Animation Skills: Storyboarding

In my first Animation Skills lesson we learnt about the pre-production process of storyboarding. I have touched upon this process before when having to make a short film in my Film Studies class, however not to the level of thinking about actual composition and particular lightings. I am however, familiar with camera angles and various types of shots which was very comforting as I actually found the lesson very difficult.

We were given the task of creating a storyboard based off a nursery rhyme of our choice. I wanted to pick something light and something easygoing because I am new to drawing characters and settings. I chose 'Mary Had a Little Lamb', which at a first glance of the lyrics, they seemed straightforward enough, however when I actually got down to planning it out onto paper, turned out to be the opposite.

We also learnt about the process of paper editing, which is a concept I initially thought to be a bit too time consuming and unnecessary, but once I got into it, I found it to be ingenius. I had multiple issues trying to get my lamb to look right, and even wanted to change my whole story because of it, but after some advice, I started to look at my strengths and incorporate point perspective drawings and buildings to make my pieces much less 'flat' looking. I then stopped worrying about how my lamb looked and just went with it. 

Overall, I think I learnt a lot in this first Animation Skills lesson. From learning not to deviate too much from the initial story, to learning about actual composition on paper and also not to panic. If something goes wrong or doesn't look the way I want it to, I have learnt to take a break and come back to it, nothing is perfect, especially on a paper edit. 

My favourite section from my storyboard 'Mary Had a Little Lamb'