Drawing Caspian
by Mike Vosburg (Storyboard Artist)
So what are storyboards? Does every film use them? How are they used on Prince Caspian? How many frames do you draw a day?
Film is a visual medium where the story is told by using a series of images or pictures, with sound (dialogue) added for clarification. That might be an oversimplification, but I don’t think many would argue with the definition.
The storyboard artist takes the script (or treatment in its initial stages) and starts to translate it into a series of pictures. A simple phrase (…the hero rushes in and saves the girl…) might turn into a sequence of several hundred frames, while a page long description of a characters internal distress might be capsulated in a single drawing if the expression is right. But in successful collaborations, the storyboard artist enables a viewer to “look” at the story rather than “read” it.
Not all movies use storyboards. Some directors feel more comfortable letting the pictures materialize through the use of the camera. And boarding out a long dialogue sequence for a Robert De Niro would be a waste of time.
Not all movies use storyboards. Some directors feel more comfortable letting the pictures materialize through the use of the camera. And boarding out a long dialogue sequence for a Robert De Niro would be a waste of time.
But on Prince Caspian, like “The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe,” we storyboarded the entire film so that it could be viewed on an animatic. Then Andrew is able to watch a test version of the film. He can suggest changes..so we draw new frames…he makes more changes…we draw more frames…he makes more changes…we draw more….well, you get the picture. His goal is to solve whatever problems there are in the story and visualization of it before any of the movie is shot.
And the storyboard artists aren’t the only ones involved in this process. Pre-Viz, which creates Computer Generated Images (you’ll learn more about them in a later blog entry), also produces sections of the film, sometimes using our boards, sometimes starting from scratch. And all this is orchestrated by Sim Evan-Jones and the editorial department, who actually take the sequences and put them together for viewing in an animatic. We get our marching…er drawing orders from them.
Read the rest at Narnia.com!
