My directed studies proposal outline my research description and goals.
Goals
- See whether new insights can immerge on the process of storytelling
- See what feelings or emotional state animators are left with after experiencing an embodiment workshop
Beginning my research
I began my researching with these keywords and search terms
- spatial cognition
- storyboarding
- modelling
- digital storyboarding
Traditional Storyboarding
Disney is credited to have invented storyboarding animation in the 1930’s. Their animator Webb Smith would draw scenes on a piece of paper and pin them individually on a bulletin board.
Today, it’s evolved to the digital format as well.
I had to briefly learn what we already know about the typical method of storyboarding. In short. It’s not all that typical!
This video summarizes the various methods used in traditional paper storyboarding and contemporary methods to storyboard.
From resources provided by professor Darren Brereton, the process of storyboarding seems:
- Collaborative
- Iterative
- A strong guiding map for cinematography, shooting, movement in a scene, actor cues and elements in a scene.
- Square storyboards are quick, which is necessary for the quick production line
- initial roadmap for animators
- For Digital Presentations, boards are scanned and presented
- they’re pitched to directors, writers, the crew
- it’s often described as nerwriting
- theres some performance by the animator, it’s fun
- props: a long stick is used to guide viewers through the boards
Storyboarding is used as a process to quickly visualized a story. But what would be the benefit to slow down story visualization.
What elements do you need to make a story? Would I want my storyboard artist to write the story
What is the Commercial animation pipeline?? **ASK DARREN**
The pros of corkboard storyboarding is:
- it’s iterative
- is quick to produce and at low cost
- there are little limitation of what you can draw within the storyboard
The production line – storyboard animation
Though there is no one-way of doing this, there is a general production line to help the step-by-step animation process:
- Gathering information, usually reserved when for when you work with a client. A Creative Brief is sometimes made. This can be a collaborative process with writers and the director and studio or client.
- Writers: Concept brainstorm and script
- storyboard artist rough animation, to;
- Voiceover (if necessary), to;
- Revision Artist to,
- Storyboards to illustrators
- Animatics
Animating production for series that need to churn out stories needs to be quick and streamlined. So when would we want to slow down the process? Maybe for feature films, or when filming in a three-dimensional space.
- Blender/Unity
- Puppetry
- theatre
- dance
- stop-motion 3D spaces: Stop-motion, CG animation sequences
Below are examples of future tools for storytelling that can help the creative process of storyboard artists.
Additional tools for storytelling
Puppetry
Pros
- Embodied practice
Cons
- Of these characters are not repeats, it’s not easy making a multitude of them (quick production line issues)
Three-dimensional computer engines
Blocking and creating movement in the digital environment your story is being held.
Pros:
- ideal for pre-fabricated stories
Cons:
- a bit more time consuming
Storyboarding can include people who don’t have traditional knowledge and capacity around making storyboards. we should include them to help give storyboard artists insights not only on the research or subject at hand, but on what the storyboard artists would chose to focus on in the story – what is more visually important and when.
More benefits to storyboarding
We can expand storyboarding to the field of science and social sciences. the storyboarding net are these peer-review articles. A few examples below:
A storyboarding approach to train school mental health providers and paraprofessionals in the delivery of a strengths‐based program for Latinx families affected by maternal depression, by Valdez, Carmen R.; Wagner, Kevin M.; Stumpf, Aaron; Saucedo, Martha. American journal of community psychology, 09/2022, Volume 70, Issue 1-2
Reimagining digital health education: Reflections on the possibilities of the storyboarding method by Lupton, Deborah; Leahy, Deana Health education journal, 10/2019, Volume 78, Issue 6
Using Storyboarding Pedagogy to Promote Learning in a Distance Education Program by Casida, Deborah; VanderMolen, Julia The Journal of nursing education, 05/2018, Volume 57, Issue 5
Setting intentions – Indigenous intention setting
I’m interesting in looking at indigenous principles of storytelling as a way to guide my workshop design. I believe that by setting a personal intention, it will help guide the development and shape of the workshop
– It’s not about knowing the story by heart, it about allowing the story to affect you and your soul at a cellular level. It not about bringing more attention to the brain, but allowing the mind of the body to guide the storytelling design.
– To empower participants into taking the time and space to help them embody their practice
– to treat your expression of the storytelling process not as literal or most proximate to the “best”, but as a true interpretation of your embodied expression.
So much of workshops are designed linearly. it would be interesting to see how I can make workshop designs a bit more iterave, just like the research thesis process.
I’d like to apply this idea to when I share the story.
Spatial design ideologies: narrative structure
Exploring the narrative structure using the playground metaphor. this means creating an environment that invites the idea of playful behaviour, but in structure in a way that players can weave themselves in and out, can take breaks, fully engage with other players, and step our and in without much impediment.
What does embodied practice mean?
Background to the story
I’ve chosen to write a story of Wesakchak. Also known as Weesagechack, Wisakedjak, Weesaa-geechaak, and so on… There are innumerable stories about the Trickster, and as Thomson Highway puts it, there are many versions of a trickster in indigenous cultures across Turtle Island.
A version of Wesachejak lives across many cultures. The trickster is known as Nannubush by the Anishinaabe, Naabe by the Blackfoot, and the list goes on. He can change in whatever shape he chooses, he likes to make mischef, adventure, he like to play tricks on the trees, the animals and even the people. So, it is said that if you ever cross paths with the trickster, it’s wise to offer tobacco.
My story is an amalgamation of a few tales. Thomson Highway’s Laughing with the Trickster, Joyce Clouston’s Journey from Fisher River: A Celebration of the Spirituality of a People through the Life of Stan McKey (whom I’ve had the pleasure to meet), and Cosmologist/science education Wilfred Buck, who teaches Lakota, Cree and Anishinaabe stories of the constellations. He shares the story of Wesakchack in the stars.
Thomson highway argues that the english language is too serious to describe how these stories helped us prevail through terror, hunger, starvation, prospect of death, illness, depression. the relationship between us, animals and nature was strong, the lines were blurred, especially at a time where Christianity’s less-humorous God came to our shores and pressed his foot on the scale. (p.96)
The trickster lives in our subconscious, shared psyche. There are many iterations across every single indigenous nations And it’s with the same magic that kept him alive that I will be using to run my group.
The trickster is here on this planet is so many forms to remind us, as Highway puts it, that if we don’t laugh, we’ll die, that our existence on planet earth is not to suffer or wallow in pain or shame (84).
The story
Every culture and every person in the northern hemisphere saw the same star at night, and each person had their own connection to the cosmos. We see Wesakcheak up in the sky when the stars align in winter. They can be seen pointing at the seven sisters, known as the Pleiades star cluster, with their hips adorned with the stars of Orion’s belt.
Wesakchak can change in whichever shape they please. One of the first to be blessed on this land by the great spirit, they are a natural adventurer, and like to cause mischief. He likes to involve, interject, to roar with laughter. And they like to play tricks on people only to get themself hopelessly entangled in their own web of troubles.
Known also as the Trickster, Nannubush, Naabe, Iktomi, and many other names across the land. He is ubiquitous, all existing, and within all of us. The Trickster can even be a Bugs Bunny, a Wile E. Coyote, or a Charlie Chaplin-type, if you think about it. Wesakchak finds their way across all cultures, and yet they certainly like to visit the animals, trees! and people most as they’re milling about their business.
Here is one story of Wesakchak told by my friend Stan McKay. One day on the land, the animals got together and had a meeting. They said to each other, we have to do something. The winters are very cold here and our coats are not warm enough. Maybe we should ask Wesakcheak to see if they can help us. Wesakcheak heard nearby. They proclaimed with confidence: “Okay, I’ll make warmer coats for you and I’ll let you know when I have them ready so that you can come and get them.”
One of the things he did was change some of the coats of the animals to winter, for example, the rabbit’s summer coat is brown. So he made a white coat for him. The same was true of the Arctic fox, and so on. All these animals got different coats.
The moose however, was on his way to get his winter coat when he began crossing an interesting pond. What he saw under his hooves was a plant in the water that he particularly likes. He had to stop and eat. It was so plentiful. But as the day went by, he didn’t realize how quickly time had passed. He looked up and noticed it was getting darker. And cold!
The moose jumped up from his daze and went to Wesakcheak to get his coat. Once there, Wesakcheak looked up at him and said: “I’m sorry. There’s only one coat left that is a winter coat. I can’t do any more for you now. I don’t have any more time to work on anything else and that’s the one thing that was meant for you. You’ll have to take it.”
So the Moose got the coat. But it was big, so big, that it just hung loose. That’s why the moose has a coat that hangs loose over his shoulders and especially below the neck. He was late and he didn’t get the right fit.
The workshop – steps
The workshop was test-runed with my Studio graduate classmates.
Location: Aboriginal gathering space or the Everet space, ECUAD
Participants:
Warm up exercises – out of body movements | Sharing the story – telling the story, participants laying down, closing their eyes | Activities – puppetry (things that d |
Storyboard – a quick iteration (out of the mind body) | Post-activity reflection | mindfulness meditation + closing |
Email questionnaire afterwards |
Activities
things that don’t require a complicated learning curve. It’s also important that the puppet designs are ambiguous so to not steer the storytelling away from their design.
Acting out the scenes
Dancing like the characters
- I wouldn’t give the participants time to think what “mischievous” “humorous” or “prideful” looks like.
The only time for thinking is when you’re required to learn something new.
Storyboarding
The storyboarding process is inspired by free-form writing. An activity organized during my dance dance, vegitation! workshop in February.
Questionnaire: I want to email post workshop, because I understand that the process of seriously answering questions can zap us out of our embodied practice. It’s also an opportunity to see the residual aspects of the story and experience that come to surface for the participants.