Storyboarding when the words won’t come

Storyboarding is a process used by animators to sketch out the milestones of a story. It’s a way of:

‘… illustrating, structuring, and organizing a scene in a work of animation. Based on the script and voice acting, these storyboards evolve from sketches to fully-formed pictures, culminating in a final set of images which make up a scene. The idea is to present the most accurate and probable version of a scene. After which, they will be looked over, approved, and then sent out to be animated.’

https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/animation-storyboard-template/

Sounds a bit like a plot, doesn’t it?

But just as some authors plot and others pants [create by the seat of their pants], storyboarding doesn’t have to start with the story. Miyazaki is one of my all-time favourite animators/storytellers, and his process is very different:

‘Hayao Miyazaki puts a heavy emphasis on detailed storyboarding as the starting point, rather than a conventional script, which allows his story to grow and change naturally. His storyboards become a living part of the creative journey, often tweaked as the film takes shape, resulting in narratives rich with detail and depth…’

https://xsmultimedia.com/2023/06/19/capturing-the-magical-frames-of-hayao-miyazakis-storyboards/

‘He [Miyazaki] usually had no idea how the film would end. He might have competing ideas about how it should end that he couldn’t resolve. Or he might have no idea at all.’

https://kotaku.com/the-way-hayao-miyazaki-works-sounds-stressful-1841035846

Despite having loved Miyazaki films for decades, I didn’t know any of this until I found myself unconsciously following his process. Not as an animator, and certainly not as a painter, but rather as a storyteller.

Of course I didn’t realise that I was storyboarding when I started; I just found graphics easier to do than struggling with words. A story is taking shape, but it’s happening one image at a time, in my own digital storyboard.

These are three images I could ‘see’ in my head. They’re from a part of the story where Mama Tukti realises her kits are in danger:

None of these images has a ‘background’ because that level of detail isn’t necessary, yet. For now, I’m just happy to be a pantster, a teensy tiny bit like Miyazaki.

cheers,
Meeks