Mélody Cisinski: Tabata Storyboard Workout

On her tumblr Pixar story artist Mélody Cisinski posted a fantastic essay with storyboard advice, tips and exercises. You might remember the great post she did on filmstudies, using a scene from Hitchcock’s Notorious as a case study, a post that I also shared on this blog. 

Now in collecting pearls of story wisdom on this blog, I sometimes feel the need to do some minor editing. For instance f I put a series of tweets together, I will usually remove the typical social media elements like emoticons and smiley faces. Likewise when I do a transcript of a video or podcast I will edit out superfluous you knows, rights and things like that. 

But in this case I went a lot further with my editing. If I’m not mistaken the information in this essay originally was a series of posts on the French story forum that Mélody runs. Because of this (probably) I found the form of the original tumblr post somewhat unclear at times. There were also a few cases where I felt that the original French text was not completely correctly translated. And so I went ahead and heavily edited the tumblr post. I think this edited version is probably 90% accurate, but there might be one or two cases where I misinterpreted the intended meaning of the original text. 

I edited this text without permission by the author, which I admit is a pretty blunt thing to do, especially since English is not my native language either. The main reason that I did it anyway, is that by editing the essay I really got to understand what Mélody was saying. It is basically an analysis of her post, not unlike the way you could analyze a scene from a film. 

I would encourage you to visit Mélody Cisinski’s tumblr to read the original post as well, and also take a look at her awesome webcomic, which is where the images in this post come from. If you are good at writing and understanding French you could also try to become a part of her earlier mentioned French story forum. Lastly you can read a (French) interview with Mélody here, about her work on Incredibles II. 

Mélody Cisinski: Tabata Crossfit Storyboard /Writing Training

I would like to share with you my latest storyboard method. A method that I have previously developed on my French forum. 

I’m still learning myself, I do not pretend this is the ultimate truth or the perfect method. But I see so much bullshit on the internet about storyboarding, so why not add some of my own bullshit and maybe it can help some people.

This is a method from a wonderful world, a world where you start with a good script -which is very rare in real life. Let’s just say that you use this method on your own script first, and remember that in real productions not all of the below will always be possible. 

Anyway . . .

As of now this method is still a work in progress. It constantly evolves, because I make mistakes and learn a lot all the time. Everybody has a different personal approach, you must find your own. These are tools, not rules! 

At the end I have included some cool exercises so you can train your skills, if you want.

• 1. Read the script carefully.
  Try to understand what is going on behind the dialogues. What do the characters really want? What do they really get at the end of the sequence?
  
• 2. Make notes in the margins of the script.
  What is the most interesting point of view in the sequence? It can jump from one character to another, depending of the dialogue. The most interesting point of view to show can change at any second, any dialogue in the sequence. Please see my article about the movie Notorious where I specifically analyze this point.
  
• 3. Do not just try to illustrate the script, but try to improve on it.
  Describe the psychology of the characters in the sequence. Everything in storytelling is starting from the characters. Ask yourself, what is the intention of this dialogue? Then ask yourself, what is the most interesting way to show this? How will you create life from the script? How will you create sequence where characters really have a life and are not just illustrating the sequence? In general a good tip would be to add a strong context to the sequence, if it is not there already. Be specific and concrete in your description of this context, this way it will be believable.
  
  Example: Two guys talk to each others about some deal, selling some stuff. but for some reason you know they hate each other. Now the dialogue will be perfectly normal, but how will you show that they hate each other? That’s your job. That is not explained in the script. You must think about it and write it down. And then you can add context. Like, maybe they are in the subway or they are walking in a corridor at the airport before a flight. Of course you can add context randomly, it depends on the whole movie you are doing, but if the context is not clear, try to discuss with the head of story how to add a specific one.
  
• 4. Use your own relationships when you imagine the sequence
  Base the characters in the script on your own relationships, or relationships you’ve noticed in your life experience, from people you know. Don’t be explicit of course, but the more you use your own experience based on people who really exist, the more credibility you will add to the sequences you storyboard. Use your own personal memories to create consistent sequences, with specific details and credible moments of life.
  
• 5. Visualize the sequence without immediately thinking about the camera.
  If it’s useful, don’t hesitate to draw a map of the sequence. Include the background (create the background and in a narrative way, please) and set up where the characters are and where they walk, why they walk there, and what they are doing in the sequence. Because characters are not only saying the dialogues, they live for real in the sequence. Without thinking about any camerawork. Instead think in a theater way: think scenography, staging, blocking. Think from the character, if there is a bad guy, how he is sitting, moving, walking, behaving with other characters. Is he dominating? Is he afraid? Anything. If you can not picture him in in your head, that means you are not ready to storyboard.
  
  To learn more about scenography go to see the theatre play and watch “who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf” and read this in preparation https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/371193.Lessons_With_Eisenstein
  
• 6. Before drawing, remember that cinematography is a language
  Film is a language, with words and grammar that we can use as tools. And in order to write a rich meaningful story we can’t just use some of them, but we must use all of the tools we can!
  
  There are visual tools like camera moves, background design, actors acting, special effects, colors, tones, shades, natural elements like rain or wind, and there is also the no-moves-at-all, and the rhythm of the shots.
  
  There are also audio tools: the sound of cinema. The sound design of what is happening in the movie, the choice to make it noisy, or not. The choice to insert sounds that are not show on the screen, there is the score, there are the voices, the nuances of the voice and the tone of the voice, silence also is a tool.
  
  The best way to learn about all this is to watch a ton on movies.
  
• 7. Never forget that you must allow the characters to live their life.
  Follow who they are. Make them tell what they have to tell.  That way they will be consistent. Put yourself in their head, constantly. If you don’t see the character yet, that means he still needs to be developed more. So find something interesting in him, tell yourself his story. Then come back to your sequence.
  
• 8. You can only create emotion by being genuine.
  So you really have to commit to the sequence: visualize it in your head before drawing, imagine if it’d work in real life, with real people. If not you will repeat cliches. This is very very important and very hard to do.
  
• 9. Do very quick thumbnails on paper.
  In your notebook draw a vertical storyboard, notes in the side line, rework them as much as you need, and keep it very, very rough. Imagine the intention of the shot but not necessary do it very specifically.
  
  Do your thumbnails in the following way:
  
  One shot = one panel. Three panels if it is a long shot with important acting. Do not animate, you are not an animator and yes it is fancy and trendy but it is also useless to do animation in storyboards. If you can not sell your shot in one panel, if you can not sell your posing in one panel, that means it is not well thought out. It is not me who said that, it’s Brad Bird.
  
  You draw and decide the composition for the last frame of the shot. Not the first. Try to find clarity, we need to understand your shot in one frame.
  
  Ask yourself the what and why of the shot you are doing? Is it a close up? If so, why? What do you want to show with it? Is the next shot is a wide shot? Why? Could you combine the two shots together in one shot? Why? What I mean is, what is your point of view? Why and when do you use a neutral point of view and when do you use a character’s point of view? To answer these questions, you really must understand what the intention is in the sequence, what the subtext of the sequence is, what is really going on, what is the journey and plot of each character in this sequence.
  
  Every sequence has to have a meaning in the whole story, it must push the story forward. If you don’t feel that push, find it, ask your head of story or, if it’s your own script, ask yourself: what is the purpose of this sequence. You really can not save a sequence that has no purpose, unless you go off from it.
  
  All of these questions can be answered only if you watch a ton of movies. Movies, not useless tv-shows. I m talking about real masterpieces, cinematographic movies. So, before anything else, work on your cinematographic language skills by watching movies!
  
  To improve your storyboarding a lot, always try to question yourself about every piece of information you want to tell in a shot. How can you reveal them in the most entertaining way? Study Brad Bird ‘s movies, or Hitchcock movies, or David Lean movies with that purpose.
  
  All of these questions can be answers if you have the purpose that I suggested you to get before drawing. What is the point of view, is the most important question. It will lead you to what you want to show to the audience. Storyboarding is about telling the story from the best point of view at every moment of the sequence you are doing. 
• 10. I draw many, many passes of my thumbnails.
  I do maybe 5 passes in total, more if needed. All the time, keep rewatching your sequence, pitch it to yourself over and over again, pitch it out loud: try to be your own audience. I think a lot and draw very little. What I draw, I draw in black and white, no fancy brushes. This way  I can very easily add or remove panels.
  
• 11. I redraw everything on computer then, and pre-layout everything.
  I am aware that it is a slow method, but it forces me to think more with every pass. But of course ultimately my goal is to think without drawing and to draw the right pannel directly in Photoshop.
  
  With ‘pre-layout’ I mean that I very carefully draw the characters in space and again, when I’m doing that I m still at only one panel a shot. So I can very carefully structure the composition, the scenography and the staging. Of course if the lighting is a storytelling tool in a shot I also draw the lighting.
  
• 12. Only after the first review with the Head of Story and the director do I start to develop my shots.
  In order to save energy, both mine and theirs.
  
  By developing the shots I mean being careful with the transitions. it must be motivated by something.
  
  Ask yourself when to show information and how to show it. How to reveal the info is the key. You can learn that only by watching a ton of great movies.
  
  Be very careful with the space of the sequence.
  Having a great sense of the space of the sequence is the key to move the camera in the right way.
  
  Avoid the cut as much as possible. Always ask yourself if two shots could be better in one?
  
  Rythm: slow shots and quick shots, wide shots and close shots. The rythm is visual in cinema and not only about music. Think like an editor, watch videos about editing, you must think about your panels in a video mode, not an illustration mode. This is especially difficult if you are coming from a comic book background, like me . . .
  
  The 180 degree is a TOOL not a RULE. When required, just forget about it. The most important thing is to not loose your audience. Try to make the audience look at the same area from the last frame of your shot to the next one. That’s the key, especially if you are in a fast editing mode, like in a fight.

BASICS EXERCISES:

• 1. First watch 200 movies a year. Read books, study history, go to theatre, travel, study anything but cinema. Force yourself to discover new movies, any kind, any country, any period, in any context. Even 30 minutes of a movie one day and the rest the morning after. Just dive into cinema, not tv shows, not only animation.
  
  I love tv shows, I love manga, but storyboarding is about making movies. Animation is cinema. If you only watch Miyazaki movies you will be limited, because this guy has watched a ton of classic movies, and read a ton of books. Same for Spielberg, I love Spielberg, but how can you understand this great artist if you don’t study the same things he studied? Plus cinema is about the meaning first and form second. If we do not educate ourselves, we can not tell anything interesting, no matter how talented we are.
  
• 2. Read some books on screenwriting, because you must understand some tools from  the language of scenario and scenography. My personal reference  but there are many other great ones of course, are Story by Mc Kee and Lessons with Eisenstein . For me they are basics, efficient.
  
• 3. Analyze a lot of movies like 10 or 12 a year like I did here . It helped me a lot believe me.
  
  I recommend to study movies from Hitchcock, for example: Notorious, Vertigo, The Lodger, Strangers on a Train . . . , well, every one of them really. Also David Lean’s movies: Brief Encounter, Hobson’s Choice, Lawrence of Arabia. Jim Jarmusch’s Strangers in Paradise, Kieslowsky’s Three Colors Blue and Dekalog. Every film by Kurosawa, especially Rashomon, The Bad Sleep Well, Yojimbo, Seven Samurai and Akahige.  Everything by Kubrick,. Spielberg: Munich, Schindler’s List, Indiana Jones, Jaws, E.T. And also Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf, The Conformist, All that Jazz, Battleship Potemkin, The Grapes of Wrath, Hud, Ben Hur, Midnight Cowboy, Amadeus . . .
  
• 4. Work on getting good drawing skills. Facial acting, posing, but most important: pushing skills in layout. Drawing characters in space is the most important. Get a great sense of perspective, lenses: space is essential. So training in layout is a great great idea.
  
  Don’t be lazy about learning cinematography or if you are, don’t pretend it is good enough. Don’t be satisfied with drawing a funny cartoon. If you are, that’s allright but don’t pretend you are doing cinema and be humble. Cartoon and cinema are not the same level of standards.
  
  Learning the cinematography of Japanese anime is a great essential key but it should not be your goal. It’s not enough, it is nothing compared to live-action cinema. If you want to stay in the third league, that’s totally fine, but don’t pretend you are as good as the first league, please.
  
  I am still learning a lot every day, I am not at all satisfied with my own level, believe me. But I improve all the time because the more I learn about storytelling, the more  I know that I know nothing. Watching a ton of old movies is the key, learn from the best directors: Hitchcock, Kubrick, Lean, Spielberg, Kieslowsky, Wrong Kar Wai, Kurosawa . . . Cinema must be your hardcore drug-addiction.

Cool Training Exercise #1: 

Introduction of a character.

(3 weeks. 10h a day, 6 days per week.)

Analyzing, writing, storyboarding, 25 shots maximum per sequence.

- First week: study 5 introductions of character in your favorite movies. Good or evil characters. Make a list of what is going on in the sequence. What do the clothes tell about the character. What about his physical acting? How does he react to a difficult situation? How do the other characters behave and react when seeing or interacting with him?

To study introduction of character I recommend you to study : 

- Hud, from the movie named Hud 

- Schindler’s list (Schindler himself, and the Nazi chef too, eventually)

- All that Jazz (the main character)

- Indiana Jones, in the first one

- Terminator 2 (The Terminator, Sarah Connor, T-1000)

- Amadeus (Salieri)

- Midnight Cowboy (the title character and his buddy Dustin Hoffman)

- Silence of the lambs (Clarice)

Don’t analyze the sequence by describing what you see, but try to understand what are the tools used in this sequence to tell the story. In other words, it is like identifying the ingredients in the cake and not describing the appearance of the cake.

For example: Pirates of the Caribbean
Jack Sparrow is proud of his shitty boat as it falls apart into the sea. He acts like a captain no matter what, he never panics, he never feels ashamed. Other characters are surprised and don’t know what to say. He is wearing old pirate clothes, he has a very extravert style. All of these details introduce an extravert guy, who doesn’t care about what other people think of him. He is free and comfortable with himself, no matter what. Every element that is used to introduce him tells us this. His behavior in a difficult situation, the behavior of the others character upon seeing him, his clothes, his environment, his acting . . .

- Week 2 & 3: storyboarding, only pre-layout thumbnails: no clean-up. Do two storyboards. One intro of a movie’s protagonist, one intro of a movie’s antagonist. Design them in sketch-form. One of the intros of the characters must be made without the character itself being present at the beginning. Like people are talking about him, or we can see him in a newspaper, or whatever. But the guy must appear at the end of the sequence. Find an interesting context for these intros. How a character reacts in a certain context is a good way to introduce him. How he interacts with others is a context. What he looks like, how he behaves, his accessories, his hair, his clothes, all of this is a context too, of course.

Cool training exercise #2 

In two or three 3 weeks, create a sequence between two characters who meet after not seeing each other for six months. They used to love each other but did not talk about it six months ago. They missed each other. Now they meet again.

Put them in a context where they cannot really talk, only small talk, bullshit dialogues. Like maybe one of them is working in a store or a coffee shop, or they meet in a train station, or they meet in a loud big party with a bunch of other people, or they meet while they both have a new girlfriend or boyfriend, or only one of them has got one, . . . etc.

Play with the bullshit dialogue and show the subtext of this relationship, the reality of it. Through their eyes, the tiny subtle facial expressions. At the end they split-up again, but you must show their mixed feelings. Through their eyes, or through something they do, through an iconic tool, a color, or anything you want that can be a good symbol. 

You cannot do this  kind of exercise if you haven’t watched a ton of movies and studied them first. I really do not recommend to do them without having invested a lot of time to studying movies. I recommend you to study movies full time during 1 month minimum. I advice you to read my study of Notorious.

Cool Training Exercise #3 

A man surviving in the hostile nature for three days. No dialogue at all. It can be because of an airplane crash, or any other reason why he is lost. How does he survive, show his life. The cold, the heat , his hunger, how he gets his food, but more than that: show his journey. What is his story. Why he is here, what does he miss? Is he lonely? Is he afraid? Is he focused on surviving? Is he strong or weak? Tell the story you want but show something real.