I studied painting at Glasgow School of Art, but I’d always been interested in animation. As a child I loved The Aristocats and The Jungle Book – being able to see the original drawings actually move. Then when Rhubarb and Custard came out, here were these loose felt pen drawings that moved – I remember being amazed at that. That’s when I started to find out about animation. At art school I tried a little bit of animation, but there weren’t really any facilities at that time, so I had a go at working out how to do it for myself. After I finished art school, I did a bit of roadying. I was watching the Old Grey Whistle Test in a studio during a music recording session when I saw this video for Elvis Costello’s Accidents Will Happen. I thought it was incredible. It was jaw-dropping. Amazing, tight graphic drawings moving perfectly to music. The following week there was a video for Tom Tom Club’s Genius of Love on the show, and though it was a totally different style of drawing, it again moved to the music so well. As the song finished, the presenter said, “if anyone’s interested, that was by the same people who did the Elvis Costello video last week – a company called Cucumber Studios.” And that was when the lightbulb went on above my head.
To cut a long story short, I got a job at Cucumber Studios, but didn’t know about animation. When I look back and think of my portfolio, it wasn’t really right: it was a fine art portfolio. But I got a job, and there I learnt about design, graphics, animation and storyboarding. Afterwards I worked a lot with a director called Matt Forrest on projects such as the Close to the Edit video by the Art of Noise, the title sequence for the music show Wired and other TV graphics, promos and commercials. Eventually, I went freelance, designing album covers, but moved back towards storyboarding, with a little bit of conceptual drawing, set design, that kind of thing, but by this time mainly live action stuff. About this time, I saw the book of storyboards of Ridley Scott’s Bladerunner and it blew me away. I loved the atmosphere they created, but also the simplicity of style. That was a big influence.
I started off in commercials because that’s where my contacts were, but my friend Sarah Bradshaw, a film producer now, recommended me to some people she knew in films, and I just sort of carried on from there. I still do bit of commercials, to fill in gaps, but it’s mostly features now.
What were your first feature films?
The first film I worked on was Stephen Frears’ Mary Reilly. I was asked to illustrate the visual FX for the Jekyll to Hyde transformation sequence and was largely working in my studio by myself. I didn’t really know about movie art departments. The first movie I did as part of an art department was John Boorman’s The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, but it never got made. This was followed by Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element.
With The Fifth Element I was again working with the vfx department, so I didn’t have a huge amount of contact with Luc Besson. All of the design had already been done. Luc would describe to the vfx department what he wanted, and they would have to work it out in detail. They would say to me, “this is what we want to achieve.” I would go away and draw it, and this would be presented back to Luc as what they were going to do.
It was funny because I ended up doing three versions of everything. Luc liked things incredibly symmetrical: if you look through the Leon photo book, you’ll see that nearly everything is centered in the screen. So I would do the Luc shots, which were the symmetrical ones, then Mark Stetson, the vfx supervisor, would ask for the most dynamic angles blasting just off camera; and then I would do my version. Invariably Luc would chose the symmetrical ones!
How do you work with the director to develop a storyboard?
How the director briefs you is a crucial part of the job. And it varies from one extreme – directors who haven’t really had time to think it through properly may go, “can you draw up something and in a couple of days we’ll take a look at it?” – to the other extreme, where they know the whole sequence shot by shot, and you’re basically just sitting there writing down what he’s saying. But the most common is half way in between that. The director will say, “right, scene 28; it starts off like this, then we move it to here, and I’m not quite sure what happens after that, but at this key moment I want to frame it all in a top shot,” or something like that. So you have the opening, with key stepping stones throughout the scene. What you have to do is fill in everything else and see if you can get it to flow. Three or four days later you’ll go and present your drawings to the director, and he’ll go, “I like this bit, and I don’t like that.” If you have any ideas, you should put them in and the director can either reject them or, quite often, like them and develop them.
Part of your job is to solve problems. In the script, something will sound absolutely reasonable, but once you start drawing it you can find visual problems. For example, I recently encountered a scene where there’s a chap being chased through a forest, but he falls over. So he’s lying face-down on the ground, with another man, the hunter, looming over him. The next sentence in the script says, “the hunter bends down and rolls him over.” Visually, the first shot with the hunter looming over the man on the floor cries out for a low-angle shot looking up at the hunter from the other’s point of view, which would imply that he’s on his back already. That’s a very small example, but it shows the kinds of problems that you have to sort out.
What was it like storyboarding Children of Men, with all those incredibly long takes?
When I mentioned those directors who already have every shot planned in their head, I was thinking particularly of Alfonso Cuarón, who I worked with on both Children of Men and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The way it works with Alfonso is that you sit down beside him and he describes a shot while you sketch it out with him watching. Then he’ll say, “no, a little bit tighter,” or “a little bit to the left,” and he’ll pin it down exactly. But he also listens. At the end of each sequence he’ll say, “what do you think?” Most of it is so exact that you just go, “perfect.” However, sometimes you can put in an idea.. He will think it through and usually rejects it, but quite often he will say, “that’s good”, and he’ll insert it. So with those films, I’m not really dealing with creative decisions because it’s already been sorted out, but I do have to think about how shots can be achieved.
One thing with Alfonso is that he hates close-ups; there are certain things he likes, certain camera lenses, and you have to think along those lines. He will use extreme close-ups, but only now and again. So you start thinking, “OK, no close-ups, maybe like this,” and that’s how you draw it. I only worked on Children of Men for about five weeks because I’d already committed to another film. The interesting thing about that job was that some of the shots he wanted were so insanely ambitious that we were wondering how the hell is he going to do them! There’s the scene where all the main characters are driving through the countryside, talking, when they’re ambushed. They have to back up, and then they’re chased by motorcyclists. There’s a gun battle with the motorcyclists, and one of the people gets shot. They drive on from that and encounter some police, have a shoot-out with the police, and that’s the end of the scene. But what is so amazing is that it’s all one shot. There are no cuts. He wanted to shoot it so that it would appear realistic, like you were actually there.
So from a position within the car, the camera slowly revolves following the dialogue between the characters. Now that was an incredibly hard shot, but when I saw the film, it seemed so natural. To achieve that we had to go through it so accurately because we needed a special car where the roof came off so that the camera can circle out of the window and come back in. It was massively complicated to do this shot. If he’d inserted a cut it would have been so much easier, but it absolutely paid off keeping it as one shot.
The same happened with one of the big finale battle sequence – it’s just one shot. I did the first part of it, up until the tanks are bombarding the block of flats – and again working it out to do it all in one shot was very complicated. But after the point where I left, the shot continues without cutting – following the soldiers up the stairs, into people’s flats. And at one point, some blood splatters on the lens and they leave it there, so it looks just like news footage. Now that’s all worked out incredibly tightly on boards to make sure it could be achieved.
Do you get more license with other directors?
Definitely. For instance, I worked with Chris Columbus on Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. We’d only chatted for about five minutes to say hello, and then he sent me over a shot list and asked me to draw it up. I remember thinking there was a gap in the scene where it didn’t seem to flow, so I put in a filler to ease it through. I sent it back to Chris and made a note about this extra shot, and I got this message back saying, go ahead. So from then on we would discuss a scene in general for about half an hour, then I’d go back and draw it up. He is one of the directors who would give me the start-off points and allow me quite a lot of freedom to do what I wanted. For the finished film, he would take elements of what I’d done and ignore others. Occasionally there are scenes where he’d say, “that’s great – leave it,” then I would look at the finished film and it was nothing like what I’d drawn.
I was once asked if I ever feel down if I’ve spent a lot of time on a sequence and then I see it’s nothing like I’d drawn it. Not at all. I think of what I’m drawing as helping to clarify and put down what’s on the director’s mind, but once they’re on set, they’re likely to go, “wait a minute; let’s do it this way.” Or later, they might do some wild editing, which produces something that isn’t as I imagined it, but which works fantastically in the film. The drawings are just one of the many creative processes that you go through to get to the end result. And if it’s hacked to pieces, then that’s absolutely fine.
Often when you’re running a scene in your head, it’s up to you to work out angles and moves and where the cuts should be. But of course, when it comes to the shoot, they will always shoot over that – they can cut and edit where they want to. Sometimes I’ve been given freedom to storyboard a scene, and they’ve gone with it and it’s been shot exactly as I drew it. Some people have said to me, “well you directed that scene then,” but that’s not true. There’s a lot more to directing than visualizing the shot. It’s choosing actors, costumes and locations, and once you’re on set the most important part is getting the right emotions out of the actors – I have nothing to do with that.
How much research do you have to do when storyboarding a movie?
As a storyboard artist, your boards will generally benefit from researching the subject. One sequence I worked on a lot was the battle sequence in Cold Mountain directed by Anthony Minghella.
He had written the opening scene about this battle, and he told me about the feeling he wanted to get from it. He also told me the historical facts of it, and he gave me a timeline of the battle, then sent me off to find visual references. He gave me the skeleton and I had to provide him with visual images and ideas. I read about the battle and looked for interesting visual elements. For instance, the earth out there was yellow. It was in summertime and there’d been no rain, so everything was covered in this yellow dust, including the town they were defending. He didn’t use that one in the end, but there were other references, such as a Salgado photograph of one of Red Adair’s oil men lying exhausted on the ground after just capping a leaking oil derrick during the Gulf War. He was absolutely knackered, and he was just lying in all this oil, as if he’d just been born out of the earth with this slime all over him.
When we were reading about the battle, we first wanted the hero to witness the explosion that kicked off the battle, and then we wanted all the guys to be down in the pit. However, in the real battle there was a four hour gap between the explosion and the pit filling up. I’d been reading Birdsong, set in the First World War trenches, and about how people used to get buried in air pockets and have to dig their way out, so the idea came about that we could bury Inman in the explosion so that he’s in an air pocket, having to dig his way out, and that’s the four-hour time cut. So all these ideas were put together – Swansong, the Salgado picture of the oil man – and Anthony rewrote the sequence to make that happen.
How important is a good, clear storyboard?
Sometimes a director will draw some of the screenplay themselves. They’re usually diagramatic drawings that only they can understand, so I’m often given stick drawings that I will then posh up, and there’s a good reason for this. The first point of the boards is put down the director’s thoughts, which is quite a creative stage. Once you’ve done that, and they’re happy, the second stage is to show everyone else involved what is required, so the drawings have to be clear so that everyone can understand them. For example, there’s a scene in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in which Harry’s evil aunt puffs up and eventually floats out of the conservatory and up into the air. I drew the scene, then we had a meeting, and there must have been about 30 people sitting around a huge table – the art department, production, DP, prosthetics, wire men for pulling her up on wires, costumes for doing clothes ripping open, special FX, animal handlers and stunt people – and we went through every single frame. Alfonso said, “this is what we’re going to shoot, so if anybody has a problem with any shot, tell me.” People put their hand up like at school, and we discussed each query until everyone was happy, then move onto the next one. So not only the director has to be able to understand the storyboard; everyone else does too.
If you are going to go into a job and the director has already produced stick drawings, it’s important you understand the director’s style before you redraw the storyboard. For instance, some directors favour using lots of long lenses and heavy cutting, such as Michael Mann for example, who uses a lot of frenetic and edgy camera shots, whereas Alfonso uses big wide lenses and long takes. They’re two different languages, and you have to understand what the director wants before you translate their ideas into a storyboard. You also have understand film – like flow and cut and editing, but I think that’s a language we all understand instinctively because we’re brought up on television from birth.
However, I think the most important thing is just being able to draw and being quick when you need to be, so that you can interpret the director’s notes and drawings into good drawings that everybody else can understand.
Do you ever use computer software to produce storyboards?
I still only draw; I don’t use software to storyboard. The last time I looked at software was years ago, and I just thought the end results didn’t look good. Whenever I have seen people using 3D software, its taken so long to set things up that the spontaneity of sitting down with a director and just scribbling ideas disappears. Everyone sits waiting while the guys in the 3D computers move things around. Now that makes me sound like a real Luddite. I’m sure things have got quicker and it may eventually be the way to go, but it still feels less spontaneous to me.
I do have friends who use Painter or Photoshop to draw with, instead of using pen and paper, and some of the results they get are amazing. For instance, Tony Wright worked on Cold Mountain as well. He wanted to show a rack focus, so he created two layers in Photoshop and selectively softened them, creating the effect. And of course, it was a lot quicker for him to send his artwork to Romania where they were filming than it was for me, who had to scan my drawings first. So using a computer as a drawing implement could be advantageous, but when it comes to the 3D software, I can’t see that it’s an improvement at the moment.
The other thing is that a lot of the studios are wanting everything pre-vizzed now, which animators create in 3D, so I can’t quite see the advantage of a storyboard artist doing 3D if it’s going to be recreated in 3D for previz. But I use Google and Google Earth for reference all the time. I’m working on this project at the moment called Wanted and there’s a scene set on the Chicago river. I just type in ‘Chicago waterfront’ and there it is. I’ve seen some people producing storyboards with computer packages where they say, “what lens do you want? A 21mm? A 24mm?” I sometimes think, “what does the DP think about being told what lens to use and where to light it from?” My boards tend to be quite simple, concentrating on the things that need to be described. If it’s CGI stuff, then I will make it clear where the interaction is, but if it’s fighting or action, you only need to indicate what needs to be shown. Then you let the DP or stunt guys interpret it as they want. And I think that’s a much better and more creative way than tying people down to specific angles and lenses… that’s why I’m still using pen and paper.
Do you have any tips for aspiring storyboard artists?
A good place to start is to check the low-budget filmmaker websites to see who’s doing what. Okay, there’s not much budget in a lot of these short, but you’ll get some good experience, and it’s useful to get some work under your belt. Another thing I’ve suggested to people is they take a commercial and storyboard it themselves – not to pretend they did it, but to demonstrate their drawing style. What people want is to make sure your drawings look pretty good. Yes, the main thing is a good sense of design and editing and flow, but people also want to see that the drawings will look good. They shouldn’t just go in, as I did, with a portfolio of interesting drawings; people want to see what the end result is going to look like.
You need to demonstrate to an employer that you have a good portfolio and you can draw quickly if you need to. That and being an amenable person to work with.
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Steve ParkerSteve Parker is editor of the Reel Show. His degree course in linguistics and ergonomics was completely wasted on him. He stood for election for the position of President of the Students Union (and won) so that he could spend a year organizing parties and drinking cheap alcohol. He became a journalist while at university and has been a slacker ever since. |