Video Idea Trunk #1

Hi! Mentioned in the last post, I'm currently busy with a small video for Doodley's first-year anniversary on October 7th! The voice over edit is done and the final video will likely be about 4 minutes. I'll be working on that today and tomorrow, and I'm hoping the edit is pretty quick.

I had the idea of talking about a few video ideas I've had and some of my motivations behind them. Let's call it the "Video Idea Trunk" since they'll be stored for later. Let me know if any of these catch your interest -- otherwise, if/when these videos get made, it'll be interesting to compare them to these original pitches.

Below are the video ideas. Feel free to scroll down and read any that interest you.

• Storyboard Artists Are Overworked and Underappreciated
  
• Smears: 2D, 3D, and When (Not) To Use Them
  
• Rango Had An MMO (and it's lost media)
  
• Animators are Actors
  

(None of these titles are final by the way -- usually I don't finalize a title until I'm staring at the upload screen!)

Storyboard Artists Are Overworked and Underappreciated

Storyboards by del Carmen from “Batman: The Animated Series.”

This one requires the most preamble, so bear with me.

It's been a growing discussion for a while now in the animation industry that the job of "storyboard artist" has morphed into a monster of what it once was.

The term "storyboard artist," for most of animation history, refers to the artist responsible for visualizing a story through panels. Usually they are handed a completed script/screenplay, and the panels are generally quick and simple so directors can easily throw out scenes and panels without much work lost. They are then tied down into revised storyboards according to model sheets so they can be animated overseas.

"Storyboard artists" in the past decade or so, though, are doing all of that.

Look at it this way: until recently, everything was on paper. There was less intermingling between disciplines because everything required more synchronization when nothing is digital.

In recent years, though, the lines have been blurring pretty heavily. This isn't the issue itself, and is actually the good part! Digital tools lower the barrier of entry by quite a lot and make it easier to throw ideas together.

But studios have also been taking advantage of the lines blurring. A "storyboard artist" can now refer to several different parts of one job:

• Storyboard art (the actual job)
  
• Character layout (storyboard revisionists make boards more "on-model" so they are clearer to overseas animators. Even then, the more you get right upfront, the better you look as a "storyboard artist" and not a revisionist)
  
• Keyframe animation (drawing way more poses than necessary to describe one action is encouraged as it avoids needing changes from overseas animation)
  
• Writing?? ("board-driven" shows -- not bad by itself but often a way to avoid paying writers)
  
• Editing??? (writers have editors...but on board-driven shows, you are your own editor!)
  

Compare these two clips from Season 1 to Season 12 of Spongebob and note how characters are on-model every frame and how many more actions are described in the latter. They're even animating overshoots and settles!

The important part (and a tricky line to balance) is not to confuse the detailed actions as a bad thing by itself. Being able to get this detailed and specific is fun and exciting, and with how much of the animation process is shipped overseas, getting that specific is 100% a good thing.

But the issue is moreso with the idea of calling the detail... storyboards. They would be more accurately called keyframe animators.

Drawing every pose and being hyper specific, being as on-model as possible, and then having that animation inbetweened overseas is basically the equivalent of animating keyframes and having them tied down by inbetween and cleanup animators.

But the kicker is that this is heavily encouraged by higher-ups in studios because it cuts down on labor costs. "Storyboard artists" that do everything are championed as the ideal employee, weakening negotiation positions when asking for pay raises or additional labor to help on production.

I also have a feeling that these storyboards are specifically pushed for marketing purposes, if unintentionally, so studios can create behind the scenes videos like "storyboard to screen" with super impressive boards that get shared all over social media.

I want to make a video about this as I see it often talked about within the community, but not really on Youtube. It reflects an overall blindspot I see on "animation Youtube" that generally lacks videos about more nitty-gritty industry topics that could improve the overall respect for those in the industry, so I reckon it could be a force for good.

One of the requirements before making this video is getting input from friends in the industry and to cover any inaccuracies, so it's likely a video like this will be a little while in production.

Last thing: check out Ugly Storyboards twitter, they've got great examples of what storyboards should really look like.

Smears: 2D, 3D, and When (Not) To Use Them

Smear frames of Makoto from Street Fighter III: Third Strike

I am pretty much guaranteed to do a video on smears at some point, which will talk about the logic of smears in both 2D and 3D, but I also want to specifically talk about how not to use smears.

I think smears get overused a bit from those new to animation, as it's a fun concept a lot of people have early awareness of. But using smears incorrectly can often end up making animation feel slower when part of the intent is to compensate for frames inbetween quick movements.

The other thing I want to talk about is how to do smears in 3D. It's actually far simpler than people think (as I've said...don't over think this stuff.) but it can seem mystifying to those who haven't done it, so I want to demystify it.

The actual specifics are better served in the video when I can show them visually, so take this as a sign that I've absolutely thought about this topic.

Rango Had An MMO (and it's lost media)

This is something I discovered recently that I need to make a video on or else I'll turn to dust.

For whatever reason, Rango had an MMO. This is not an exaggeration. It's not like a fully 3D, World of Warcraft-style MMORPG, but it does fit the definition. And it's also lost media.

From what I can tell, it seemed to be in the style of Virtual Magic Kingdom or Nicktropolis, which were little Flash game MMOs from back in the day where you could basically chat with other kids in a safe environment based on major IPs. They are also partially lost media, so it makes sense.

I am tickled that this existed for Rango of all things, especially because I played a ton of VMK and Nicktropolis back in the day. It makes sense, as it's fairly simple to make, but a game like this would only be made in the very specific time period Rango released in.

Much of the game is at least visually preserved in this Wiki, and God bless whoever did this as their screenshots will make up like, half the video. I want to try and piece together anything I can about this game and also talk about this specific era of kid-friend Flash game MMOs, as I find that fascinating (and both VMK and Nicktropolis are animation related, so hey)

Animators are Actors

Emma (Pei-Hsuan) Shih References for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

A vastly underappreciated and underestimated quality of animators is their acting ability. The skills involved with directing a convincing performance in animation is not something that's well respected by audiences, and I want to make some of that clear.

Consider this: animators have to understand almost everything an actor does as a performance, except memorizing a script and having to do it real-time in front of a camera. They need to understand when to purse or quiver their lips when crying, understand eye darts when a character is nervous or scared, understand the personality of their characters and how to convey them through movements, so on and so forth.

This is not something people really think about, tragically! Beyond draftsmanship and drawing ability, the best kinds of 2D and 3D animation that everyone reveres are sold by their subtle acting. Think James Baxter, for example, and how he sells minute, tiny movements to show characters thinking and considering. That's acting!

A component of this video will probably talk about shooting reference for animation, since that's relevant to the discussion, but it's not really gonna be the focus. Just a part of it.

By the way, this could potentially be it's own series. You know, "Animators are Physicists", or "Animators are Engineers", and so on. I just need to think of enough topics to justify it as a series!

Thanks for reading if you did! Let me know what you think.

--David