A number of weeks in the past, animation veteran John Fountain who has labored for Disney, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Community and Warner Brothers on present corresponding to The Pretty Oddparents, Invader Zim, Dora the Explorer, Indignant Birds, South Park and Rick and Morty launched a “Storyboard 101” tutorial on Twitter. He was form sufficient reply a number of of our questions on his profession and the high-quality artwork of storyboarding in animation:
Aniamg: Are you able to inform us how you bought focused on animation?
John Fountain: I adopted Bugs Bunny down that rabbit gap nearly instantly after I left my mom’s womb! As a baby of the 70s, I wasn’t significantly within the medium-brown corduroy existence that “actuality” provided, so I spent as a lot time as potential worshipping on the altar of TV cartoons hoping that sooner or later — if I watched them faithfully and unceasingly — they’d “settle for” me and I’d get sucked into their world. However my major present of dedication was to forsake all human interplay and spend each potential spare minute drawing. By the point I used to be about six, I feel I had found out that I couldn’t turn into a cartoon, so I made a decision to turn into the subsequent neatest thing: a cartoonist!
How did you start your profession in animation?
John: The older I obtained, the much less inclined I used to be to hunt an precise “profession” in “animation” because the technical course of appeared extremely tedious. As an alternative, I aspired to do newspaper comics and observe within the footsteps of my hero Charles M. Schulz whereby my authentic creations could be animated FOR me. As luck would have it, proper across the 90s after I was in school, it turned obvious that newspaper comics have been respiratory their final and I reluctantly took a job doing little odds-and-ends animation work for a neighborhood manufacturing firm whereas self-publishing my very own indie comics.
Surprisingly sufficient, that job led to an even bigger job, which led to an excellent larger one, and so forth and so forth… finally I discovered myself driving throughout the nation from Michigan to Los Angeles with a modest portfolio, $100 to my title and no clue easy methods to get a job in animation. By a sequence of mind-boggling occasions, I landed my first in-house storyboarding job at Klasky Csupo for his or her new Nickelodeon sequence, The Wild Thornberrys.I had by no means storyboarded in my life.
However I’ve all the time had a decided perspective about no matter I do, so I instantly immersed myself within the craft in an effort to meet up with all of my skilled and realized friends. Everything of “My story” is sort of comically inspirational when advised in full. For a few 12 months, I really toured varied faculties and festivals doing a Tony Robbins-style presentation about how I managed to “obtain” with fairly a number of main obstacles in my method. However that’s one other matter altogether.I obtained my shot, and I by no means stopped working to take care of it.
Why did you determine to supply ideas and directions on completely different features of the animation enterprise?
In the end, I’m hoping to supply up the type of steerage I may have used after I was younger and struggling. Animation is a deceptively advanced trade with plenty of legend, lore and shifting elements… as such, when somebody asks “How do I break into animation?” it’s nearly unattainable to provide a helpful reply with out truncating it into the identical outdated “work arduous and eat your greens” type of generic reply. My street was riddled with uncertainty, gambles and — sure — errors.
I assume my feeling is that I’d as nicely take these experiences and put them to make use of in order that perhaps I could make another person’s journey rather less perilous than my very own. Once I was touring faculties and doing workshops, I took a really “pull no punches” type of method, and I’ve been impressed by how many individuals have advised me, “I’ve by no means heard it defined this manner earlier than” and “That is precisely what I wanted to listen to!”
I realized concerning the trade on the job – so I’ve a singular perspective that’s freed from the “That is the way it’s all the time been accomplished!” ideology.
What’s the query everybody asks about storyboarding?
Most individuals don’t ask about storyboarding! Storyboarding is mysterious and scary. Which is why I used to be dumbfounded after I took a Twitter ballot and requested “What ought to my subsequent long-form tutorial be about?” The alternatives have been “Storyboarding 101” and “The Artwork of Storytelling.”
I used to be secretly hoping “Artwork of Storytelling” would win as a result of it’s a lot extra ethereal and subjective – however “Storyboarding” received out by a slim margin, so now I’m duty-bound to observe by way of, and to be sincere, I’m intimidated and nervous about it. However in my expertise, that’s often after I know I’m doing one thing worthwhile. So… if my ballot is any indication, the principle factor individuals wish to find out about storyboarding is: “Simply what the hell is it, anyway?!”
What’s the greatest false impression about storyboarding?
That’s facilities round drawing. Drawing skill is useful, to make certain, however I’ve all the time described my very own drawing skill as “serviceable at finest.” Storyboarding is filmmaking… and filmmaking is storytelling. The abilities essential to successfully inform a narrative are VAST and go method, WAY past merely having the ability to draw.
What’s the most effective recommendation you’ll be able to provide about getting a job as a storyboard artist?
Get expertise!I don’t care the way you do it, however you not solely want to have the ability to display that you are able to do the job, however that you are able to do it in knowledgeable capability — that’s, meet deadlines, observe route, work with a script, take notes from a shopper and myriad different stuff you solely be taught by “doing.”
This implies being very inventive and proactive in your quest… search for small manufacturing firms or native industrial homes… the necessity for storyboards is ubiquitous… make your self obtainable – be simple to work with… be higher at it and extra captivated with it than anybody else… make your self indispensable. Most significantly: Go to them! Don’t look ahead to them to come back to you.
Who’re your greatest animation influences?
Brad Chook. His complete philosophy for approaching a narrative is as near my very own as anybody I’ve ever seen and he conducts his work like symphonies with masterful confidence and beauty. Any time I really feel uninspired, I watch The Iron Big and I’m reminded “that’s the way it’s accomplished.”
What do you’re keen on about your job!?
Arising with inventive options to seemingly unsolvable issues – of which there are MANY in animation. I’m at the moment working because the supervising director on a mission with 1 / 4 of the funds and a tenth of the assets as most productions, and it’s essentially the most enjoyable I’ve had in ages. I’ve come to understand that I like to look straight right into a vortex of chaos and say, “I’ve obtained this!”
You possibly can try John’s useful recommendations on storyboarding at twitter.com/FountainCartoon/
