Staging and Design – Storyboard Commentary Video

Today's storyboarding commentary video talks about staging and composition; planning out your drawings to leave room for characters and actions. Also, designing props and background elements that aid in your storytelling.

The video window above looks small, but if you click on the full-screen button (at the bottom right of the video), it'll look nice and BIG!

A little bit of planning can make a big difference. This scene was staged with the second panel in mind. Knowing that Mary-Frances was going to enter the scene and admire Bessie’s pile of work, we left plenty of room in that first panel.

One of the best bits of advice I ever received was, “stage a scene based on the widest action.”  It’s usually not necessary to zoom in super close on the characters…it’s nice to leave some breathing room. This allows for nice negative shapes around the characters, and allows you to draw the key players and props with easily-readable silhouettes.

Every character is drawn with a specific expression that reveals their character, and (as we’ll see later) advances the story.
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Yesterday I went through the comments again on the last few posts and answered a ton of questions that were asked there. So if you left a comment before, you may wanna check back on those posts (see links below) to find your answer. If its not there yet, it’ll be coming soon.
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Other posts in this Storyboarding Commentary series:

• #1 - Storyboard Scans and Overview
• #2 - The Establishing Shot
• #3 – The Pan Shot
• #4 – When to Cut
• #5 - Staging and Design
• #6 - The Close-Up
• #7 – The Three-Shot
• #8 - Staging for Movement
• #9 - Escalation & Contrast in Acting