Yo, Teach!

I recently had the pleasure of teaching an internal training program for candidates looking to learn how to storyboard. It went really well and the trainees showed a lot of growth and potential. I'm very proud of all of them. It was also a fun opportunity to try out some of the things I've thought about doing if I were ever to teach or post lessons online.

First thing is that I see a lot of storyboard classes/instruction that really focus on the art/philosophical side of storyboarding. Which, to be clear, is an absolute must in the execution of a storyboard. However, I feel like there is a gap in instruction that doesn't talk about the nuts & bolts, day-to-day, production centered elements that are equally vital in doing a storyboard. So that's what I chose to focus on in my curriculum.

The training program was basically six weeks long. I thought it would be very important to be as close to a real working assignment as humanly possible. So, we gave all of the trainees the same 4 page assignment. Now, normally on our production, we have 12 weeks for like a 10-12page assignment. So, this was just shy of being the pace of a normal assignment. I was trying to account for the meetings, lectures, and lessons that would be taking them away from their board for a few hours every week. 

Every week was two in-office classes. Monday and Friday. Mondays were reserved for guest lectures where we would have directors from the show come in a speak for an hour or so about topics within the craft that they are passionate about. Fridays were for lessons taught by me, and then a collective review of everybody's work. It was really important to me that I give notes on everybody's work in front of everyone else. Because when I was taking a similar class before I started in my career, I would try to absorb the notes that everybody got in addition to the notes that I would get. Hoping it would make my boards even better. And I wanted to give these trainees the same opportunity.

As far as the curriculum of class itself, I tried to break it down in mileposts where the trainees should be within the timeframe given

    Week 1: Script-to-thumbs

    Week 2: Thumbs-to-roughs

    Week 3: Roughs-to-cleans

    Week 4: Action & Drama

    Week 5: Prep & Polish

    Week 6: Final Review

The script assignment was a 3-page drama sequence and a 1-page action sequence. The page count disparity between the sequences is to account for the fact that action sequences tend to be much more drawing intensive. I chose sequences from season 1 in the hopes that it would be far enough removed from everyone involved so everyone could make their own fresh take. And by-and-large, I was not disappointed.

The studio was incredibly supportive and supplied workspace during the week if they needed it and lunch on lecture days. And the fact that the budget was approved for such a program was really cool. Things in animation have been kinda bleak. It often feels like we are collectively just trying to white-knuckle through... whatever it is that we are trying to get through. It feels like we're always losing ground to be honest. Even at the best, it feels like we're trying to maintain a stasis. So, it felt really good to work on something that is attempting to grow the industry.