4.2 Storyboarding
With 'Alice in Wonderland' in mind following the curious creatures I found in 'The Butterfly Farm' I chose to watch Tim Burton's 2010 adaptation of the film.
I have a large pad and a pencil. I separate the page into boxes so I have a grid to follow as I watch the film. With 20 boxes to fill as my aim.
I watched the first approximately 25 minutes of the film and I tried to take a visual snapshot.
I was very conscious to capture the different angles, viewpoints that the camera work did so that my boxes looked different and interesting - As the film.
To identify Alice in each box, I coloured her dress in blue using a coloured pencil, I also shaded in her blonde hair in yellow. This was a good way of focussing the eye of the viewer to to the central character. If I were to explain the film to a third party I thought to make the lead as obvious as I could would be a good move to aid with my communication.
Alice runs away and falls down a rabbit hole to Wonderland. I really want to communicate this change of environment. So I decided to use a green pencil to shade in the landscape of the garden, placing Alice outside. In contrast, once Alice is underground, the green leaves the scenes and I roughly shaded the background with my pencil to interpret being underground.
There was a temptation to then colour in all of the other elements within the scene, the flowers, the less central characters, however I resisted that so that I could focus on the key pieces. Also I found there was a time pressure, as I watched the film I wanted to take in as much as I could whilst keeping a focus on the boxes.
Using a 4B pencil added an intensity to the lines that I made. I used few lines but at least they are clearly visible.
I enjoyed trying to capture the varying camera angels. In box 4 you will see a close up scene of Alice talking to her Aunt. I am quite pleased with this shot as it was a challenging shot for my inexperienced hand, but the characters and the angle seem a good start. Similarly box 8 where Alice is positioned behind her Aunt in the foreground looking straight into the camera.
Less successful is box 18. Here Alice is lying on the ground having fallen to her new destination. Her hair is covering her face. She is yet to realise where she is. I don't think I have effectively communicated this, there needs to be more definition to this quick sketch.
I was inspired by Brandon Wallace's use of black and white to explore the scene and my initial thoughts were to try to use this approach. However, I decided that this would be too challenging with the tale I had chosen to watch. I do believe that the blue and yellow of Alice and the green of the garden are important. However, with a different genre of film I think Wallace's dramatic use of darker tones to plot in positive and negative spaces could definitely enhance the underground scenes. Perhaps the blue of Alice would be hard to miss. However with my next film, I think Wallace's technique will help with my interpretation.
The Monster House 2006 directed by Gil Kenan
This time I tried Brandon J Wallace's approach and created the storyboard in dark grey.
This is 10 minutes of the film. 'The Monster House' is a creepy children's film, a different genre to Alice so I think the dark tone suits as an expression of the visual language.
In a quick fashion, I also try to capture the emotions displayed on screen by the characters. They are afraid and in disbelief at what they see. Most often in these displays of fear, the characters are very close to the camera, filling the screen. This adds intensity of emotion, there is nowhere for the viewer to go to to avoid this drama, they become apart of it. I make efforts to capture this in my storyboard.
Trees on the property come to life and engulf characters, carrying them away into the Monster House. I used lines to communicate the branches of the trees. In grey, this looks dramatic and leaves intense marks on the page.
The greys were versatile, allowing for darker areas, as well as lighter. The tone worked well for mark making, the jagged teeth of the house, the steps to the house, the twisting of the branches. The mood of the film is dark and the palette captures this perfectly.
Reflections:
How did the task benefit your drawing development?
I was forced into a position to look at the scene from different viewpoints and try to recreate this, quickly, in a storyboard. This makes for a really interesting display of boxes and I can see how important the viewpoint is in creating a captivating film.
In an ordinary situation I appreciate it is so easy to only draw from the same angle, the most obvious or most comfortable. Looking through a camera lens, I can see the flexibility of the angles and how important that flexibility and variation is. A fantastic learning opportunity.
What about your observational skills and understanding of the cinematography? How did shifts in angle and viewpoint add to the narrative?
Cinematography supports the visual narrative of a film. So the viewpoints of the camera must lead the viewer into that mood and then must keep their attention throughout the film. Ensuring a continuation of visual language.
The visual language of 'Alice in Wonderland' is very different to 'The Monster House', two different genres of film.
'The Monster House' has lots of lines within a scene, the wooden lines of the house, the lines of the teeth in the house, the lines of the branches that come to life. The lines of the road. This lines are abrupt and add tension, an uncomfortableness. In comparison, 'Alice in Wonderland' is set within nature, there is natural beauty, space, smooth curves of plants and garden, of trees. A gentle mood. The camera angles include and highlight these elements depending on the emotion of the scene. Intensifying them, lessening them as needed.
As I observed during The Monster House, when the children were scared, the camera would be up so close, the viewer has nowhere to hide as they must experience that fear too. When Alice falls to the bottom of the rabbit hole, the camera pans out giving the impression that she is lost in a dark and isolated place. The space in a shot means the viewer can explore the scene, wondering and looking for clues.
The angle of the camera creates the feeling, sense, mood of the scene - the visual narrative. When Alice is in conversation with another character, by having the characters as the main focus of the scene, and the camera displaying the characters from an interesting angle, the viewer is also in on the conversation, as if in the scene with the characters.
Dermot Power
I recently visited the work of visual artist Dermot Power and his work for the making of the Harry Potter films.
Working in mixed media Power communicates the pages of the book to paper, story boarding the pages as a starting point to the films.
In the initial storyboards, Power uses black and white, as Brandon to communicate the scenes. The storyboards are direct, clear and intense this way.
He also includes large arrows in his work to guide you through the direction, such as which way the characters are heading, the direction of weather (rain, wind), which way the characters are falling. I hadn't thought of this as an extra tool to aid with communication and understanding of each scene, but I will carry it forward. I understand here that the more information that can be included, the better.
I also saw initial sketches of a tree, that later comes to life and picks up the car the lead characters are in. The sketches explore movement and with it the changing angles needed to capture the full movement of the tree as it collects and shakes the car.
Power's work was integral in bringing to life every word on the page. Working through a number of stages before the camera then takes over in interpreting Power's storyboards.
Power has worked on a number of films including Tim Burton's 'Alice in Wonderland'.
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