Film Studies: 5 Tips to Get Started

Back in October I finished work on a project that took me more than two years: sketching out Terminator 2 in its entirety. Every day, before I began working, I’d do a single page of 12 panels, picking up where I left off the day before. At the steady pace of 12 panels per day I made my way through the entire film. And now it’s done: 438 pages, 5256 panels... So at this point, you might wonder if I’m insane, but to me sketching out complete movies is -by far- the best way to grow your visual storytelling skills and to study films. And I don’t understand why more people aren’t doing this.

I’ve written about these daily studies before, but because over time my process for doing these studies evolved I feel it is good to do this follow up post. 

So how does it work? First of all you’ll need a movie. I recommend to work with a digital copy that you can open in Quicktime, so that you can pause it and go back and forth one frame at a time. I don’t like working with streaming services for my studies because you can’t pause the film without getting pop-ups, there’s also the risk that the streamer will remove the movie before you made it to the end. 

Now print a stack of pages with empty panels on them. Don’t make the panels to big. I work on A4 sheets (similar to Letter) that each have 12 panels on them. Regular printer paper is fine but make sure it can handle the pens you’re going to use. 

And that's it, you’re ready to go! Hit play, when the first shot comes on pause the film and sketch it out. There are different levels of detail you can go to in the number of panels you sketch per shot. I try to sketch the beats, similar to how I’d break it up if this was a comic book. When you reach the last panel on your sheet, stop. Now look back at your sketches and think about the shots you’ve just studied. 

Below are five tips to help you make the most out of film studies. Try them out but feel free to adjust your proces to find what works best for you. 

Movies from the AFI Top 100

1. Study classic movies

The very first thing you will need to do is a select a movie to study. I always recommend to take a movie you love, since you’ll be spending a lot of time with it. Make sure you’ve actually watched the movie before starting to study it, it will allow you to better understand the creative choices that were made. 

It is best to choose a classic movie. Preferably one that’s at least 20 years old. (The AFI Top 100 is a good place to look if you need suggestions) "If you love a modern-day filmmaker, maybe instead of studying one of their movies, try to find out which films influenced them and study one of those.

Usually I have a specific reason for choosing a movie to study. With A very long Engagement I was interested in Jeunet’s style of storytelling and I liked the epic beauty of the movie, it seemed like it would be fun to draw. (and it was!) With Terminator 2 I wanted to break down an action movie and T2 is probably the greatest action movie ever made so it made sense to go with that one. 

I also think it is better not to study animated movies. With animation it is very tempting to get caught up in the visuals and instead of the visual storytelling you might get caught up in the character design or visual style. Also animated movies often try to replicate live-action, imperfections like blurs and flares or techniques like dolly zooms or split diopters -studying a live-action film will help you to understand how these live-action characteristics work and you’ll be able to use them in your animation boards too.  

Back in 2015 I tried to study Ratatouille but about 1 hour in I ran out of steam because I was focussing  too much on the visual style and the character designs instead of on the visual storytelling

2. Use frames with the correct Aspect Ratio

One of the most common mistakes I see when students do film studies is using the wrong aspect ratio, as in one that differs from the film you're studying. To properly study a film’s composition it is essential that your frames are the same aspect ratio as the movie. 

Aspect ration means the dimensions of the frame, common aspect ratios are 2.39:1, 1.85:1, 4:3 and 16:9. If you are studying a movie shot in 2.39 but you’re using 16:9 frames you’ll have to either warp or crop the composition to make it fit the panel. 

If you try to reframe this shot from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (2.35:1) into a 16:9 frame--

You either have to crop the image, losing information on the sides--

Or you need to warp the image to make it fit the frame, which will distort the original composition

If you have trouble eyeballing your film’s aspect ratio, you can always look it up on IMDB. It’s found under ‘Technical Specs’. You might find different aspect ratios being listed, this is often because they used to crop movies for TV. The ‘theatrical ratio’ is the one you’re looking for.  

With Photoshop it is very easy to make a panel in the correct size. First make a new document with the right dimensions. For instance for a 1.85:1 panel you could make a document of 185 by 100 pixels. You then enlarge the size to whatever you find comfortable. You stroke the edge of the canvas and you’ve got a panel. Now copy and paste it to letter or A4 sized document. Duplicate it until you got as many panels as you want and you’re good to go! 

3. Do your studies with ink on paper

Most of us work digital pretty much all the time now, right? And I know it is tempting to use a computer or tablet to do film studies, but in my opinion it’s better to do them traditional: working directly with ink on paper. First of all this is a good way to train being fast and decisive in your drawing. When we’re storyboarding we have to go fast, you get the idea down and move on. By working in ink there is no ‘undo’ option and you just have to keep going. 

These are the pens I primarily use for my film studies: a Uni-ball Eye Fine, a black Tombow Dual Brush Pen and a #3 Cool Gray Copic

I also believe that working traditional forces you to focus on the essence of the shot, instead of fussing over details. When it comes to these studies less is often more. If you’re working digital it is very tempting to redo lines until you get them just right and you will most likely use different tones and effects like blurring too. None of this is necessary. The primary objective of doing film studies is to grow your skills, sure it’s cool if you end up with some nice drawings to share on social media but that’s not the purpose. So don’t be afraid to do ugly drawings. Do it fast and try to understand how the different elements at display, (ie composition, staging, blocking, lighting, etc.) are being used. 

And finally it is just so satisfying to see the stack of studies grow as you make your way through a film. When you reach the final shot of your film it is such a kick to pick up this big pack of sketches and hold the entire film in your hand! 

The full stack of my T2 film studies: 438 pages

4. Keep it simple

Even when you’re working traditional it is very tempting to get caught up in detail. Most of us are drafts people at heart and the desire to do beautiful drawings is always there. This is actually another reason why I think doing film studies is such a great exercise for storyboard artists. Storyboards don’t need to be pretty; they need to be clear. And with these studies it’s the same. Don’t copy the frame, try to get the essence of a shot down in a single sketch instead. I don’t try to draw the characters but instead use the exercise as a way to develop a shorthand for the characters. 

You don't need to make things more complicated than this. Quick but clear drawings to capture the essence of the shot

I feel that all the drawing material you need is a regular pen to draw with, a bigger black marker or brush pen to block out shadows and -optionally- a grey marker to add some tones. But you only need to add tone for readability /clarity purposes. Again there is no need to get fancy. 

Now, in fact I did get fancy with some of my T2 studies. The reason for this was that I felt the color in some of the sequences was an integral part of the visual storytelling and so I needed to study its use too. This is an exception though and in all fairness I probably went a little too far with some of the colors I added. But then I was having fun with it and I feel that is an important aspect of the exercise too.

An example of getting fancy: usually you don't need this much color in your studies but I felt the yellow heat was an essential part of the visual storytelling (and I got some new markers that I really wanted to try out...)

5. Take your time

The first time I sketched out an entire movie I would do it in large chunks, sitting down for an hour and a half to sketch out a large amount of shots. This didn’t really work for me. It wasn’t much fun and these long sessions made it hard to really focus on the details of visual storytelling on display. Now when I do these, as daily warm up sessions, I don’t even think about making it to the end of the movie until I’m about 75% in. My objective is not to reach the end, it’s to study today’s shots. 

A Very Long Engagement has battle scenes with 100's of characters in the frame. By breaking it down in smaller portions, one page per day, I made my way through those scenes without losing my motivation.

I think it is important to break these studies down in smaller chunks while at the same time keeping up a rhythm. That’s why for me doing them as daily warm-ups works so well. It's a bit like how it works with Duolingo. If you do one or two chapters every day and you keep up with it, you can actually learn a language. But if you start doing three different languages at the same time, doing exercises for two hours straight, you'll probably burn out fast, and all you have learned is how to say 'the turtle needs a sandwich' in Swedish.

So take it slow. Focus on the exercise, not the results. And always remember to have fun!