Unit04_ Making Storyboard based on Thumbnails

Although I made the initial basement of story for the animation, the storyboard was not made by only me. I made storyboard based on the thumbnails that were created by Chia-en and Jian-tao.

This was drawn based on 1st part of the script and I should draw the expression of beginning of their communication with Discord. Showing digital conversation was little bit difficult because I had to draw it to be understood by audience as well as other team mates who would make it in 3D. So, I decided to express their online conversation by adding a little cartoon expression.

When I was making the storyboard, I first decided how I would draw the beginning and end of the animation. Considering the background of the Ice Age, I thought of drawing a city in a snowstorm and a house covered by an avalanche. The beginning of the animation drawn in the sketchbook was a scene of a newspaper flying about an Ice Age era. However, as many movies start with a high-angle shot of buildings in the beginning and first introduce the spatial background of the story to the audience, I drew an additional scene from an angle looking down on the buildings with snow falling.

In the second page of the sketchbook where the storyboard was drawn, there is a scene where Min is surprised, embarrassed, and happy when he receives a reply from Brian. In order to show these emotions of Min through his eyes, I zoomed in on the scene where his eyes grow wide and drew the scene where he goes from surprise to happiness.

However, I thought that the eyes alone would have limitations in effectively showing emotions, so I felt the need to modify it to a front view of Min from the monitor's perspective (sitting on a chair in front of a desk, showing only his upper body + widened eyes + opened eyes), and I reflected this in the modifications made to the 2D animation work. And to express that they are talking through Discord, I drew their conversation like speech bubbles in a cartoon. Also, in order to express that they are connected even though they are in different places, I drew their monitors as if they were connected.

This is the scene where we hear news about Blizzard on the radio. This is also the part where the tension and anxiety in the story begin to build. When the voice comes out of the radio, the center of the screen is zoomed in with subtitles to maximize the sense of gravity. The scene of listening to the radio broadcast is shot at a high angle in the middle of the room to show objectivity (the crisis is approaching) about the situation.

Then, following Min’s gaze, the screen switches to a map stuck to the bookshelf, showing a hand taking the map off and then a hand holding a pen. Min’s scene of asking after Brian’s well-being is different from the beginning, and the camera is held at a high angle to show the top of his head, showing Min becoming increasingly anxious and discouraged.

When the ‘read’ mark does not appear on Min’s message on the monitor, Min’s worried face is shown as the monitor screen layer becomes transparent. The scene where the destination is marked on the map with a pen and the map is put in the bag was set at eye level, and the scene where Min rides a scooter was used with one-point perspective to consider the sense of space. In addition, I wanted to express the environment surrounding Min (a forest path with snow falling) by drawing Min riding a scooter through a snow-covered forest in a bird’s-eye view.

Since the storyboard is not simply for performances including the character’s emotional expression, but also for communication with the camera director or producers, the camera angle and horizon position must be set clearly, and the relationship between the location and the character must be considered when creating it. Therefore, the space where the character is located was drawn with various camera views.

The scene where the snow covering the tree falls on Min’s head was also expressed with a high angle to express Min’s confusion and helplessness.

Considering that the story would be long, I tried to end it with a scene where Min looks at the letter and cassette tape on the desk and the words ‘Antifreeze’ appear on the cassette tape. However, the last scene was changed again and reflected in the 2D animation as Min feels guilt and emptiness over not being able to save his friend and not knowing where Brian is.