd want to change. Anyone would have been nuts to change it. Redrawing the panels would have been the very definition of gilding a lily: pointless. I should "toss off" a neat little sequence that read that well! I'd completely misjudged the artwork.

This may all seem obvious, but the impression this realization made on me then has stayed with me. Those boards proved to me that I was sometimes missing the forest for the individual twig. I had, without thinking, often been judging the panels I saw based on how "well" they were drawn, in a conventional sense, not always(as I should have)as a tiny bit of a scene, a moment from here to there with its own set of problems that might be solved without the use of anything remotely fancy.
I'm most definitely not saying that the drawing skill doesn't matter--far from it. Every artist handles things differently, but they aim to always improve because just as it matters for an animator, the better your drawing chops=the better your ability to do anything your imagination requires you to do in a storyboard.
I still swoon over the sheer graphic beauty--but I'm cured, forever I think, of being a bit of an unconscious snob as regards how a panel is "supposed" to look. Prettiness alone means nothing. Getting hung up on the bark of a tree or the slickness of a line may not help get the sequence over to the audience, and if it doesn't, it's a bomb. With some exceptions, it's secondary at best, and always the means to an end.

Story artists, as has been said over and over, can't afford to get precious with their individual work anyway--often as not it ends up in a box or a wastebasket, and it's virtually never seen by the public we are trying to entertain...that's the task of the animators. But we are trying to get the story up there, and it never hurts to remember there are a hundred thousand ways to do it, but the best way is the way that works. The most important thing, usually, is: is it clear? Is it funny/sad/moving/mysterious/alive? The great advantage feature animation has over television is the comittment of time, money (which is what time requires) and the freedom of artists to tell stories without being required to make each story panel a mini-layout or cel setup. That's the mark of a project set in stone, not the sort of film that usually has a chance to evolve and develop and be plussed and added to over time. When I look at any board now, I look at the flow of the story first, and it's been a great thing to have my mind opened as to what a drawing "is" or "should be". Bill Peet drew beautifully, sure--but he wasn't shooting for pretty. He was a hell of an artist and storyteller who worked like a dog at his craft and couldn't do it any other way than the way he did. That his drawings are also individually beautiful is a happy by-product of his knowledge and skill.

So try to draw your boards as well as you possibly can. As if your life depended on it, for the fun of it--but most of all for the betterment of your story. Don't look at the drawings as illustrations, but as story points. And keep your mind open, too. There's a lot of ways to peel that onion. You might invent some yourself.

tags technorati : drawing, storyboarding, story, sketch, animation, cartoons, film

A short rant on mediocrity

NOT mediocre

I don't watch much television on a regularly scheduled basis, and almost no animated television at all.
Just a moment ago I happened to channel surf past an apparently new cartoon show. It looked astonishingly ugly, but art direction aside, what really struck me and had me zap the TV off in disgust was the scenario I was presented with: a dinner table scene. Yes, another one. Mom, Dad and sons are sitting at the table, having that sort of family time that makes me wonder who the writers and "creators" are. Did they grow up in the 1930s? Because the idea of presenting a modern "dad" in a tie at dinner, and "mom" in a flowery dress, batting her eyelashes, sporting a hairdo from approximately 1953 is so old it's dead, edges molding and about as funny as current events in the middle east.

When Brad Bird spoofed the nuclear family in the early 1980s with his "Family Dog", it was fresh and inventive, and most importantly it was funny. The audience--mere laymen along with we, the animation folk of the world, cheered and laughed our keesters off because it was so well observed. I'm not saying that it's impossible to continue to make comedy-animation hay out of the old paradigm of The American Family, but man, by now, 2006, it's got to be clever, it's got to be good--it's got to be real on some level. These aren't real in any way, shape or form, and they don't supply anything to fill the resulting gaps; no flights of weirdness that stems from anything approaching originality. Only a retread of a fantasy of a family experience that none of the creators actually had.

These shows, dozens of them, repeat and recycle the same dull old stereotypes, barely tweaking the "edgy" and utterly superficial design of the ciphers that stand in for characters. Watching it makes me feel faintly queasy--for the wasted talent I know is involved on the roster; for the disposability of such fare, filling up commercial time on the airwaves, all with a feeling of the old linguini-on-the-wall approach: let's see what sticks. Virtually none of it does.

Anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis knows I love good design and ideas, just like everyone else---and I'm no snob when it comes to where and how it presents itself. I've always believed a good show could be achieved with tongue depressors--those flat wooden sticks--as characters, with the right story and execution.
But why do so few animated TV shows of the last 3 decades have any staying power? Why has our generation so far produced not a single inarguable classic along the lines of those that crowded the holiday schedules of the early-to-mid 1960s? "The Grinch", "A Charlie Brown Christmas", "Rudolph", any of the Rankin-Bass output in 2D and 3D--hell, even the original "Fat Albert", which I remember watching with my mouth hanging open. That was something else again.

And in the last 25 years we've seen...."Family Dog". One producer took a chance on a relatively unknown team of artists...Spielberg. It was a cause celebre.

With the range of talent that's now at the peak of their game and experience there's really no excuse for yet more shows that reflect a supposed "parody" of a never-never land of 1950s family life. It's OVER. Dead! We're ALL hep to it now, people! Even the tiny little kids! It's lame, it doesn't reflect anyone's real lives and it's meaningless.

I don't blame artists for this. They don't wield the checkbook. I simply feel sad and(obviously) a little perturbed that there aren't people in charge with...different tastes. Perhaps it's the overall corporatization of all media that makes taking a flying chance on an individual's unique idea for a show impossible.

still aired and loved after 40 years

I did see a HBO special made for the holiday season some years back--a compilation of short musical pieces done by animation studios all over the world(it may have been titled "'Twas the Night")...it was beautiful, funny in the right places, and honest. There's one segment that has a rabbit sailing a boat in side a snowglobe, gorgeous animation done to the old soundtrack of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"; the damn thing made me cry. Obviously all shows can't be like that, certainly not all series television, but my god, let's please try for some change. Things have sailed so far over the edge of genuine, heartfelt, new ideas that it'll require a herculean effort to pull them back.

And someone with lots of cash.

tags technorati : television, animation, cartoons, media

Columbia cat

I found this at Howard Lowery's old brick and mortar store in Burbank(miss that place--I'd see almost as many animators there as at the also-defunct Dave's Laser). It was one of those less-pricey items he'd keep out in a bin to flip through. Since I never saw old story sketches for sale, I bought it. It's only described as a "1940s Columbia" short...not being at all familiar with those cartoons, this is mysterious to me.

Anyone have an idea where its from? I'm wondering who slammed the poor cat's paws in the book--or the book in its face, or whatever's happening here.

tags technorati : cartoons, columbia, animation, storyboard