My work on Ninja Turtles

[BYWInsaniac]

Hey all!
I've been floating around these forums since probably 1999. Way back then I was in 8th grade, 13 years old, and posting at JC.

Now I'm living on my own, 29 years old, and I've been working in animation. I've been working on Nickelodeon's "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" series for just about 2 years now, currently as a storyboard artist.

I know I mentioned what I do in a post some time last year, but there's a crazy delay in animation: the stuff I'm storyboarding right now won't air for about 1 year. Yeah, I've got to keep my mouth shut about the scenes I'm working on for an entire year!!! So at that time I couldn't really talk about what I'd done, let alone show anything!

But now that it's been two full years, a lot of episodes that I've worked on have aired, and I wanted to share a few links and describe what I do a little bit.

So currently I'm a storyboard artist. We are the first people to visualize a scene. I literally take the script and I draw out the shots and the characters the way I think the scene should play out. We impact how comedic, how intense, or how exciting the scene is by our choices in camera angles, pacing, and character acting.

Once I finish a storyboard it goes to the director and the producers, and they'll make changes if needed. If I've done a good job, the only changes will be little things. Things like trimming the episode down so it's 21 minutes long, or tweaking things so everything hooks up between the three storyboard artists on the episode. These changes will be made by the storyboard revisionists under the director's guidance. That's where I started on the show, as a revisionist. It's the entry level job on the story team, and by fixing and adjusting the storyboards you learn what works and what doesn't work in a scene.

So last fall they showed a scene I storyboarded at New York Comic Con:



I don't actually animate; I create a really specific template the animators work from. For comparison, here's the best version of the final scene that I could find:


Unfortunately it's oddly cropped, but you should be able to get a pretty good idea of how the animators use the storyboard to create the final animation.

I started on the show with "Wormquake" and served as a revisionist through most of season 3. As a revisionist I was able to storyboard a scene or two from each episode my team worked on, but I would never get a full "board handout," which is usually about 1/3 of an episode. I've been a full time storyboard artist since we started work on Season 4 last year.

It's a crazy fun job, and it's insanely fun and rewarding. It's also a TON of work. Usually a 7 minute section of storyboard will have around 800 drawings, all done in about 6 weeks.

So that's a little bit of what I do! I can't answer questions about super current stuff with TMNT or what's coming up in the show, but if you've got any questions about how animation works I'd love to answer as best I can!

-JJ

PS: I can't find too many clips of the stuff I've done online, but if anybody watches the show, these are a few of the scenes I storyboarded:

307 "Eyes of the Chimera" - I storyboarded the scene where Donnie is testing April's abilities with the flash cards.

310 "Serpent Hunt" - This is where the clips above are from.

313 "Battle of New York" - I storyboarded the little scene where Donnie injects the retro-mutagen into the Technodrome.

316 "Clash of the Mutanimals" - I storyboarded the brain worm scenes, first the Rockwell/Slash scene and then the Raph scene.

I'll update this list if people seem interested.

[iron37]

Cool stuff man! I love seeing the creative process behind animation.

Id like to pick your brain a bit, hope you dont mind . From your experience, do you think its absolutely mandatory to attend some sortof animation school to have a realistic chance at getting a job in the industry?

[BYWInsaniac]

Hey, no problem!

I dont think animation college is necessary AT ALL, and frankly can be a huge waste of time and money. A few of the best artists I know never went to college, and one didn't even finish high school. I know a bunch of people who were literally discovered on DeviantArt and tumblr. It's all about how well you can draw, and how well you can network.

I WOULD recommend taking some classes, though. If you're in the Los Angeles area, I highly recommend Concept Design Academy. All of their teachers have years of professional experience, and most of them are working full time. If you're not in LA, I'd say that's a good way to evaluate the quality of a school you do find.

The problem I find with a lot of colleges is that very few of the teachers have meaningful professional experience. The chair of the animation department at my college hadn't worked since 1993, and he only had about a year or two of experience after graduating college himself. I graduated and had to take courses at Concept Design Academy for two years, supplementing my college education with stuff I SHOULD have been taught.

Networking is absolutely invaluable, though. If you're serious about getting into animation I really recommend at least visiting LA for a term. Take some classes at CDA, find an internship. I know so few people who got work without an "in." Almost everybody I know was at one point recommended.

There is no one way into animation, though. My personal story, I interned at Marvel Lionsgate back in 2007. In 2011, I was recommended for a production assistant job at Warner Bros Animation by someone I'd worked under at MLG. Once I had my foot in the door, a few friends helped me get onto "Transformers Prime" as a storyboard revisionist. From there, all my work has been through my network.

I think it's totally possible to be self taught, but it involves being super honest about your shortcomings. You need to be able to identify where you need to improve, then work your *** off to get better. That's why I say find some classes: pros will see that stuff and be able to help guide you past it. That was my experience. My CDA teachers were working character designers and storyboard artists, so they were able to see exactly what I needed to fix in order to be hire-able.

Having a background in art will definitely give you a foot up, though! Do you do comics professionally or personally? Comics are actually a really good starting point for storyboarding, since both are all about storytelling. If you want, I can give you some feedback. You can either post some stuff here or find me on Facebook!

Sorry that's a bit long-winded. I hope that helps!

-JJ Conway

[BYWInsaniac]

Just saw this:

gumroad.com/l/fall2015

I haven't taken this class, but Steve is a fantastic board artist. He worked on TMNT for a few episodes, and his stuff is unreal. If you've got any interest in learning how to storyboard, I bet this is a good place to start.

-JJ