A Wizard of Earthsea - Storyboards (Incomplete)

Please click through the images! This sequence is pretty much an animatic. (I'll be sure to actually make it an animatic sometime in December!)

Based on the novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, this is from chapter one of A Wizard of Earthsea. I wanted to storyboard this chapter for my Story Development for Animation assignment, but I realized after one of Tron's lectures that the somewhat dark, serious nature of the novel isn't entirely appropriate for the happy, positive tone that he wanted to see us tackle. (The reason being that big budget animated movies made in America are made for audiences of all ages.) So before any fans of Earthsea throw rocks at me for making Duny less wild and silent and harsh and a bit more like a normal kid, please understand that I made these changes because I'd like to use this as a portfolio piece to submit to the kind of studios that Tron is prepping us for!

So this is pretty incomplete, and there are a few technical changes I need to make according to Tron's notes, which were just given to me today... but hopefully I will have all of this done by December 12th, which is our last day of class at CDA this term.

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My Portfolio for CTNx

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Can sorta draw goats now

Just a little practice, like I said I would do yesterday but didn't. Instead I did it today. :T

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Can't draw goats

Yeah, I can't draw goats. I saw some of Tron Mai's drawings of goats last night in class though. Now that guy can really draw goats. And just about anything else for that matter.

He told us "You all want to be storyboard artists, but I see some of you put down that you only invest 6-8 hours of homework time to this class. If you want to get a job at a studio, that's just not going to cut it. You're going to be competing against guys like me--people who do this 50 hours or more a week."

50 hours or more a week. Suddenly I feel like a lazy POS. I get the feeling Tron wants us to blow him away, to show him drawings and boards that he can take one look at and go, "YES! NOW THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!!" And he'll be so proud. You can tell he really really really cares that everyone learns from him. He has things he wants to teach us and he's disappointed when we don't show him that we were listening when we show him our homework (or sometimes, don't show him anything). That he cares so much is a really good motivator.

On that note, if you're in LA and thinking of taking a feature animation style storyboarding class, you have got to take this one, Story Development for Animation, at Concept Design Academy with Tron. Of the three storyboarding classes I've taken so far, his is exactly what I was hoping a storyboard class would be like. Lots of time demoing, showing storyboard examples from shows and movies he's done, giving us really cool homework assignments with lots of personal feedback--yep. Awesome.

I'm going to perfect my technique for drawing goats today. I need to, 'cause they're a critical part of the story I'm boarding for homework.

And then I'm going to work on thumbnails and actual storyboarding, and hopefully by this time next week I'll have a new portfolio that I can ask professionals to look over and critique for me next Saturday at CTN (which I stilllll haven't bought a ticket to, ick).

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