Staging, Anticipation, Storyboarding - Oh, My!
- penspeare
- Jan 10, 2022
- 10 min read
Updated: Jan 25, 2022
(Psst... did you read the previous post, or do I need to Drag you back?)
Staging, Anticipation, and Storyboarding
So, apparently I got ahead of myself, and got carried away with the flour sack. I was getting more and more used to Toon Boom Harmony, so kept wanting to make him more and more interesting as I went along, and I've actually done a bit of the work for this section already.
I made some thumbnail storyboards based on the reference photos I'd taken of the Play Doh models I made so I could get some of the key poses drawn more accurately and realistically. Apart from that, I took mainly a straight ahead approach to animating him. Regarding the layout of the blog, I'll use this post for the prep-work side of things, and update those here. I'll add fancier elements and more embellishments here.
Anticipation
In Richard Williams' book The Animator's Survival Kit, he talks about it in detail. According to Bill Tytla, the Disney animator known for his work on the likes of Dumbo, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, and Fantasia, there are only three things in animation. They are:
Anticipation;
Action;
Reaction
To elaborate, I'll explain how Charlie Chaplin, the famous comic actor from the silent film era, put it. He broke it down as:
"Tell 'em what you're going to do";
Do it;
Tell 'em that you've done it
The Anticipation principle is good friends with the principle of Exaggeration, as we want to make everything you want the audience to see as clear, and concise, and obvious as possible, so we must communicate exactly what is going to happen before it happens so they audience can follow along easily. The bigger the action, the bigger the anticipation must be. It is the visual preparation for the upcoming main action, and also used to better emphasise it. We'll assume that audiences don't like surprises, so the anticipation aids this.
Additionally, Anticipation is essentially a way to figuratively wave at the audience and direct them on where they should be looking. The composition of a scene, and therefore the Staging, can complement this too. It is to ensure clarity that the audience knows where they need to set their focus on.
Like every guide book on writing that I own says and every screenwriting lecturer I've ever had says, you will learn how to write scripts by writing them but also reading them. This applies with storyboarding as well.
Staging
Every pose and action that a character makes should convey the intention well and clearly. Everything must be readable. Important considerations include the likes of:
Silhouettes The overall shape of a post. Clearly readable, dynamic, and we must know exactly what the character is doing and is integral to successful character design as well, which then leads into the principle Appeal. Especially important because of the short period of time that animation is on screen for, so we must be able to tell what the characters' motivations are from their poses alone, even if they were to be entirely blacked out;
Line of Action When looking at a design, this gives characters a non-ambiguous sense of direction of movement, and so should be clear and easily understood
Storyboarding
I went back and forth a bit with the thumbnailing and storyboarding. I made flour sack models from Play Doh, took photographs, then made some thumbnails based on them. They turned into very basic storyboards which helped immensely. That said, I kept coming up with some new ideas while animating, and how some things may work better.
But before we move on with what my Flour Sack gets up to, what is a "storyboard" anyway?
Once a script or a screenplay has been finished, it is given to a storyboard artist. The script is essentially the blueprint, in words, of what we are to see and hear on screen, and the storyboard artist interprets these words by creating a hand-drawn version of the sequence, which should then become almost universally understood through the images. They also include the dialogue, sound effects, camera terminology such as the angles, transitions, camera movements, etc. The storyboard artists take the script, and start bringing it to life. It is the illustrated version of the script.
Bob Peterson, who was one of the animators behind Pixar's Toy Story, explains the importance of storyboarding. He says, "Pixar will never let something go into production unless it is working fantastic in that version with the still drawings [...] It's the story", because storyboards are what is used for proper planning of films, animations, commercials, video games, and even graphic novels.
Jeffrey Scott defines storyboards in his book Writing for Animation, on page 22, as "a visual interpretation of the script, made up of small, thumbnail drawings. Marcie Begleiter goes into even more detail in her book From Word to Image, how it encompasses "minimal sketches that illustrate what the camera will see and how it will move", how it is "a visual script", and expresses its necessity in "highly collaborative" projects, on how "there needs to be a method to communicate about the numerous decisions that must be made by each department".
The book Timing for Animation also describes storyboards. It explains how "the important point is to convey an idea of the flow of the narrative, and to explore the visual possibilities" and, in line with the rest of the examples, how the storyboard should serve as a blueprint for any film project", and goes on to explain that it is the "first visual impression of the film" in addition to that.
Prep Work and Research
I sketched the above thumbnails out before I started the Flour Sack exercise from scratch. I got this as a result, though I'm still working on it:
It's more of an animatic at this stage; I like to annotate what I'm doing while I'm working on them, almost like a to-do list, along with arrows, so I know what I'm planning on doing. Additionally, it's helpful when I'm showing the work in progress to others, and they can see what I'm aiming to do with the end result.
Years ago, I ordered a lot of scripts, including teleplays and screenplays, because I enjoy doing that and I want to make sure I'm doing it properly. Jeffrey Scott explains how "the only truly effective way to learn to write is to write" on page 17 of Writing for Animation
Apart, and that is applicable here as well; regarding scripts, you also learn how to write them from actually writing them, but I also remember many of my screenwriting lecturers stressing that you need to actually be reading them as well.
Honestly, one of the best script compilation books I bought was Trey Parker and Matt Stone's South Park: The Scripts: Book One, as not only are they formatted perfectly, it also includes examples of storyboards from those episodes, as well as notes for changes. It's really, really helpful.
J.G. Quintel pitching the pilot episode of Regular Show through all the storyboards, that were created using sticky or post-it notes, who then pitches it to his team.
I want to make sure I'm going the right way about storyboarding, so it is absolutely essential I look into how the professionals do it. Above are examples from South Park and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I want to make sure that not only are my stage directions appropriate, but I want to make sure my written action is spot one; I want to watch out for it becoming too "prose" or "flowery", and make sure what's written is necessary. Ensuring the action is conveyed, and not the synopsis. Write what the audience is supposed to see and hear on screen, not what you want them to; show and don't tell, as they say.
I want to make sure his jump is realistic enough looking so that his lift-off doesn't seem... well, "off". I looked up a video of a jump taking place, and one of the first ones I found beside Van Halen's music video, is of someone testing out A-Jump Inverse stilts. It's actually a little better than I was hoping from a normal jump purely because it's very easy to see just how springy they are when force is applied to them as they "squash" down, and how they "stretch" back up again when he takes off into a jump. They actually enhance the jump.
(If the timestamp doesn't work, it's near the end of the video at 68 seconds in).
Or, at least, I thought it was better until I slowed it down. I can't really see what his legs are doing nor the rest of his body very well. So I looked up some trampoline jumping:
He crouches down as far as he can, and before he lifts off, he seems to lean forward while swinging his arms ever so slightly. That said, the lean comes from pushing himself off an edge. My Flour Sack is on straight terrain and simply hopping from one part of the floor to another.
Crouch and squash down as much as possible;
He stretches out to his absolute limit, both arms reaching out to the sky, leaving the tips of the toes as the very last part of the body that leaves the ground. As if the feet are peeling away from the floor.
The difference between this and my Flour Sack, is that the extreme trampoline professional is jumping down from an edge, whereas Flour Sack is jumping up and across on the levelled terrain, so I need to be mindful of that.
Day of the Tentacle human prisoners' reaction
Flour Sack's change of emotion is going from curiosity to sheer to disgust after smelling the rotten pizza. While working on him, this reminded me of the Spongebob Squarepants episode. I took some screenshots of his reflection anticipating a disgusted reaction from him:
There needs to be more anticipation just before he notices the pizza. For example, he turns the other way before looking straight towards it
The squash when he anticipates his jump needs more attention at this stage;
I messed something up in Toon Boom for the little guy's anticipation, so I need to fix that. It isn't strong enough, particularly the squash, which is what I mentioned before;
Overall, I need to work on the timing too. I think, at this point in time, the action is happening far too quickly. The timing is what helps the story get across to the audience much better, and aids the anticipation as well (e.g., when he's jumping over, when he's sniffing the off pizza and the reality sets in); it could maybe benefit from more in-betweens to help with the timing. Most of the 12 principles of animation feed into one another;
This is more of a personal technical issue, but my workspace is super chaotic, and trying to figure out how to articulate what my problem is to Google is frustrating in and of itself:
The little zip he does to get closer to the pizza box was partially unintentional, but it's hilarious and made me laugh, so I'm leaving it in. Plus I'm happy that it it's not too dissimilar to the tentacle judges at the human show segment of Day of the Tentacle
Need to revise it though; it goes a little too quickly so consider using an animation smear or some such to make it flow a bit better;
I love how the loop makes it look as though he forever forgets how terrible the pizza is so keeps trying; he's in denial a pizza could be that horrible!
"The first principle is to co-ordinate the character's body movement with his facial expression. Legs, arms, hands, the position of the body - all must contribute to a reaction. The facial expression must be emphasised with adequate exaggeration, particularly" - Timing for Animation. Although Flour Sack here doesn't have a face as such, he is still incredibly expressive. I can do this through his body language, with particular consideration towards his "ears", how he moves, and through his curiosity of the world around him and how he reacts to external stimulus such as the rotten pizza. Further backed up in Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston's 1981 book The Illusion of Life in chapter 17: Acting and Emotion, where they state you should, "show the change of expression that would reveal the character's thought process" and here for the flour sack, I wanted to establish his curiosity turn to disgust... for him to do it all over again. Repeatedly. Forever!
He's still moving way too fast, but his goal is a lot clearer now; it just happens a bit too quick. There needs to be more spacing between him sniffing the pizza and reacting to the stench; it all happens too fast, so the anticipation here is very, very weak. Also, at this stage, there needs to be more anticipation for when he does that weird power slide onto his tippy toes.
Now he sniffs the pizza before rolling back! His volume increased though is the only bother, and it needs to be slower still. Maybe move his head up and down while he sniffs along with the body.
The Anticipation before Flour Sack rolls back as the reality sets in for him. I worry it might be a little too much going on though. It needs just a couple more frames to get the timing just perfect and cleaned up a bit, but I think the idea works well. For example, allow his curled in ears to ruminate a little more. I'll admit though, I deviated somewhat from the storyboards here to achieve this. As The Illusion of Life book states, however, as was discussed when they were creating the scene where the dwarves react to Snow White's apparent death, sometimes you need to be drawing it out to really see what's going on.
The pizza stink lines are going way too fast it's a little distracting, and the little guy grows in volume just before his 'ears' recoil in disgust, but I like how the rest of it turned out, especially the roll at the end! I treated him like a bouncing ball, and made sure the spacing was adequate enough, so that the easing in/easing out for when he settles to a rest was believable, and him getting up again. I love the reaction he has, and I think the Squash and Stretch where a double take turned out all right.
I think there are definitely parts of it where it could use with some more in betweens because the timing is by no means perfect, but I had a lot of fun with this little guy, albeit got really carried away with him.
I put in some follow-through and overlapping action with his ears for when he does his little... I don't know how to describe it; it's a weird reverse moon walk he does when he gets to his feet after shaking off his landing. It's one of the oddest looking parts of it to be honest, but it was funny to me at the time. That section definitely needs worked on. I tried incorporating animation smears and motion blurs to be a bit more economical in terms of his fast movements; I think I overdid it, but it worked in some places.
List of reference material:
J.G. Quintel Pitches "The Power" Episode of Regular Show, posted by Henry, J., 1st April 2021 via YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAMMQ9Gwbaw [Accessed: 18/10/2021];
From Word to Image: Storyboarding and the Filmmaking Process, Begleiter, M., 2001
Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, McCloud, S., 1994;
The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation, Thomas, F. and Johnston, O., 1981;
Williams, R. (2001) The Animator's Survival Kit: A Manual of Methods, Principles and Formulas for Classical, Computer, Games, Stop Motion and Internet Animators. USA: Faber and Faber;
The titular Spongebob Sqaurepants' effect on other characters in the episode Something Smells;
Extreme Trampoline Jumping, 18th December 2013. User "15ft Trampoline", via YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5yoGcQSXlI [Accessed: 18/10/2021];
South Park: The Scripts: Book One by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, 1999. Macmillan Publishers Ltd.;
How to Write for Animation by Jeffrey Scott, 2003. New York;
A-Jump Inverse: Revolutionary Jumping Stilts, 1st April 2017. User "HOPsej.cz", via YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niP2cM4yVEM [Accessed: 18/10/2021];
Tim Burton's The Nightmare before Christmas: The Film, The Art, The Vision by Frank Thompson, 2009. USA: Disney Editions;
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