STORYBOARD TO ANIMATION: AN APPROACH TO LAYOUT

These notes were prepared for Animation II at Pratt, a course dealing with design as both style and production strategy. They briefly cover storyboarding, then examine the process of converting a board into a production plan. Many processes covered below were developed in the animation industry where complex communication between specialists is essential. Generally I use conventional cartoon studio nomenclature, with a nod toward simplification and synthesis by a single artist. These notes are not meant to be a blueprint for layout, but an outline for thinking about layout.

STORYBOARD IN BRIEF
A storyboard is a plan for a film. It is both a project proposal and a map to follow through production. It is an essential tool for animators for it compels us to carefully think through our ideas with pictures and words, BEFORE launching our production. All storyboards consist of 3 elements: a sequence of pictures, a text describing the sequence action, and a text describing the audio.

The visual element may take many forms, from comic strips to scratchy thumbnails to index cards pinned on a wall. The panels may be of any size and method of drawing may vary widely, but the shape of the panel should follow the media format: 4:3 or widescreen. Generally the sequence of pictures will suggest a temporal development which will in itself be interpreted as a story.

The narrative description, similar to camera direction, should “take the viewer through” the sequence, describing what happens within each panel AND between each panel. If enough panels are drawn the action may be explicit enough to make lengthy narration unnecessary. The addition of notational arrows and action lines can also serve to describe the action.

The audio text might be spoken dialog, voice over, or music. Including this channel will suggest how rhythm will affect the flow of images, how characters will communicate, or how a voiceover narrator will interpret the image, or “tell the story.”

How many panels are needed to propose animation? For a fast moving, short piece like a 30 second TV spot one might make as many as one panel per second. For longer forms fewer panels will work. While there are no absolute rules it is generally considered wise to make more rather than less and edit out superfluous drawings at a later point. From panel to panel any change in venue, camera angle (POV), or other discontinuity must be explained by image, word, or notation (e.g. “Cut to longshot”).

A presentation board, as the name implies, should be “cleaned up” drawings suggesting the final design (color and line). A shooting or production board should be a more thorough brakdown of each individual scene but the drawing might be rougher.

STORYBOARD TO LAYOUT
OK, let’s assume you have made a storyboard for a short film. You have talked your way through it with your teacher or client. Now you have to start making the film. This may seem to be a daunting task but remember you have already thought about most of the elements, perhaps unconsciously, when you made the storyboard; now you have to organize these elements into a coherent production plan. In addition to the board you may have a soundtrack of music or voice, either final or scratch track, which will provide a temporal guide for layout.

ANIMATIC
This is a film of static images (and is sometimes called a “board-o-matic” or “leica reel”) based entirely on the storyboard, edited to the track or to an arbitrary rhythm. It is a helpful step for determining issues of duration and framing, which will impact on layout. In its more advanced form an animatic might be produced AFTER layout in order to test fielding, moves, keyframes, and pacing.


WHAT IS LAYOUT?
Layout is the macro-organization of time and space in an animated production. It entails decisions about scene breakdown, exactly what is visible within the scene, how long the scene lasts, and generally what happens within the scene. In most respects it corresponds to the role of Direction, while animation is like the interpretive role of the Acting. Layout focuses attention on the final form of the animated film, its length, tempo, and relationship of image to sound. The layout process involves 5 interrelated tasks.

1. SCENE BREAKDOWN
A scene consists of all artwork necessary to create the action in a particular place, as defined by the background. As such it corresponds to the live action camera “shot” or “clip.” If the background is the same throughout the whole film (e.g. action drawn in limbo, on white paper) the artwork might still be broken up into scenes as characters exit or enter the space, when the camera point of view changes, or when other discontinuities occur. Scenes are very helpful to keep the project organized: One folder per scene holds all the artwork (further subdivided into layer folders), layouts, and exposure sheets. If a mistake is made in one scene only that scene needs to be fixed, not the whole film.

Even if you are planning an experimental, non-narrative film without characters, you should use scenes to breakdown the project. And if your concept calls for a continuous action, an unbroken flow from beginning to end, it would still be smart to plan for editing by establishing subtle discontinuities, much as did Alfred Hitchcock, in his film, Rope.

There are many rules governing the laws of cinematic continuity which will become clear when you witness the montage of your scenes in a movie; some sequences will seamlessly flow together while others will seem abrupt and choppy. Each style serves a purpose if approached with a proper degree of intentional artistry: one generation’s mistake become another’s signature style.

2. FIELDING
Fielding acts like a camera’s eye: cropping, tilting, expanding the view. It may exclude or include parts of the artwork through a succession of static shots or through a dynamic movement among various fields. Even though an animation stand is not now necessary to shoot artwork it does help to understand the camera-based process of fielding.

A field guide is a template for the final delivery format (film, video, web) broken down into a grid 12” wide by 9” high, for a 4:3 ratio format (wide screen formats such as anamorphic, 2:1, or HDTV, 16:9, would be shorter). Cels and paper are traditionally cut to 12 1/2” X 10 1/4” to fit the field guide and have a common center for top and bottom pegs. Even though most animation can be drawn on smaller paper (11 X 8 1/2 or even smaller) it is still good practice to create a transparent field guide, ruled with ink on a cel. The actual field size is defined by its width, e.g. a “four field” is 4” wide.

In the traditional cartoon studio the field guide is the essential link between camerawork and artwork, processes handled by different teams of people. By indicating the field size and coordinates the layout artist defines without ambiguity the exact framing of the scene. 8 F/C means 8 field center, or 8F,0,0; 6F,2N,5E is a field 6 inches wide offset from center, 2 fields up and 5 fields to the right. Think of the field size as the Z or zoom value, X for vertical, Y for horizontal, corresponding to the points on the compass. Field guides are so important many animators and layout artists keep one down on their lightbox permanently, below their paper layers.

Note: Some animators refer to a pencil drawing of the scene with a color line describing the precise field as a “field guide,” while others call this a “layout.” Still other animators separate the color field template from the scene’s elements. It is standard practice to distinguish between a visible element (graphite line), a notational element like a match line or arrow (blue line), and a field reference (red line).

The field guide is used to frame the scene by enlarging mechanically, redrawing, or possibly rethinking the storyboard panel, which may have been created as a rough. When framing the scene particular attention must be paid to TV and projector safety areas (these may even be indicated on special field guides). For a consistent look it is standard practice to use the same field for all scenes, even if it means redrawing the panel. This will insure that line thickness and other details will remain constant. Conventional studio practice led to the use of a “12 field” standard, though Disney often resorted to a “16 field” for scenes filled with details (many small characters) which had to look look tight even after enlargement.

If your paper dimensions are 11 X 8 1/2 you are limited to a maximum field size of 10 inches. But the question of ideal field size must also reflect the ease of drawing the scene, its complexity, detail, and final design. By drawing in a very small field you may give up some control but the line may be looser, and the character of the media (paper, ink, etc.) may become a creative ingredient.

The simplest version of fielding would entail using a zooming copier to enlarge the storyboard panel to the appropriate size to fit the field, taping it to a pegged sheet, then tracing the drawing in black, lining the field in red. When executing this stage you should consider layering (see below) to avoid redundant tracing. When you draw this Layout you should identify it clearly at pegged margin by noting the Scene Number and the Layout Number, e.g. “Sc.” and “LO.1.”

Fielding critically defines the window or framing for the artwork. It places pictorial elements within the frame where they acquire a kind of visual meaning: e.g. elements on the edge of the frame are literally marginalized, pushed off center stage, thus of less importance. And because of format irregularities the actual edge of the frame cannot be precisely defined so it is wise to avoid using it for significant action or design. On the other hand if playing with the frame’s edge is part of your concept you can create your own frame within the format’s boundary.

FIELD DYNAMICS
What if you want to have more than one field in a scene? You simply draw and identify each field in red. If the time needed to change from one field to another equals zero that would be considered a cut. Panning from one field to another can be indicated by drawing an arrow from the start to the end position. If a zoom occurs concurrently the field sizes should so indicate. Complex field dynamics are a good argument for separating artwork from layout diagram.

3. EDITING
Careful study of the storyboard panels determines where the scene breaks occur. If 2 or 3 adjacent panels seem like a “shot,” with the same background, they belong in the same scene. If you have drawn 2 panels with different backgrounds that are meant to be linked with a continuous pan or camera move they are still components of a single scene.

If the board indicates a medium shot of two characters, then a close-up of one of the characters, that should be a scene change, even if the background is a flat color. Yes, that close-up could be achieved with the same artwork re-fielded tighter (e.g. cutting from 12F/C to 6F/6W), so you could consider it a continuation of the same scene but there would be an obvious discontinuity (lines thicker, possible texture increase, etc.). So, make a new scene. You can enlarge or reduce the layout and make a “match cut.”

The soundtrack is analyzed and written syllabically on the exposure sheets which are then segmented into scenes (often by physically cutting and pasting, with a cumulative frame count). If the board is carefully composed scene editing can be quite mechanical, particularly when following conventional rules of seamless continuity. Cutting sheets with dialog can present the layout process with interesting alternatives to the traditional conventions of “he said, she said” or “close-up, reverse-angle.”

4. LAYERING
The storyboard panel is deconstructed as a scene composed of vertical space containing multiple layers, traditionally back, middle, foreground, and all other layers containing characters, props, effects. Even if the final artwork will be redrawn or rendered into one layer, layering can assist the process by dividing the overall scene into manageable tasks delegated to various studio teams, or allowing a single artist to work on isolated elements piecemeal. The layout artist determines what elements will animate and what will be static, and separates each as a layer on pegged paper. If an element has a unique operation within the scene’s action it must occupy its own layer. In the Dark Ages of acetate cels a limit of 5 layers forced layout to perform many fancy tricks of layer conservation; today digital layering is limitless and even thrives on redundancy.

To reconcile the demands of production efficiency with the esthetic concerns of character acting a wide range of possibility exists for layering figurative animation: a single layer with every element redrawn, as in a run cycle, or multiple layers for body, head, mouth, and eyes. Even a walk cycle can separate the animating legs from a body layer, as in the stylized cartoons from the 50’s (“limited” animation).

What if you want to have a line that’s always moving, even when the figure is at rest, so it ever so slightly breathes or wiggles. A hold cycle will do the trick, and for a character who is talking the mouth and other features can be momentarily separated from the wiggle cycle then recombined. Layering can be a huge labor-saving asset for even the most primitive designs.

As with Layouts, so it is with every piece of pegged paper in the scene: it must be identified. The most enduring convention calls for layers to be identified by a letter corresponding to its stacking order, followed by a number corresponding to its sequence order, e.g. A.04 would be the fourth drawing in a sequence, on the top layer. Notice that my example uses a lead zero after the decimal; this insures that a computer will understand the proper order up to 99.

WHAT ARE KEY DRAWINGS?
Unlike panels of a storyboard which also contain backgrounds, Key Drawings are of the characters alone, drawn to scale, in key poses which define attitude and placement within the space. In one sense they are “inbetween” the storyboard panels, yet they are creative acts of invention and interpretation, expanding initial gestures into total choreography. Within the process of sequence drawing they are the armature for blocking action. The distinction between Key and Extreme is rather arbitrary, and depends on just how far layout concerns itself with the micro issues of animation. A Key is a pose held long enough for the character to read; it is generally a climax in dramatic action and demands consideration of timing issues: duration, acceleration, and deceleration. But if the character’s action is complex enough, with multiple poses, there may be a need for further breakdowns before inbetweening to establish the paths of anatomical motion.

A layout artist might do no more than redraw the character to scale, placed within the field, perhaps with layers separated depending on the action. Or if the artist is acting more as the director she will begin to breakdown the poses and think about character development within the timeframe, i.e. she will begin to animate.

5. TIMING THE EXPOSURE SHEET
Until now we have dealt with only one of the Storyboard’s 3 elements- image. Now we will focus on organizing these images in time, with sound.
The Exposure Sheet is a combination spreadsheet and timeline. This document is THE essential link between sequence drawings and the technical apparatus which synthesizes them into animation, either a camera or computer. This is the script of commands and specifications for the animation; it imparts meaning and guidance to the amassed artwork.

The conventional exposure sheet contains 80 lines one for each frame and from 6 to 12 columns depending on the number of layers. These specs are limited by the size of paper it is printed on and the aforementioned cel level limit. 80 frames fit on 5 feet of 35mm film, the unit by which studio animators were paid. At 24 frames per second this would allow for 3.3 seconds per sheet. When the scene breakdown is complete each scene is allotted its share of frames, its share of the animation.

Each column contains significant data for the timing of the scene. Moving from left to right they might contain all or most of the following:
1. Running frame count, sometimes called a dial number.
2. Running narrative description of the action, sometimes punctuated with ideograms, effects like explosions or pops, etc.
3. Analyzed voice track, one for each character.
4. Analyzed music track or click track indicating rhythm, tempo.
6-12 Cel levels; usually a maximum of 5, with a couple of “extras” engineered by ingenious camera operators.
13. Background level.
14. Top peg data.
15. Bottom peg data.
16. An oversized column containing Camera Instructions, detailed Layout positions indicating dynamics with beginning and end points, with notes or diagrams for easing. In other words this column contains all the details for XYZ coordinates in time.

You may ask, “Do I really need all this stuff?” The answer depends on the complexity of your project, the number of people working on it, and the likelihood that you will have to redo or alter any of the work during production. Even when you are doing everything yourself you need to keep track of things and plan for catastrophic events, like camera malfunctions, hard disk failure, and the common, neurotic behavior of a hyper-logical, stupid computer.

The Exposure Sheet then may be no more than a note on the folder that the drawing sequence is to be timed on 3’s at 8 F/C, with a Layout indicating exactly what you mean by 8 F/C. But once you start working with more than one layer, or alternating linear sequencing with cycling, or synchronizing to sound, or coordinating field dynamics with sequence drawing, the need for a full XS is clear, even if you use only a portion of it for your scene.

A WORD ABOUT DIGITAL SCALING
All of the above elements, having been broken into constituent parts for production, must return to a complete final composition for rendering into the final medium. Traditionally this meant being drawn and painted on the same size of paper or cel, with a field guide indicating camera position. With digital production, scaling may not occur until the final render, and each layer may be scaled independently, even pre-rendered for further compositing. Thus, within a digital composition sized for video resolution (720 X 540 square pixels) there may be layers of any size, much larger than the comp size, extending beyond the visible frame, or much smaller, floating within the frame.

LAYOUT
To sum up, layout of a film consists of breaking down the storyboard into scenes. Each scene contains all graphic elements, such as characters, props, and grounds, separated into layers, with the framing indicated by a layout drawing. Character elements are broken down into key poses, perhaps with the anatomy split into layers, with macro timing noted on the exposure sheet. The exposure sheet is organized as an outline for the final sequencing and compositing, which will be the task of the animator.

George Griffin 8/02