The drafting of a beat board, and then further as a storyboard / animatic, are initial creative steps at developing notions for longer-term animation projects, such as a comprehensive short film. To begin the project, you should make either a beat board, storyboard, or animatic (a time-based storyboard), to start to organize and present ideas for an in-depth piece. These are the first steps of visual storytelling.
As part of a review, and revision process, you should, on a regular basis, present the material in-person or post on-line.
Beat boards specifically
Beat boards have both differences and similarities to storyboards. A distinction is they read more like a series of connected lines of text or illustrations, similar to a children’s storybook (but are not at all meant to be directed to children). As a series of written sentences, or as a sequence of drawings, you can then depict scenes in a prospective film. Even a single picture will express complex story elements.
In the professional field, directors often use beat boards to pitch their stories to the people involved in the making of a given project, such as producers, broadcasters, and investors. For students, beat boards are a good way to visualize project ideas and present them as proposals. The boards begin to form story, characters, and art direction. They suggest design, colour, lighting and shading, and the like, with simple suggestions of detail.
A story beat is an element, like a character’s action, event, and so on, that moves a story forward. Or, a beat is a noteworthy turning point. They are visual, and by extension, aural, sentences. Beat boards are the bare bones and basic structure of a story, a visual outline. They help to keep the theme of the piece in sight and in focus.
Other important features are:
- The drawings are meant to be clear, even illustrative. They emphasize key moments in a proposed film.
- The compositions utilize simple staging, to emphasize strong poses and storytelling moments.
- With strong beat board images, in many ways, the audience will glean a feeling from the image. We can tell “what is going on” with drawings that present notions of actions and emotions.
- One or two drawings should successfully convey mood.
- You would often draft a beat board before characters are designed. Making one is a way to begin designing the many components of a film.
- Another purpose of drawing a beat board is to evaluate whether or not you have discovered and written key moments in a proposed story, and if the events read effectively. You will want to do this before you begin a more detailed storyboarding / animatic process.
A general skeleton structure that you could follow is like this:
- 1st beat – introduces the setting and characters.
- 2nd beat – introduces a problem or obstacle, a force that the main character or protagonist needs to deal with.
- 3rd beat – shows a twist that develops, when they try to deal with the problem.
- 4th beat – presents the resolution, the conclusion and end of the story.
Of course, you should incorporate more than this, with further beats in between.
A good test for a beat board is to ask someone else to present the story for you. See if that person reads it as you intended. Listen to what they say. Doing so is useful, objective feedback.
Visual research
Developing a beat board can have its own purpose, distinct from a storyboard and animatic. In its concise form, you can push visual details that convey the kinds of design qualities that you envision. An animatic will cover the development of story, character performance, and sound design. That should come next. With the beat board, you can cover features that will be enhanced by the research and observations you undertake, beyond just sketching from your memory and imagination. That is, you should investigate information, from the Internet, libraries, and so forth. You should write notes and make sketches of what you observe, take your own, original reference photographs and movies. This kind of information gathering will strengthen the development of the adjacent concept artwork that will be outlined below.
For example, contemplate the setting of the story, the locations, geography, point in history, time of day, season, weather conditions, anything that emphasizes mood and atmosphere, characteristics that will enhance the film you intend to develop.
Creative alternatives to a beat board or storyboard
Beat boards and storyboards, especially early rough and thumbnail versions, are where you visually draft ideas for narratives and sequences. You will want to present the material in feedback settings. As a response to the reviews you get, you will subsequently make revisions to drafts, and evolve the ideas later with an animatic, in time-based form.
A “graphic short story” (instead of a longer “graphic novel”) is not necessarily a typical storyboard, although it is closely related to one. A graphic short story is meant to be inspirational and imaginative as well as concise and shorter than an animation storyboard. In one way, it’s a creative and intriguing pitch document, to portray your ideas and artistic direction to an audience. In another way, a graphic short story will function as a developmental storyboard, one that is in colour, has details, and is particularly broad in scope, beyond the rules and conventions that define what a storyboard should be. Its focus is meant to be very much like concept art and illustration. It is meant to be narrative in form.
Treat the graphic short story as an artwork, something that you would develop and carefully craft, something that is in colour, shaded, and rendered, like a narrative illustration. It is not meant to be rough. Instead, it can be polished and beautiful. For example, think of it as something that Chris Ware would make:
- From Wikipedia, Chris Ware. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Ware>.
- Pinterest board, “Artist – Chris Ware.” You can log on through Google or Facebook. <www.pinterest.ca/mroseecuad/artist-chris-ware>
Graphic short story format
There are a variety of forms in which the GSS could take: printed on paper in booklet form, a PDF in colour, or a sequential composition on a blog. As a document, the GSS could include a script and written details, like text bubbles to portray narration, dialogue, and sound effects, all designed to seem like a comic book, graphic novel, or variation of the above. As you can imagine, the GSS is meant to be a creative departure from a conventional storyboard.
To begin, develop a through-line with a plot and narrative, just as you would with a storyboard, but with the GSS, you could focus on defining any particular emphasis you think is an important feature of a project, such as the visual design, the animation technique, characters, settings, and mood. You could even deviate from the main focus of a film idea and delve instead into contextual elements like character development and back-story. By taking an experimental approach, you will therefore begin to research and develop a variety of creative elements.
For example, set yourself some design parameters and give yourself a “mini assignment.” Shape the GSS around the setting / location of your film idea. What does the place seem like? Visually (and even aurally) define the place to involve all senses: sight, sound, taste, touch and smell. Think of ways in which the audience will make associations and draw connections, to understand the world you portray.
In the development of a project, at the nascent stage of creative explorations, ideas are open and are meant to storm and form. Everything evolves and shifts. Details are not set yet. Working on creative aspects of this document could help to nudge forward qualities that are vague and not quite resolved at the moment.
The GSS is meant to be a creative and expressive exercise.
A next stage of the development will be to further shape ideas regarding narrative, design, character, and movement, as revised designs, sequential images in an animatic.