Storyboarding Glossary:

(line art by JH, color by K. Garletts, Express Visuals)

We're getting down to the end, you guys. The last major topic in the book is storyboarding. I want to give you an early start on the terminology, because there is a lot of it. Much of it comes from the world of film, and is helpful in talking about comics as well as storyboarding.

I'll put it flatly: You need to understand the methods and terminology of storyboarding to have career mobility in animation. Relatively few people are so good at their specialty (e.g., character design, backgrounds) that they can work all year in just that area. It pays to be a generalist, especially if you want to be a director. So: you need to know and use these terms.

So, without further finger-waggling, the first of three installments of the storyboarding glossary:

ANIMATES (as in "BG animates")-- v., Used to denote when an element that one might expect to be fixed art, like background, moves in way that requires it to be redrawn (several times for each second of screen time).

ANTIC = Anticipation-- In animation, the action just before the main action, e.g., the backswing of a golf swing or a punch. Or a person might hunch down in their seat before jumping up in alarm.

BG = Background

BG Pans-- In animation, this term is used when a moving object, such as a car, retains a relatively fixed location in the frame, while the background moves past behind it. Familiar to all viewers of Hanna-Barbera cartoons, whose BGs would pan through cyclically over and over in the same shot.

CRANE SHOT-- A shot in which the camera moves freely over the subject in any direction by virtue of being positioned on a crane. Crane shots are often used at the end of movies to pull up and away from the subject, in order to put him in context in the larger world.

CU = Closeup-- A shot framed around the subject's head. See the text, p.210, for an example.

DOLLY SHOT-- A shot during which the camera rolls, such a tracking shot.

DS = Downshot-- Shot in which the camera is aimed down toward the subject (compare Upshot).

ECU = Extreme Closeup-- A shot so tightly framed it shows less than the full head. Shots that show tight closeups of small important objects are also ECUs.

EST SHOT = Establishing shot-- A WIDE SHOT (see) used to give an overview of setting and situation.

EXT = Exterior Shot-- (compare INT)

FIFO = Fade In, Fade out-- Also known as a lap dissolve, connotes time passing.

FOFI = Fade Out, Fade In-- A transition that leaves the screen black briefly, connoting more time passing.

FG = Foreground

HOOK UP-- In animation, when an action begun in one shot is continued from the same instant in the following shot. Action must match.

INT = Interior shot (compare EXT)

INTO SC = Into Scene-- Used when a character or object moves into the frame under its own power, i.e., not due only to camera movement, after the shot has begun.

JH

Off topic 2: The Reckoning with Moving Folds

JH

Off Topic: Folds in action

Everything looks better in pixels than print...

Here are these, less brutally cropped than in my recent handout for ILL 625.

JH

How does it look from your standpoint?

Well, it's been a while. I apologize for that.
You may have heard me say that everything is "situational" in perspective. That's my weak way of expressing that, if you move where you're standing--your station point--a short distance in any direction, your view of the world changes. A lot, sometimes. If, before you moved, you were halfway done drawing what lay in front of you, after you moved, you would have to either return to your original station point or redo. The way the world looks is dependent on where you stand.

One example I used of this effect was the challenges facing the matte painter in pre-digital Hollywood. If he or she wasn't precise about matching the horizon and vanishing points of the painting to the film footage, the result would risk not fooling the eye. Above is an example from The Art of The Empire Strikes Back, painted by Ralph McQuarrie himself. You can see, in the first jpeg, the painting alone. The second shows a frame of composited footage. Comparing, you can see that the lower part of the Millennium Falcon was actually a physical set--with live steam, no less. Only the upper part was painted. Talk about an exact match.

How about this European sidewalk artist, Julian Beever? This is a better demo, I think, of the primacy of station point. Note that, seen from the wrong end, Beever's work is wildly distorted, almost unidentifiable.
But seen from the planned-for station point, the art creates a dizzying illusion. How does he know how to distort the art so that it looks right from the station point? That question imagines the cart before the horse. It's not about abstruse calculations. The station point is wherever he set up his digital projector, evidently at about waist level, the night before. Projecting a sketch of the piece, he presumably creates a simplified, paint-by-numbers outline of it, on the sidewalk, under cover of night. Or so I assume. Call me a cynic.

JH