Ok, storyboards... I love them. This stage is where I get to have a lot of fun. It’s basically where the images I’ve been developing in my head and feeling out in the Art Direction stage meet story which meets stream of consciousness imagination (I wrote that four times; it’s seriously the best way I can explain it).I’ve already roughed out a bit of the song with a really old midi sequencer called JazeWare; I think I got it in 1998. I just tried to look up their website and it’s not up as of this post; though if you can get a hold of it somehow, it’s freeware. I paid the $15, or whatever they were asking at the time, to “register” it, but it’s really just out of support. I’ll talk more about the music stage when I get to that post but this is where it started. A really simple straight forward app – just the way I like it.

Anyway, I sit on my Big Blue Chair (I’m sure you’ll see my type that a lot; I’ve had it since I was a kid) in front of an empty section of wall while playing the music on repeat and just close my eyes and have a couple run-through’s in my head. After that I take out a sticky pad and a pen and start sketching linearly. I’ve already bulleted the major events in the story back near the concept stage so I already know where it’s going; what I’m doing now is hashing out some of the in-between parts: “how does A get to B”, kind of thing.I did say that I use pen for this. The reason is because I don’t want to do “art.” I’m not looking to make anything look particularly good, so by using pen I’m not tempted by erasers and I get a constant intensity for the lines (so as not to get caught up in making line weight or shading). I like the beginning of all my stages to be exactly what I liked about JazzWare: no frills – just get to the point; the frills come in the later stages. Any standard pen will do fine.As I finish each little thumbnail sketch I stick it up on the empty white wall in front of me: my storyboard.

You'll notice I have two different colors. That's not because I ran out of post-its, it's because at that point there is a mood change in the music and I use that to remind me. By having this on my wall I can see everything laid out in front of me at any time. I can move things around very easily since there are no tacks; and because they’re really sketchy and don’t look good at all, I have no hesitation about ripping any post-it off the wall and crumpling it up if it doesn’t work at any point down the road. This is very valuable: you have to be able to let go.That’s going to be it for this post. I’ll be posting next time on the second part of the storyboards, which is where things get a little more into focus, art-wise.