The Wild Bunch Storyboards

Here's some storyboards from the Wild Bunch.  No, not the one about the cowboys, this involves a group of wild flowers.

Just a little bit of the violet tone is enough to suggest nighttime.

For those curious, I use Comic Life to assemble the storyboards and add the comic balloon text. (CLICK TO ENLARGE)

Space beats

Here's something you don't often get to see. Before storyboarding begins, or even during, a collection of images is created that illustrate the main story beats of a movie. These are called beat boards and here's one I created for Space Chimps. 

A storyboard drawing should be designed to read very quickly like a highway billboard. The reason is that storyboards won't be on the screen for a long time- they need to read fast. Since they won't be onscreen, story beat drawings can be more like a children's book illustration conveying a lot more information. They're a tool for the director, writer and story team to help develop the movie. They're a lot of fun to do. 

So here is Space Chimps in 80 images. (CLICK TO ENLARGE)

I'd also like to thank Chris Siemasko and Randeep Katari for showing me how easy it is to create a blog. 

It's funny how characters take on a life of their own. I created these two- Iggy and Scared Bunny to star in this short storyboard. During the evolution of The Animator's Eye coming out this August, they took over. When characters really come alive they tell you how they'll act and what they'll say. They might even surprise you.

The story so far Iggy and Bunny have been captured by aliens and taken to court. Iggy demands a jury of his peers and he gets it. They still find him guilty. (CLICK TO ENLARGE)

The story starts on a classic dart and stormy night when Iggy visits Scared Bunny in the middle of the night. The bright green was so I could green screen in rain effects in the animatic.

My Alien Encounter- Space Chimps

For one year I got to be an Alien. I worked in Vancouver, Canada on Space Chimps. We had an awesome group of people from all over the world working together. Originally the movie was directed by Donovan Cook and Norton Virgien. Kirk De Micco finished the directing.

In the script the Space Chimps return to earth after their adventure but it wasn't a satisfying ending. They just safely land. In trying to find some drama or suspense, I came up with the idea that they forgot to build landing gear on their returning ship. This action involved the chimps that were still on earth because they had to steal a truck for the Space Chimps to land on while driving at high speed. This also worked thematically with Chimp Ham's character arc. In the beginning of the movie Ham doesn't want to have anything to do with his grandfather's space legacy, he's getting by in life as a circus chimp who gets shot out of a cannon.  Ham's problem is he can never hit the target. Now having become a real space chimp he must prove he can hit the target. Their lives depend on it. It was a fun sequence to board. (CLICK TO ENLARGE)

Fantasia 2000 Pomp Storyboards

Here's a sampling of storyboards and visual development from Fantasia's Pomp and Circumstance. (CLICK TO ENLARGE)

This is the poster that I created to pitch the idea for Pomp and Circumstance at a Disney Gong Show. Originally, I called it Donald's Last Roundup.

This was an earlier design for the poster. I liked adding the umbrella. It helped tell the story more directly.

Here I was working on designing Daisy's costume.

This is an art direction page I gave to my wonderful art director, Dan Cooper. We wanted to show that the storm was enormous compared to the ark but the ark was enormous compared to all the animals and that all the animals were enormous compared to Donald and Daisy but they were all small compared to their love and God's love for them symbolized by the rainbow.

It was fun to play with the scale of this giant ark with all the animals naturally finding their place.

We looked at all kinds of reference to find simple shapes for the animals so they'd read in silhouette.

This next image is hysterical but almost didn't make it into the movie. Peter Schneider was concerned because Donald wasn't wearing his shirt which calls attention to the fact that Donald doesn't wear pants. Mickey does. What gives? Anyway we were able to come up with a precident that Donald lost his shirt in Saludos Amigos or Three Caballeros so we were OK. (Images © Walt Disney)

This is another favorite of mine. We put a metaphysical gag in Pomp. Is Donald really a duck?

We couldn't resist this gag of the mythological creatures not making it on the ark. It's probably been done in many guises in New Yorker cartoons.

In a classic twist on an old cartoon them. Donald doesn't see stars or birdies. He sees animals running around his head.

We struggled with this scene as much as Donald stubbled with the dove. Why didn't the dove want to go find the olive leaf? After many dead end approaches the answer was thematic to our movie. The dove was in love with is mate just like all the other animals on the ark.

This scene had an inside gag. When the storm is over all the animals race out to see the sun thus tipping the ark. If you look really close, on the roof you can see Mickey and Minnie Mouse. We originally were going to project the movie in 35mm but later it was decided to create it for IMAX. You can really see them when it's projected in IMAX.

My lead animator, Tim Allen, animated this scene and he visually showed how happy Donald was without using any words. He literally flies up when he kisses Daisy.