What is your specific role in the creative industries? describe your day to day job.
I’m a storyboard artist working in animation. I’ve been doing story at Disney, Dreamworks and Pixar for over 25yrs. As a story artist I work directly with the writers and directors, building and creating the story. Storyboards are thousands of individual drawings put together in sequential order (like a massive comic book) in order to tell the story. It becomes the blueprint of the film and informs all of the other departments that follow.
I draw the layouts and environments, flesh out characters and acting and move the written word of the script into the realm of visual storytelling. Once sequences have been boarded, they are sent to editorial, put together with temp dialogue and music and shown to everyone working on the movie.
Everyone gives notes, then the movie is torn apart. The story artists work to put it all back together. Hopefully stronger than it was before. Storyboarding is all about reworking an idea, over and over until it works. At Disney Animation they say story is king. One of the great story artists, Bill Peet, used to say: “story is never done, you just run out of time and money.”
what are the self-employment opportunities if any?
Self employment opportunities. If you are not working “in-house” at one of the studios, you can freelance on your own at home. This is what I’m doing these days. My job is the same but I work outside of the studio and connect via video conferencing with the director and other artists once a week.
How would you go about expanding your business or looking for new opportunities?
Animation is a small field and I tend to know and work with the same group of people. Many of whom I have known since school (CalArts). The hard thing is getting your foot in the door of a studio, then letting people get to know you from your work. Once people know what you can do, they ask for you. And if your work is good and you get along w/other people, it gets easier to find new opportunities.
It used to be that all you had was a portfolio and maybe a reel when looking for work. But today, social media and having your work online, makes it easier to showcase your talent to the world.
What are your Specific abilities and what skills are transferable?
My abilities. Drawing. Communication. Verbally and thru my drawings. Humor. Knowledge of film and film history. Ability to research and dig into a subject at hand. Working with a group of people. Always trying to have an open mind. How these skills are transferable: Storyboarding is filmmaking. Be it feature films. TV shows. Commercials. New media, like Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon.
And storyboarding is storytelling. Be it teaching literature. Writing a book or script. Illustrating a novel or children’s book. I’m very interested in doing an original story for a children’s book. And I have friends pushing me to do illustrations for something like a Shakespeare novel. Like the witches of Macbeth? Could be fun.
What effect has technology and technical developments had on your life and or business, both bad and good?
Effects of technology, good and bad. When I first started at Disney, storyboarding was still being done as it had been done on Snow White. Story sketches were drawn on rectangular panels of paper and then pinned onto large cork boards, where they would be pitched in meetings. During the course of making the movie, the walls of the studio would be filled, floor to ceiling, with these boards. You could walk down a hallway and see a whole section of the movie in storyboard form.
It was great for reference and it really felt like you were in the middle of the filmmaking process. Today is much different. Story drawings are done on a Cintiq using Photoshop. Story pitches are projected on a large screen for the directors and story crew. The individual panels are clicked thru by the artist.
Since all the drawings exist online, no storyboards line the hallways and the process of making the movie can only be seen on the computer.
Photoshop is a great and useful tool, but I do miss drawing with markers and grease pencils. I like the tangible feel of them and I haven’t been able to copy that exact look and feel on the computer. But photoshop offers many new tools and controls.
A big positive is by doing storyboards on the computer, you are able to do many more drawings, faster, and you can create the equivalent of an animatic. So a story pitch can start looking like the finished film sooner. Not to mention that the story department is now linked to editorial, so once drawings are approved, you can give them to the editor at the touch of a button.
Gone are the days of having to photograph the individual panels, send them out to be developed, and waiting 2 days for the film to come back before the editors and start to cut it all together. Seems primitive now.
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