Monday 23 September 2019

Last Call for Storyboarding on 29th October

Francesca "Chess" Adams
Last call for Storyboarding with Francesca "Chess" Adams,  veteran story board artist at Blue Zoo, one of London's leading animation houses.

Our next evening class in storyboarding starts at our central London campus at 190 High Holborn on 29th October, running through to 17th December 2019.

Chess brings her long experience of working on shows like Digby Dragon and The Go Jetters, reflecting the huge increase in animated content being created right here in London in recent years, and the growing trend towards digital storyboarding tools such as Panel Forge, which speed up the process and help to bridge the gap with 3D Layout.

Storyboarding
Panel Forge
This storyboard evening class is an 8 week introduction to the art and craft of storyboarding, taught by industry professional, Francesca "Chess" Adams.

Chess is a full-time board artist at Blue Zoo animation in London, with many years experience in the industry. Chess also supplies a live industry brief to give our students experience of what a standard industry storyboard test is actually like.

Who this is for
The class is aimed at anyone who wants to learn storyboarding, whether for live action, animation, commercials, or your own film independent projects.

Course content
The course is spread over eight evenings. Each class involves a blend of one-on-one feedback, lectures, and simple in-class exercises, completed with speed and spontaneity.  Each week students will receive a homework assignment to complete and bring in for review the next week. This way, students will get meaningful feedback on their work over the full eight weeks of the course.

Francesca Adams boards at Blue Zoo Animation
Summary
Course: Storyboarding
Duration: 8 weeks
Start date: Tuesday 29 October 2019
Principal Tutor: Francesca Adams
Price: £995

Course Outline
Week 1 - General Introduction to Storyboarding: Introductory Exercises. Creativity, ideas and inspiration for stories. Gesture drawing, fast sketches, and research.
Week 2 - Creating images which tell a story: Single images that tell a story. Gag drawings. Situations and character-driven ideas.
Week 3 - Standard industry storyboarding process: Script, beat boards, story reel and animatic. Movie structure analysis. Camera and Layout. Reverse-storyboarding a pantomime sequence.
Week 4 - Character Design and Art Direction: Introduction to principles of design and visual development.
Week 5 - Structuring a Scene: How to break down script pages. Progression and punctuation in a sequence. Staging.
Week 6 - The Performance: Story beats, narrative structure, pacing, cinematography.
Week 7 - The Animatic: How to edit, cut and time storyboards in Premiere, to create a storyboard animatic. Music, sound effects, voice over and dialogue.
Week 8 - The Pitch: How to pitch your storyboards. Acting, performance and delivery.

Panelforge
There will also be a session on Panelforge, the 3D storyboarding software pioneered by Blue Zoo.

Where and when
The course will take place at Escape Studios at 190 High Holborn, London WC1, on Tuesday evenings from 7:00pm-10:00pm

Jobs in storyboarding
Skilled storyboard artists are in high demand, and industry tells us that there is a serious skills shortage here in the UK.  Storyboarding is a complex craft that involves the ability to tell a story visually using both traditional drawing and also (increasingly) 3D skills.  Storyboard artists must also understand acting, performance, cinematography - and also have a sense of fun and entertainment about their work. Above all, they must learn to be clear.  Great board artists often become directors - storyboarding can be a route to the very top of our industry.

Success Stories
To see one of our recent Success Stories, read this post about Escapee Fred O'Rourke.

Official page
To find out more, take a look at the Escape Studios official storyboarding course page here.

Inspiration
Finally, to take a quick peek behind the scenes at Pixar, and see a story pitch by the late (and much-missed) Joe Ranft, one of Pixar's most talented storyboard artists, watch the video below. Storyboarding hasn't changed a whole lot in the years since it was pioneered at the Disney Studio in Burbank. It's still about story, story, story.




Official page
To sign up, find the official page here.

How to get ready
To prepare for this class, all you really need do is sharpen your pencils (soft pencils please, 2B or softer), and do some warm up sketches. You might do quick sketches of yourself, your friends, and (in general) the world around you. You should also consider learning the basics of Photoshop and also Adobe Premiere, both of which you will be using extensively in class.

Reading List
The main book on storyboarding that we recommend is Prepare to Board by Nancy Beiman. You can read more about it here

MA in Story & Previs
Finally, don't forget we are also running a new MA in Storyboarding and Previsualisation, starting in September 2019, for those who want to dig deeper into the story and previs skillset. 

The Escape Studios Animation Blog offers a personal view on the art of animation and visual effects. To find out more about our new BA/MArt, now recruiting for September 2019, follow this link.   To apply, visit the official page here.

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