"Van" Storyboards

Hey all, welcome to the storyboard post where we've decided to showcase all of the boards that went into the film. Our storyboard team worked diligently to find the best possible way to portray our story, also taking into consideration limitations we had to face and all that stuff that makes this process a challenge. Right here we have posted the final boards that went into the final animatic if you want an overview of how the story progresses, but we go into further detail on the process and developments below this one in chronological order, so please feel free to take a look! Also, a special thanks to Kenneth Cheung for leading and managing the operations of the storyboard team, Kenneth not only organized the submissions and gave direction on storyboarding, but also did a lot of storyboarding work himself which became very helpful, especially at the final stage of the process.

We want to also thank up front all of our team members who worked in the storyboarding phase:

Sidney Oung

Simon Nguyen

Jenna de la Paz

Georgina Feng

Elsa Lievin

Roderigo Quiroga

Sarah Henwood

Sophia Perez

Valerie Sierra

Chris Barron

Trang Nguyen

Something I think will be interesting to mention up front is what some of our constraints were. One big thing we needed to make sure of (for the benefit of the production of the film) was to make an attempt to reduce the amount of camera cuts as much as possible. This film is a short film, and while some scenes may warrant quicker cuts, we didn't want to have a bunch of scenes that are all over. We wanted scenes to breathe and take their time in each carefully chosen shot, especially the kitchen scene which you'll see further down which was done all in one camera position. This would also benefit the rest of production since every new camera cut is a new background, and they were already piling up. These lengths we went to to try and make things more manageable; it wasn't easy at first but things started to work out as we did more critique and explored options using less as more.

The other thing we tried to avoid was crazy perspective shots, especially with characters moving through. We didn't mind this if it was warranted in the scene, but in most cases this was a level of complexity we couldn't afford at the time.

Scene 1 was one of the first boards to be made, and a special thanks to Valerie Sierra and Roderigo Quiroga for doing early boards on realizing this scene. Through production, even among the different takes, this particular scene underwent some but minimal revisions. It was a simple opening, and the goal was to try and capture what we could with the relationship between the two characters and their personalities. Given the estimated length of the film, a common goal throughout the short was to try and keep the camera changes to a minimum. Wherever we could we tried to find out how to make scenes more efficient in terms of camera angle so the production process down the line can be made less intensive.

The final version of scene 2 was revised by Simon Nguyen, and a big thanks to Sid and Jenna de la Paz who helped to envision this scene at an early stage as well! Here we see the inside of the Van for the first time so finding out how to show off the space was very important. The story was intended to have a connection between some of the further locations, and even the cable leading into the Van served as a sort of tether between the home and the Van which we tried to show wherever we could.

The final version of Scene 3 was done by Sarah Henwood who made the final alterations, and Scene 3 was initially boarded and developed by Jenna de la Paz. Here we see another new spot. For the narrative, one challenge was to find out ways to convey the themes of the story, and character intentions further while not breaking our rule of no dialogue. This scene was a good example of a need for that extra level of consideration, finding out how to use the room effectively. One major revision need for this scene throughout the process was to find the appropriate camera angles and acting of the girl to convey what we wanted properly.

Scene 4 was roughed by Jenna de la Paz, and later brought to the final stage by Kenneth Cheung. Kenneth's revision of the board brought a change in camera placement that served to convey the divide between the two characters further. The common changes to this scene throughout the process were finding out what the best acting for the father character would be. Overall the general idea of this scene stayed the same, and changes came in the form of adjusting the moving parts and composition.

Scenes 5 and 6 are merged here. These scenes were brought to a finish by Georgina who helped to bring a solid direction in the camera placement as we follow this character through this path. A special thanks to Elsa Lievin who took on this scene at an early stage; even coming from outside the art department, she was motivated to learn and stuck with us through the process and we thank her very much for her time and dedication!

Scene 7 had a really great animatic made by the artist so I decided I would just post that instead! (plus the original storyboard had a lot of drawings and it would have been really hard to see) This was a fun scene for the team to work on as it gave us a chance to have a bit more fun with the acting, take a break from the seriousness of the rest of the story with a bit of humor, and do some visual storytelling. The goal for this scene was to be able to tell it all in one shot. Here, one of our storyboard artists, Georgina, took this storyboard to an animatic phase, and one of our background artists, Rithyra, painted the background for the animatic. The background team figured since this scene was all one take, then the background painting could be tackled right away. The background went through revisions in lighting later on, but all together this proved to be a really fun final result!

Scene 8 was finalized by Simon Nguyen. A lot of changes were made to this part as production went on as ideas for how to frame the character in this space was being improved upon and debated. The interior of the Van was also being designed still, so there were a lot of moving parts that really needed to come together, and soon! Once these things were finished up, this scene could be properly planned, and here our final result places out character on a bed in the travel Van, where we hoped to use our same method of imagery in the bedroom scene here again. You may notice some other person's drawings in here at the end; the finalizing of the storyboarding phase was definitely a team effort, and we tried our best to help out wherever possible, doing drawovers or on the spot critiques.

Scene 9 was finalized by Sarah Henwood who brought together the final adjustments needed to make this scene work. The initial revision needed was a change to how close we needed to be at this part. We learned how even the slightest shift and distance of a camera can affect the feeling of a scene, and so we decided that it was appropriate for this part to be closer and more intimate. One goal for this part however was to not show the face of the daughter. A big thanks to Kenneth for working hard on the initial development of this scene.

Taking place immediately after, we wanted to make sure that we hit the mark on the girl's attitude toward what's happening in the story and her developing emotions based on what she is experiencing. This scene was also finalized by Sarah Henwood who brought a needed clarity to the expressions and acting of the girl.

Scene 11, oh boy, where do we even begin! This one gave us a very difficult challenge on a number of levels. It went through the most revisions of any other board, one notable issue being how to convey what is happening, and what exactly to show the audience. Clarity with this moment was something we needed, and frankly our own team had a hard time understanding the earlier interpretations brought forward and the intent, and for good reason! Being a dream scene, we anticipated this one to be the most abstract visually, and so we needed those visual metaphors to work. So it was back to the drawing board again and again until we finally hit something we could agree on. The scene was meant to have an emotional quality to it as well.

Simon Nguyen did a lot of the development work for this scene along with Zack Adame, and we're talking numerous takes! With each other's help they managed to find something through cooperation just in time.

Scene 12. This was another of the first boards to be made early in production. Ultimately this board did not go through too many revisions, but the modifications that did happen were in the form of camera ideas, such as a slow zoom out, and the transition timing to the running portion. This scene was boarded by Zack Adame and a big thanks to Chris Barron for contributing the development of this scene.

Scene 13 brings our story to a slow, melancholic moment. The intent of this scene was to take the route of showing the aftermath rather than the crisis, therefore having a moment of melancholy rather than suspense. We made a choice for both of our characters in this scene to be fairly powerless, observers of a situation they couldn't really stop. A debate in our story meetings was what to show our audience during what could be a traditional climax, but our direction here takes it a rather nontraditional route, and in doing so we hoped to bring the father and daughter on the same level, rather than make one or the other the hero. We felt that this direction suited the story we had been telling thus far, both characters neither right or wrong in every way, and we didn't want a high action moment to betray what we had done up to that point. Its a big emotional moment for our characters, and there were a lot of ideas and ways in which we could have shown this scene. This scene was boarded by Zack Adame

Scene 14 was finalized by Simon Nguyen and a thank you to Sid and Sidney Oung

for doing a lot of the development work for this scene. Our conclusion brings us to a challenging choice. We wanted the story to resolve between the father and girl, but we needed to make sure that we make their conclusion end on grounds that the two of them can get behind. What we didn't want to do was end the story at the previous scene with a hug as we felt that they needed something to amends over together.

All of our collective efforts culminated into the final animatic that we needed. This animatic was done in large part by Jane Lucero and Kenneth Cheung. A lot of feedback was given by the other officers and admins on things like timing especially. Getting the outsiders perspective was a good call as revisions resulted in a much better result each time. We needed to make sure it flowed in the intended way, that certain scenes take the time they need and so on. While there were still some debates on the timing, we believed that this was probably the best result we could achieve given the time that we had, and so a big thanks to Jane Lucero for really pumping out those iterations.

Here we also wanted to recognize all of the test storyboards that were made by the team leading up to the finished boards. You can see lot of the fun ideas that were being tossed around in the early stages, and some concepts that may have actually made it in or been adapted. They worked really hard to find a good, meaningful direction to take these scenes, and we think these explorations are just as important as the final result.

That's it for here, thank you for joining us on this deeper look into the process. It was definitely a very interesting time, and a lot of learning that came with it. We had a lot of different levels of experience with storyboarding but the team was passionate about reaching finer results and took and gave feedback very seriously. We thank them for their cooperation with other teams and feedback that helped to address any concerns that came up along the way. Another big thanks to Kenneth Cheung for managing this team and getting us to what proved to be a very arduous end goal. They made it work and we are very proud of the work they made!