Storyboarding a Stop-Motion Animated Film

Stop-Motion Animation isn't just about puppets--traditional 2D artists visualize the action of the film with storyboards. We chat with one of Aardman's storyboard artists to learn how fast they work to create a rough sketch version of the film most people will never see.
Watch the trailer for Aardman Animations' Early Man here: • Early Man - NEW Traile...
Shot and edited by Joey Fameli
Produced by Kristen Lomasney
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Tested is:
Adam Savage / donttrythis
Norman Chan / nchan
Simone Giertz / simonegiertz
Joey Fameli / joeyfameli
Kishore Hari / sciencequiche
Sean Charlesworth / cworthdynamics
Jeremy Williams / jerware
Ariel Waldman / arielwaldman
Gunther Kirsch
Ryan Kiser
Intro bumper by Abe Dieckman
Thanks for watching!

[@TMWriting]

There's something so amazing about watching somebody who's a total master at their craft. Normally this channel just scratches that itch for me with One Day Builds, but this series has been a whole different kind of awesome.

[@declanseeleymusic]

I think Adam should make his own stop-motion animation. Or maybe make a stop motion puppet as a One Day Build. That would be cool.

[@alexhetherington8028]

Yeah he should make himself and make him do a comedy one day build, that goes wrong but he sorts it out just in time.

[@MegaMAWG]

As a novice stop-mo guy, I'm learning so much from these behind the scenes vids. THANKS ADAM!!! You da bomb!

[@LindsayDaly]

damn, watching him work on that giant tablet storyboarding at the speed of light was fascinating. Talented guy.

[@CrumpArt]

Shaun the Sheep is one of the most underrated films of all time. It’s SO GOOD and I get sad that not enough people have seen it.

[@lozza831]

Great interview! Ash is a lovely, down to earth guy who explains things well. I loved hearing how it "feels" to be him in his role at Aardman. Thank you.

[@OGEdger]

Storyboards are one of if not _the_ most important parts of any animated (heck, even live action) film.

[@shelleynobleart]

Great interview. I like how Ash speaks in storyboard.

[@makutaman2007]

I'm loving these videos Adam. Thanks for showing the creative process behind this production lead by great talented people.

[@jaxnean2663]

A chain reaction of creativity that ends up in a masterpiece

[@alexhetherington8028]

One thing this teaches me is the importance of teamwork.

[@LindsayDaly]

I just saw the film the other day, so it's cool especially to see the evolution of the scene they show the storyboard for at 13:50 because it definitely ended up looking a bit different (mainly in terms of camera angles) in the final product!

[@RomboutVersluijs]

DIdnt he say that as well, he was doing another scene when his colleague did a different camera angle

[@rolfedrengen]

As a musician, I would say this is a lot like working in/with music. I guess a lot of streamlined aesthetical works is done like this! Thanks for a great video!

[@animateangus]

More great content guys! Very inspiring for me as a budding stop motion animator! The storyboarding process I’ve always found to be quite daunting since I’m making films from home. I never realised the gags were realised in the storyboarding stage.

[@byronleblanc6064]

You've got to love the craft.

[@PaperWolfe]

Ah this amazing!! I want to go into storyboarding so this is so awesome to watch. Thank you

[@BOSS_MOTO]

This is a goldmine interview for new animators and filmmakers

[@nate5323]

My brain filled up at 11 minutes. Can't wait to watch the rest of it. Nice glimpse into the day to day of an illustrator and also cool to see a cintiq in action being drawn on and some shortcut keys used.

[@MANNYSTEWART]

Very inspiring and a big motivation for my future work!

[@jamesperrin3762]

Probably the most insightful interview so far in this excellent series on Aardman

Those videos are just gold !!! Merci beaucoup. So fan of the acting presenting the storyboard. Informative, funny, interesting,... Thumbs up !

[@Mr300zx90]

i think this is your best stuff . great job great interview and awesome questions love the silence bit where the kid response your gona get it now.really thank you i needed that today.

[@bulldogstrut1]

Great sequence of interviews. Hat's off to Adam.

[@jmakes3745]

great video! really loved watching this series - super eyeopening and enlightening! learnt a lot - thank you tested :)

[@mikeroyerdesign]

Lovely interview. Thanks!

[@geriki33]

thanks for giving us a peek on the behind scene of the film. very interesting.

[@akhilkattamanchi9559]

Best interview some many things to learn

[@thehiphoperazed2864]

Storyboarding is totally underrated

[@teespeck3285]

So wonderful!! Ash is great!!

[@KubrickFR]

This was the best video in a while.

[@TheTechnoLocker]

I'm disappointed at how little the Aardman videos on Tested have been viewed. They look like their least watched vids but I think they're great!

[@artisticside3388]

I'm a storyboard artist and it's definitely one of the most toughest jobs in the world professionally.

[@HomegirlKikimora]

Storyboarding boggles my mind. I have some of my own little stories in my head, but jotting them down kills me lol. I might just stick to my oil paintings..

[@jebsaekam]

More stuff like this @Tested.

[@skiiernp]

Fantastic video!

[@okidoki1007]

Amazing interview!

[@graceybfrg]

Amazing interview! 😊

[@mabelmcintosh2568]

wow I really love this, so interesting

[@two-face1041]

These are really interesting

[@chrisw5150]

Its insane to think of how much money and time goes into something like this

[@AMRosa10]

You can tell Aardman is located in Coal Country. Ash has a miner's lamp on his desk.

[@dadahyena]

Great storyboard work! (looks like it was a fun production to be on) Does Aardman still use Photoshop for boards or have they moved on to Toon Boom Storyboard Pro?

[@Kuhoochandra]

This is so educational.

[@Ken_Tyner]

Glad to see you continue to give this movie some attention. It's being completely overshadowed by The Black Panther. Who's idea was it to release it the same weekend?

[@ZombieBoyBlu]

Was that a hint to another film at 13.55?

[@juriysmirnov7075]

Thanks a lot!

[@xyoxus]

I don't know if this is on any releases, but what would be great is if they had the storyboard version *with* the place holder audio on there. I know that on the ghibli releases and on Rick and Morty the storyboards are all there but I never found these place holder audios, it would be hilarious and as it is already created it wouldn't be too much work putting it on the home entertainment releases.

[@Qwerty-zj3rk]

I story board all the time. I animate with Source Filmmaker, a program that is based off of a video game called Team Fortress 2. It allows you to animate the characters in said video game. I do storyboarding for myself and other animators.

[@joelhageman1903]

Wow. I haven't heard of this movie. But, I guess I wasn't completely amazed by the giant rabbit, wallace and gromit thing, uh.... for kind of similar reasons they voiced. A lot of cooks in the kitchen, big studio product. I like the stuff that's just intrinsically their take on things, animation as the representation of their own commentary, not necessarily something to maybe showcase. I haven't looked. This one might also be collaborative. But, just looking at the screenshot, I could this being their observations of the ascent of. And if they can take that out to an extent allowed by a bigger budget - I guess I'm thinking a Nightmare before Christmas kind of level - all the more. I don't know what Aardman is up to lately, maybe more computer. But this looks cool.

[@TheFlashStickman]

Early Man was so good. Go support all the hardworking artists by watching the movie !

[@NovaSixSix]

It's amazing how with those side burns and glasses, Adam looks so much like Isaac Asimov :-)

[@mthomen7]

What software was he using on his Wacom tablet/ Mac, Im very interested

[@FlippytheMasterofPie]

Micheal Homen Looks like Photoshop to me! There’s also storyboarding software like Storyboard Pro but I believe this is plain old Photoshop

[@KHos73]

Cool, I would like to do this!

[@Kuhoochandra]

Ash's job needs *A LOT* of patience thats for sure

[@wobblysauce]

Could watch their movies in storyboard form.

[@TheFounderUtopia]

How is he resting his hand on the tablet while drawing without it registering his hand as a contact point? That's my biggest problem with using tablets because I draw by controlling the pen against the angle of my resting hand. Can modern tablets filter that out?

[@chris.dillon]

I wonder if he mentioned their server name when talking about the share and the bird that evolved at 21:41 and they had to do a hard cut?

[@mattdavies3023]

Did anyone else think Ash had Wallace’s facial expressions? Do you guys remember the British Gas commercials? If you are American you should look them up.

[@3DJapan]

I've been a 3D animator for about 15 years but I did traditional animation in school in the late 90's. Everything from pencil drawn, to claymation, to animating with raw meat. So I've done a lot of storyboarding. In 3D we've done animatics instead. For example my final school project was a 10 minute short. We first spent a week making the entire film with really low res models and very simple animation to get the timing down, then 3 months making the final film based on that.

[@professorcoms2481]

I know what you mean. I'm hoping to get into 2D animation, but when I get to college I'll do the whole rounds of 2D, 3D, storyboarding, etc.

[@lauripan517]

Why are there no captions?😩

[@LuisCabrera-ll5rn]

Adam should try making a balisong

[@xyoxus]

I love this kind of videos. Also just a note: This could be added to the Aardman playlist you created. (& generally your playlists seem to not getting a lot of love)

[@siskavard]

"electronic drawing" lol

[@3DJapan]

@siskavard Calling it what it is. 😊

[@JotaC52]

It would help and a lot if it had subtitles.

[@ankitohol]

Cant help but notice the facial similarities between the artist and the lead character in the animation!

[@ayla3640]

*hell yeah he is using a huion*

[@iNerdier]

Oh god how does he cope with the lag on that cintiq, the delay would kill me.

[@Matthimeo]

iNerdier it depends on the brush and computer, since this is hooked up to a laptop it is a bit slower. But on a high end pc there is practically no lag

[@two-face1041]

iNerdier you learn to work with it

[@JimSteinbrecher]

its not the cintiq, its the crappy laptop. his workflow is also horribly inefficient. im guessing he mostly draws on paper and scans the results, he was just drawing on the tablet because adam asked him to.

[@easymixedsignals534]

his legs distracted me

[@salemcarpenter624]

Hello

[@camaro471]

J & E Carpenter why hello

[@salemcarpenter624]

Wandering Trapinch why not

[@philverhey7335]

"hello" … the new *_"FiiiiIIIIIiiiRRRrrRRRSSSssSSSSTTTTT!!!!!11!1!!!!!!1111!!!!!!"_*

[@EthanfromEngland-]

J & E Carpenter I think they were replying not questioning...

[@ryanbarr2178]

Hello

[@UstazFarhanBD]

uhh.. I make stop motions..

[@amodyasiriwardana3052]

You storyboard 👇👇👇 click this

[@IOwnThisHandle]

Ending of the film?! SPOILER!

[@JimSteinbrecher]

using photoshop for this kind of thing is bordering on masochism. he wastes more time managing layers than actually drawing, when there is software designed specifically to do what hes doing.

[@3DJapan]

Jim Steinbrecher Many of us are just used to Photoshop from using it on other projects. We can also come up with our own workflow that works better for us personally.

[@JimSteinbrecher]

not sure who "us" is in that sentence, but clearly his workflow (as seen in this video) doesnt work better than using actual sketching / storyboarding / animation software. hes switching between groups of layers and manually dragging sliders to do onionskinning, when there is software that does all that (and more) just by pressing the buttons on the side of the tablet. its the equivalent of formatting text by manually adding spaces. or maybe using stone tools in the bronze age. ;) photoshop (as the name and popular use of the term suggests) is mainly a photo retouching application. its not particularly powerful (and certainly not _efficient_ ) for drawing. if youre going to do a job 100 thousand times over three years, investing a couple of days learning to use a new tool that will save 30% of your time is a good move. the lag on the brushstrokes was also pretty bad, but that might just be due to a slow laptop, and not photoshop specifically (ie, other software might have the same problem). im guessing he mostly draws on paper and scans the results, or he would be using better tools by now.

[@joshuafox9394]

Yet he's the one working for Aardman animation studios...I think he knows what he's doing and what software works for his particular work flow.

[@JimSteinbrecher]

you must be very young or inexperienced if you think that everyone is 100% efficient at their job, or using the ideal tools. he is dragging opacity sliders to do onionskinning. if youve ever worked in animation (which i have for nearly 30 years, btw - and i find new and better tools all the time), you know how inefficient that is, and why animators dont use photoshop. in fact, at one point he even comments on how inefficient that is, and that he "needs to set up some actions" (photoshop macros). so what does that do to your "argument from authority"? if _he_ says what he is doing is inefficient, does that make it inefficient (thus agreeing with me)? or is he using a perfect workflow and contradicting himself? bit of a dilemma there, eh?

[@JimSteinbrecher]

thanks for reiterating that platitude, but if you actually listen to the video, you'll see that even _he_ complains about the workflow. clearly, he doesn't usually draw on the tablet, he draws on paper and then scans it, that's why he's not using dedicated tools (and doesnt even have photoshop actions set up properly).

[@daisypeanut94]

Quick, get that guy some lotion !

[@BigZ7337]

I've enjoyed these videos, but it's too bad that the movie itself was pretty mediocre.

[@spiddyman0079]

That’s a horrible way to throw a football

[@Blech319]

Getting a bit tired of these advertorials for the film. You're being paid for this series, yes?

[@SierraLimaOscar]

It's about pulling back the curtain and revealing the wizards behind it. If all you see is advertising a movie then maybe this series is not for you. I am thoroughly enjoying seeing how the people are doing jobs I only knew existed in theory. What they look like, how they talk about it, their passion and skills.

[@Ax1007]

It would be impossible to produce content like this without it being "Ad-like". In fact, every product review or look would be "ad-like" as well, literally every video on this channel could be an ad if you wanted to be pedantic. And if they were being paid it would be disclosed in the video, its required now by youtube and they openly disclose on many other videos.

[@atomixfang]

No one is forcing you to watch these videos. They are not only advertising the movie (SURPRISE, you are not special or smart for figuring this out), they are also giving an insiders look at what it takes to make a movie like this.

[@Kuhoochandra]

They would have the name of the film in the title if so