Food Module: Storyboards - Initial thumbnails

To be able to translate the script into a thumbnail storyboard, I firstly took notes on each scene within the dialogue to generate ideas for the layout and structure for the scene in both foreground and background imagery. I needed to keep in mind how the scene would be animated and how difficult the angle/perspective of the frame would be to animate. I tried to keep the frames at either profile or 3/4 perspectives to be able to enhance the action within the scene, this was to keep the frames simple and easy to understand. I did however notice that in one of the scenes when the main character Johnny is running away from a sponge cake, I had drawn the perspective straight on, so the run cycle would have been extremely difficult to animate. To be able to keep the comedy effect, I made the scene in profile so that the character would run off screen with the sponge rolling after him.

For scenes in which the background would change to relate to the era that the dialogue was describing with the history of cake, I thought that the stand could also change according to the surroundings to also link with the main characters outfit changes. As the dialogue describes certain types of cake or ingredients, I thought that having the items appear on the counter of the cake stand would be easier to relate the information to the viewers; having visual imagery to enhance the informative dialogue given. This worked quite well with the script and the actions that would happen in that specific scene. For the items to appear and reappear I added a 'pop' and 'puff' sound effect with a cloud of smoke, taking inspiration from old cartoons such as Fairly Odd Parents, I felt that this worked quite well however as so many items were appearing and disappearing we decided as a group that the final effect would be for the items just to appear with out the cloud. The amount of clouds that would be in each scene made the frame appear cluttered with a lot going on for the viewer to have to pay attention too, giving the possibility of the information going unheard.

I found that a few of the frames in the last scene would need to be tweaked before being modified into the final storyboard. For instance at the end of the last scene the cake man spins and continues to talk as the script dialogue is still describing different types of cake. I felt that before the cake man spins he needed to be able to show his love and passion for cakes through medium shots and showing his expressions as he talks. This gives chance for the audience to see the cake mans quirkiness before his dialogue turns into 'blah blah blah' as Johnny turns to the next dessert stand. I also need to tweak the ending as the ending needs to end on the ice cream stand man as it cuts off his dialogue leading to a possible fake episode about ice cream. In order to solve this I need to draw a few inbetween frames before the introduction of the ice cream stand man and then cut out the frames after showing Johnnys expression.