How can a director who has no painting skills draw a mirror?

The most important point to be expressed in this article is that storyboards are helpful to directors whether they use them or not. Even directors who can't draw can easily express their ideas through storyboards after learning several simple and quick graphic methods mentioned in the article.

Storyboards basically convey two kinds of information: the content of the external environment of the paragraph (scene design-location) and the description of the spatial state of the paragraph (studio, camera angle, lens and the movement of any elements in it).

Since a storyboard painter can express the contents of environmental design such as atmosphere and lighting, in fact, a director can also convey his thoughts on the basic settings of the camera with simple paintings. After most scripts are made into storyboards, the director can see the drama flow in the story, which the script can't convey. Furthermore, the process of imaging on paper is a skill to promote creativity, not just a plan for the creative team at the shooting site.

This process is more advantageous when the director paints himself. If you are directing a movie, we can't say how important it is to roll up your sleeves and face the image directly. No matter how rough our picture is, the thinking process and mental state required to organize the lens on paper are priceless.

The following are several quick and simple graphic methods, which can be combined in any necessary way to present the director's concept of a shot or scene. Our scene is a woman running into the driveway of the street.

Illustration 1 is the simplest type of storyboard, with text in the box.

In the above picture, we start with the most basic communication method, describe it in words, and use arrows to indicate the screen orientation of the lens body or the movement of the camera. Although this method is too superficial for designing movie paragraphs, directors with editing experience can interpret this picture and gain a sense of scheduling.

Figure 2 shows two kinds of sketches, aerial plan and elevation.

The picture above shows two kinds of sketches. The first one is a bird's-eye plan, which clearly shows the camera position and the direction of human movement. The second set of drawings is an elevation view, showing the height of the camera. Schematic diagram is helpful to plan the shooting sequence of shooting scenes, because there will be many logical problems. Usually, the sketch must solve the best scheme of personnel and equipment scheduling. Aerial photos may show the trajectory of the last shot before lunch. The track blocked the car on the road and had to move it. Although the elevation sketch clearly shows the position of the camera, it does not show too many characteristics of scenery, emotion or lens movement.

Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram without perspective.

Another option is to use stick figures to indicate the position and direction of the character. Figure 3 shows two versions of stick figure. The stick figure can't show the height of the camera because it has no perspective. Although rough, these four pictures are very helpful.

Fig. 4 is a stick figure with arrows added to show a perspective view.

These pictures can be drawn in one minute, and they can tell us how each group of shots are cut together. The director can decorate the scene of the lens with this simple picture and add some perspective arrows to express the director's perspective, as shown in Figure 4.

Such arrows in Figure 5 are an excellent way to indicate camera angle and lens movement, which can be easily mastered with a little practice.

Arrow is a multifunctional symbol, which is easy to operate. Fig. 5 shows arrow symbols at various angles, which can be used to explain the movement of the camera or lens body or both. Arrows can be used to represent the complicated escape path of out-of-control cars, and can also be used to represent the moving path of cameras in long shots (paragraph shots) in sketches.

Fig. 6 can be applied to various arrow patterns in storyboards.

Fig. 6 is another variation of the arrow, showing all angles. In order to help complete the visualization work quickly, the director can keep the arrow of a book at hand, or get a copy of the arrow from the production designer when drawing the stick figure. This will save time in showing perspective. The scene frame itself can also be used as an arrow to indicate the moving path of the camera in the scene, and the overlapping scene frames also have the same function. If the lines between overlapping frames are preserved, it means that the camera stops moving and then continues to move. Figure 7 shows such a typical example.

The overlay of fig. 7 can be used to represent the moving lens a; The whole scene frame can be drawn as an arrow to represent the motion path b of the moving subject; The storyboard artist draws the edge of the picture frame as an arrow to illustrate the motion c of the camera relative to the subject.

Let's go back to the problem of expressing the perspective of characters with simple pens. One way is to wrap the graphics in a three-dimensional box to illustrate the angle of the camera.

Fig. 8a shows two low-angle lenses, and the height of the camera cannot be expressed without a square.

Fig. 8b adds a perspective cube to the stick figure, which helps to display the camera angle.

Fig. 8b shows slightly different very low angle and high angle close-ups. As you can see, the car is regarded as a cube to help us define perspective. Even for such a simple picture, the skill of adding a box can help us determine where the camera is. Even if you don't have any drawing experience, it is easy to learn to control the angles of these squares. Thirdly, prepare a page with various angles, which can be used as a reference when drawing or provided by the artist. Adding shape and volume to simple role modeling can make us better understand its spatial relationship. For example, Figure 9 tells us how a director uses different versions of composition to find out the positional relationship between the woman he is most satisfied with and the car in the scene frame.

Figure 9 adds volume to the stick figure and can convey a lot of composition information.

Brian de Palma used storyboarder software to draw a simple figure on Macintosh. Such a simple figure can easily become a tool to help memory. Each scene frame contains an icon to remind us of the familiar shot details, including all the missing perspective elements. Of course, what is suitable for Palma may not be suitable for you, and you may find different ways to show it for you. One of the joys of finding storyboards for this book is to discover each painter's own unique storyboard making method.

Excerpts from Focus Graphic Design (25th Anniversary Edition)

Extended reading:

How to analyze the script with image thinking

How to make a movie storyboard? What a precious manuscript of The Moon Out of the Kingdom!

End.

Submission/cooperation: pmovie-learn