Storyboards, the observations between Ray Harryhausen's and modern storyboard techniques.

Most modern storyboards that are made in the industry tend to be done through digital illustration, whether through Photoshop or a specific Storyboarding program. But seeing as I want to stick closely to Ray Harryhausen's own techniques, I have decided to opt for sticking with hand drawn pencil storyboards.

Throughout Ray's career he used pencil or pen drawings which tend to have very strong shapes, scribble or lined shading and were always very rough, but still visible enough to allow himself or other film crew and cast members to see what was going on in the shot. One animator I saw at the Bradford Animation Festival many years ago once said that storyboards that held this rough approach captured a level of purity about the action the animator needed to capture for their film and that by refining it into a sharper image lost the energy they initially infused into that one board.

Now, Storyboarding has no right or wrong way of being drawn, however, the industry prefers to have clear, easy to read boards, which normally end up being drawn via digital mediums. But, as long as the image is not over whelming with detail or too flat so it's hard to read. 

From storyboards over the years I'm going to show four examples that I can compair to my prehistoric approach or that have influenced me from a young age.

During Willis O'Brien's career his storyboard work was not as common place as it is in the industry today, but his art stle for his storyboards were somewhat detailed. For his unmade "Gwagi" project, the storyboards he made used charcoal, graphite shading and sharp images with erased highlights to portray his sequences of actions and the locations terrain. It's interesting to me that rather than O'Brien used such shading techniques as it gives a softer feel to the sharper, more detailed characters he wants the reader to see.

In Ray's work, as I mentioned before, he used strong postures and positions to drive the concept of his scenes across to people. His style is more closer to a rough sketch style with shading in some, and clearer images in others, but also delivering the scene and tone of action that would be required to be read. His level of detail in his storyboards is also somewhat detailed which I'm guessing could have been self taught or learned form his own studies/ lessons from Willis O'Brian. 

For Storyboards from Jurassic Park, the drawing style here is closer to graphic novel content, the lines are much clearer with a heavy use shading to represent the shadows, but also using nearly "whiteout" sections to draw more focus to a character or action. It's also interesting to note the lack of detail on the dinosaurs which previously would have been drawn with scales, are now more focused on just "showing" the dinosaurs. There is also the addition of directional arrows aiding readers of the boards to see what the character would be doing, these give further visual information to drive the scenes motivation and tone. When seeing these boards for the first time in my youth, many of these boards confused me, mainly due to understanding what I was actually seeing since having seen the movie before receiving the book that contained the board examples.

In the Jurassic World storyboards, they display the industries shift towards using digital media to draw storyboard, using what looks to be a type of water-brush tool, making simple shades and silhouettes for the basic layout and darker lines to bring out loose detail in the image. They also seem to depict using shades of greyish blues instead of blacks or greys. In terms of the style itself these appear to be even less detailed than the previous examples I have shown here, whilst still being able to depict what the reader is seeing they are very basic and in some board very rough.

For my own work, I will be sticking to hand drawn storyboarding principles but keeping the detail to a minimum. In my winning storyboard entry, I used a combination of hand drawn boards enhanced with digital detailing, but I learned from this method that whilst this was OK for a small number of boards, I knew that drawing this way, especially for over 100 pages, was going to take too much time to replicate, despite Ray Harryhausen's delight with the art style I used on the original board. It would also remove the raw nature and energy of the actions and emotions I would try to display in my creatures.

I may introduce directional arrows as some of the frames, I have noticed some boards are not quite clear what is happening in the sequences. I have quickly sketched out the natural flow of  the story and movements of the creatures and I will be redraw them in a sharper, looser style that suits my portrayal of storytelling using HB and 6B pencils. I will also rely on different levels of shading to try bring depth to the image and although some of the draw frames may not be how I design the final shot, they still depict the sequence of the story.

If you would like to learn more about the early work of Ray Harryhausen you can find pictures, information podcasts and event updates via The Ray & Diana Harryhausen Foundation online accounts.

Official Website- http://www.rayharryhausen.com/

Official Twitter- https://twitter.com/Ray_Harryhausen

Official Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/RayHarryhausen/

Podcast via Soundcloud- https://soundcloud.com/rayharryhausenfoundation