StoryBoarding is Back at Escape Studios

Storyboarding is back! I'm running a class in storyboarding at Escape Studios in Shepherd's Bush, West London, starting on 21 March 2017. It costs £995 and it's a part-time evening class, designed to fit around jobs and families.

The class is taught by me and (most likely) by Francesca Adams, a very talented Blue Zoo storyboard artist who helped us out last year.  Also like last year, we'll have a live industry brief to give our students experience of what an industry storyboard test is actually like.

What's this all about?
This class is an introduction to the art and craft of storyboarding.

Who is it for?
Anyone who wants to learn storyboarding, whether for live action, animation, commercials, or your own private projects.

What's involved?
The course is divided into two parts, over 8 evenings. Learning involves doing, so every class will involve in-class exercises, completed with speed and spontaneity, to get your creative juices flowing. Then, each week, you'll get a homework assignment to bring in for review the next week.

Below is how the course breaks down, in a little more detail:

Part One - Introduction to Storyboarding
Week 1 - General Introduction to Storyboarding: Introductory Exercises. Creativity, ideas and inspiration for stories. Gesture drawing, fast sketches, and research.
Week 2 - Creating images which tell a story: Single images that tell a story. Gag drawings. Situations and character-driven ideas.
Week 3 - Standard industry storyboarding process: Script, beat boards, story reel and animatic. Movie structure analysis. Camera and Layout. Reverse-storyboarding a pantomime sequence.
Week 4 - Character Design and Art Direction: Introduction to principles of design and visual development.

Part Two - Storyboarding Technique
Week 5 - Structuring a Scene: How to break down script pages. Progression and punctuation in a sequence. Staging.
Week 6 - The Performance: Story beats, narrative structure, pacing, cinematography.
Week 7 - The Animatic: How to edit, cut and time storyboards in Premiere, to create a storyboard animatic. Music, sound effects, voice over and dialogue.
Week 8 - The Pitch: How to pitch your storyboards. Acting, performance and delivery.

What is expected of students?
You'll be expected to attend at Escape Studios in Shepherd's Bush one evening a week from 7:00pm-10:00pm. And there will be homework.

Plus there is an additional 8 weeks of online mentoring, where you get to practice your skills. It's going to be a great course, designed to train story artists to work in this growing field - where (by the way) there is a serious skills shortage here in the UK.

To find out more, take a look at the Escape Studios Storyboarding course here.