Feature animation storyboards
Creating feature animation storyboards are unique in that the drawings are used extensively as the tool for molding and designing the story. The story department in feature animation is one of the most important, since decisions made within the story department will affect the whole production. Storyboards may be produced all throughout the production, with story adjustments being made even near the last few months.
The real emphasis with these drawings is story design and construction. There may be a finished script, but the story artist has far more freedom to offer dialogue suggestions and change details of a story to enhance it.
There is an effort in feature animation to work as a team, to produce the best story possible under the close guidance of the director. Drawings are produced with the intention of creating an animatic reel.
Thousands of images will be produced over the course of a production, as scenes will be worked and reworked until they feel right. The level of detail may vary greatly, since even last-minute thumbnails could make it into the animatic reel.
The true value of the drawings is not their beautiful execution, but the communication of the story point. Nevertheless, a feature story artist position is incredibly demanding, requiring both top-notch drawing skills and story knowledge.
Arrows are rarely used to describe the action in feature animation, as each beat and camera move is documented with multiple poses. It is not a priority to create drawings that are “on model,” since the animators will create the final look of the characters. Story beats and acting are important however, since these drawings will serve as the foundation for the animators.
Animatics and Continuity Boards
The target in most animated feature storyboards is to create a working animatic story reel. This requires continuity storyboards or shooting boards that describe every shot and every beat within the shot. With these storyboard images you have a complete flow of each camera angle that is suitable to hand off to the other departments to use as reference to shoot the movie. An edited video reel with temporary dialogue and music, called an animatic, can be created using continuity boards. TV and feature Animation productions will also produce continuity boards for use with an animatic or as the blueprint for the animation. To make for better hookups, less arrows are used and instead more poses are added to describe the action.
