Storyboarding Efficiently with Storyboard Pro

Salvator Cavalieri

Company
Cilantro Animation Studios

Occupation
ident of Cilantro Animation Studios

Location
Boca Raton, Florida


Biography

President of Cilantro Animation Studios

We love it because it makes our life and work simpler, it is like a partner in our studio.

How long have you been in this profession?

Two years. Our storyboard team has over 25 years of experience.

What kind of projects do you create storyboards for?

We create storyboards for TV series.

Do you create your storyboards using Toon Boom Storyboard Pro only?

We mostly use Toon Boom Storyboard Pro.

If not, what other applications are you using?

We also use Photoshop to draw and import the images into Storyboard Pro.

Why do you choose to combine these products?

It gives the free hand artist a wide range of visual possibilities for our stories.

Please describe your workflow

We submit the final TV Series script to our storyboard artist and review it with him in detail. Then, we start making the storyboard, with simultaneous reviews, as follows:

1. We make sketches and final colored drawings with a Intuos 3 Wacom tablet in Photoshop. We save them in PSD format because in some cases we need the transparency feature of the PSD format.
2. Then we import these drawings into Storyboard Pro.
3. In the Overview workspace, we arrange the order of the shots and panels.
4. We import the script to the Storyboard tab.
5. We rename the captions to the ones used by Cilantro Animation Studios.
6. In the Drawing workspace, we set the camera moves, and transitions.
7. In the Horizontal workspace we add in their respective captions the sound, music, camera and lighting indications.
8. We export the Storyboard to PDF format for revision.
9. When it is required we make an animatic by setting the duration of the shots and exporting the storyboard to SWF or Quick Time format.

What are your top five favorite features in Toon Boom Storyboard Pro?

• Camera moves
• Working with storyboard panels
• The built-in animatic feature
• Drawing with the brush tool and a graphic tablet and pen
• Working with layers

Did you experience any productivity gains in using Toon Boom Storyboard Pro?

Yes definitely, as an integral and required part of the company pipeline process

Are you more efficient today compared to your production toolset used previously?

Without any doubt because the multiple features of Storyboard Pro allow us to be flexible, nimble and fast to meet our customers’ demand. Specifically, the work with panels is what makes us save a lot of time due to the ease to edit the panels after each review, moving them, taking them out, merge them and to establish the camera moves

Is it possible to get the same results with other software?

We have tried but have not been able to do that.

How do you feel about Toon Boom Storyboard Pro?

We love it because it makes our life and work simpler, it is like a partner in our studio. We still need to take advantage of more of its resources.

Equipment used

Intuos 3 Wacom tablet, Windows Base Computer with XP Operating System