Prepare to Board! Creating Story and Characters for Animation Features and Shorts, 2nd Edition

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Screen and Screen Again: Preparing for Production

As I mentioned earlier, workbook and previz are a transition between storyboard and layout. Never make the mistake of going directly ‘from script to previz’ without storyboard, as one ill-fated CGI production once tried to do. (It did not work, and the film ran way over budget when the inevitable changes came.) Storyboard is the visual script for an animated film. How can you build the digital placeholder sets, scale the characters, set up a camera move or design the shot if you only have a brief written description of the action in a scene and some concept art as a guide? How, without a storyboard, can you remain focused on your story and (as Hans Bacher memorably states in Chapter 9) not ...