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Designs
on the Sea
Starlog Science Fiction Explorer
December 1995
by BILL WILSON
"I consider storyboarding to be the greatest example of motion in still art," declares Mark Simon, storyboard artist for seaQuest. "I take a script and an idea and I illustrate what it's going to end up being in motion. I have to take the director's ideas and present them to a crew of 200 people so that everyone understands and can work toward a common goal. Because science fiction and fantasy projects generally require more FX and more extensive action sequences, they therefore require more storyboarding. There are so many different elements that go in it that the only way you can keep the story flowing so that it makes sense from one shot to the next is to have a visual design of the entire story. You have a director who has his own vision of that script, but everyone has a different idea in their head of what the story should look like. So, I sit down with the director and I visualize what he has in his head, and that becomes the guideline for everyone else to work around.
"If you can look at storyboards and tell what's happening without reading anything, they're successful," Simon continues, emphasizing that the key is substance over style. "Being a good artist does not make a good storyboard artist. Drawing a pretty picture does not necessarily make motion sense. Being able to carry a story visually is totally different from being able to draw a realistic apple. IT's getting the idea across, more than the art itself, which makes a storyboard successful.
In addition, Simon explains that detailed illustrations are mostly unnecessary as well. "we're not talking stick figures here, of course, but sometimes on a set, my work may not be much more than that. I may not even draw eyes: I may just draw cross lines on a face to show the center lines of the nose and where the eyes would be, just to show what direction the head is looking. If I'm in a real hurry-- and I'm pumping out as many as 150 of these a day--that's all I can really afford to give them. It comes down to not one drawing, but how many drawings there are in a row, and how they flow to show the action.
"I tell artists who are learning how to do storyboards to show someone their work, and if that person has a question, don't explain it to them," he insists. "If I'm showing someone my stuff, and they look at something and say, "Well what's this?" the first thing I do is pull it away and ask them "OK, what don't you get? What do I need to fix?" That's my problem. I obviously did not make something understandable enough.
"That's tough for an artist," he continues, "Because there's a lot of ego involved. You're not talking about something designed for just one person to enjoy; there's a purpose behind it. When I go over the script with the director, I pay attention to every little detail. If there's a question, it may mean an additional drawing or two, or it may be handled as easily as a description of to the side. You have to make other people understand it. It's not like you can take it around to all 200 people and explain it to them!" he laughs.
"Storyboards also aid in budgeting. The stunt coordinator can look at the scene and know exactly what his people have to do, how much time it will take and how much it will cost to do the stunt. The FX guy can see how many bullet hits there are to judge how many squibs are needed, or he can see a fireball that requires this much material which will cost this much money. Now you can budget and schedule off the storyboards. My storyboards are the blue prints for the production." Simon asserts. "Storyboards are not cheap, but they can save so much money. If the director sees only one camera angle looking into the corner of a room, you only need to build two walls instead of a huge four-wall set. The savings on that alone could more than pay for all the storyboards. Storyboards help the production in many different aspects, but the biggest element that is that it provides the entire crew the director's vision to work towards."
Board Stories
Simon explains an instance last season where storyboards had a particular impact: "One really bizarre episode was the Poseidon story, where the seaQuest encountered Neptune. Obviously, on something of that size and scope, we had many different elements to contend with: underwater photography, green-screen photography and several completely computer-generated things.
"There was a sequence in which the seaQuest is fighting head-to-head with Neptune," he continues. "The director had an idea of what he wanted, but I think where my expertise came in is where I suggested a different angle to shoot Neptune reaching down to grab the ship. The director just wanted him to reach down for it. I said, 'Let's put the camera right behind the seaQuest, and do some foreshortening so we see this hand come up huge in frame to grab the ship." With the hand bursting out of the screen towards you, it's so much more visually dynamic. Shooting with a wide-angle lens so you see this enormous hand reaching closer and closer towards you is much more exciting than a static shot of a guy reaching down to pick up a toy."
In his book, Storyboards: Motion in Art, Simon explains that, in the film and television industry, a picture is not worth a thousand words, but actually much more than a thousand dollars. The importance of this visual blueprint of a production's flow of action and design can't be underestimated or overlooked, but that's not to say it comes without creative rewards. "This is like the ultimate for a graphic artist,"Simon declares exuberantly, "I get to draw, I get to work with great people, I get to do special FX, period pieces, high action, super heroes, anything and everything--it changes constantly. This is just plain fun. I believe in having fun in what you do for a living. I can't imagine working a nine-to-five job and complaining to my wife every time I get home."
Simon brings years of experience in a diverse number of fields to his job as one of seaQuest's storyboard artists. At age 12, he designed skateboards for Schwinn Bikes, and he later ran a small advertising company, published his own collegiate magazine, syndicated his own weekly cartoons and managed a custom home building company. IT is this variety which lends a fresh perspective to his creative pursuits. "For the past 15 years, I've been running huge crews, overseeing a ton of money--big construction projects--so now it's nice to be totally creative and avoid all that other stuff,"he says with a sigh of relief. "What I'm doing now is totally creative, and that's empowering."
And this creative power comes through the use of the simplest of tools. "Fine artists cringe when they what kind of paper I use: plain old ordinary typing paper, Why? Because the drawings have to be reproduced hundreds of times very quickly for distribution to many different people. What better paper to use than a kind that can easily run through an automatic feeder on a Xerox machine? Beyond that, it has a nice texture, so you can get some nice shading with it. The need for speed dictates the medium."
While advancements in computer technology are often evident on screen as ever more outrageous and envelope-pushing special FX, Simon embraces the technology as an additional pre-production tool as well, within its limitations.
"I've actually done some storyboards right on the computer, " He explains, "There are a couple of programs out there that are great for producers and directors who need to do their own storyboards or are using them to develop their initial ideas. It's fantastic what it can do, but for me it's so much more limiting and time-consuming than what I can do by hand, so it's not really a practical solution for all storyboard work. Besides, any good storyboard artist will agree it's always going to be better by hand: you get the nuances.
"Obviously, any computer is limited to how many images you can manipulate at one time. I'm so used to doing everything so quickly that these storyboard programs tend to slow me down. What I mainly use the computer for is the construction of the seq-Quest sets in 3-D. With a program like Virtus, I can build something really quickly, in color, and then texture-map it and embellish it. I then take it to the director and Vaughan Edwards, our designer and actually walk them through it. Then, I can either do a color print from a video printer or a black-and-white print from a laser printer. When we want a lot of detail, Ill print out a line drawing as a template to pull all my perspective lines from. Because everything is dimensionally correct in the computer, I save valuable time because I don't have to figure it out by hand."
Board Teacher
Storyboards: Motion In Art is not Simon's first entry into self-publishing. "I actually wrote two others before this one. I have the art direction book Art Direction, The Craft In Your Career and a follow up called The Art Direction Workbook. I've always loved writing and drawing. Now here I am doing these cool things and I'm really good at showing people how to do it. I love teaching. Once again, it boils down to fun. I enjoy seeing people learn and helping them with it. These books area great way to do it."
Simon's business experience has helped him avoid many of the pitfalls other creatives encounter, and his books share these valuable insights with his readers. "I've never been a 'starving artist' and I've never sold out. But I know business, and that has a lot to do with it. I write about the cold, hard facts: how you work, what the options are, how to make your stuff better. I'm not getting into the theory of design--you go to school to learn that."
Simon is quick to note that the reader best not expect an art-course-in-a-book. "In Art Direction, am I going to teach you how to be a designer? No. That's not what I feel I'm best at. I'm not trying to teach anyone artistic ability; I'm passing along the little things I've learned that I wish I had known before. I've talked with tons of other art directors and they all said, "God, if I had only known... if there was some way to learn this stuff."
His books are an outgrowth of several lecture series he developed while teaching. "Several years ago, I started lecturing on art direction, and that led into lectures on storyboarding and combining the two. Putting those notes together, I noticed that I had collected a lot of information I would have loved to have had when I first started. I thought if I wanted it, other people would want it as well, so I decided to write a book. As I was working on the art direction book, I realized that I needed some feedback. I taught the art direction course at the University of Central Florida and an extension course at another university. At the same time, I was updating the book and the workbook. I would come up with ideas for the exercises in one class, the students would go through them and I would jot down notes about what worked, what didn't, and what kind of responses I was getting. Then, I would redo it and use it in the second class as I was refining it."
His hectic work schedule became even more so when seaQuest's production came to town in 1994. "Actually, I started seaQuest about a week after finals. I had no personal contact with anyone on the show until a friend put me in touch with Mike Metzel, the construction coordinator. I showed my work first to Mike, then to Vaughan Edwards, the production designer, then finally Oscar L. Costo, the producer. I was hired a few days afterward. At the time, I had the film The Walking Dead coming up and I thought, 'The timing's perfect. I can go right from a feature into a TV series.' Unfortunately, the film got postponed several weeks and seaQuest moved me up a couple. I worked practically 24 hours a day, nights and weekends, doing both at the same time."
With the film industry continuing to grow at a rapid pace in the Orlando area, competition for work has heated up, but Simon welcomes it. "I do have a book which teaches people how to do what I do, which might increase my competition even more, but the more people who buy the book, the less I have to work!" he jokes. "Seriously, I"ve found that as I've seen my students get really good, it has only served to push me to make myself better. It has given me that kick in the butt to increase my own ability. Plus, I have the added satisfaction that I've helped someone to improve their own skills."
Storyboarding for seaQuest presented Simon with a unique opportunity--to work on a network TV series about a subject he knows and loves, produced by one of his idols. "It never really crossed my mind that a series would want or need a storyboard artists full-time. The fact that Steven Spielberg's name was associated with it, though, had a lot to do with my decision to come on board. I would love to work with him personally; that would be the ultimate for me. He's the greatest filmmaker I've ever seen. Just working on something he's a part of is extremely satisfying. But that part of it is far from the overriding concern to be involved in seaQuest. That would be the science fiction element. It's what I love most, what I've enjoyed reading the most my whole life. Science fiction is really what I will always prefer doing, and seaQuest gives me a great opportunity to do that. You realize it's hard work; it's not glamorous. But then one day you show someone your drawings or walk on a set and you realize that, yeah, this really is like a dream come true.
"I like living that dream,"Simon smiles. "You realize, 'This really is a cool thing I'm doing!' It's like comic books. I read them as a kid, and I still do. You'll find most people in this industry read comic books; it's a natural connection to another visual storytelling medium. Working on storyboards is like designing a living comic book. I get to design a comic book that shows up in a film or on TV every week. It's an extension of my desire to create comic strips, though the purpose and style is totally different.
"Being a comic book fan growing up, the first artist that comes to mind as an inspiration is Gene Colan [best known for Tomb of Dracula]. Colan's comic books are storyboards. Take any of his comic books and shoot a movie from them." Simon's eyes widen as he explains himself. "The motion, the way the story flows, the way he pushes in when you need to see tighter, the way he has a wide establishing shot when you need to set a scene. Long before I ever thought about doing storyboards, I looked at his work and thought, 'This is like reading a movie!'
"Frank Miller is another artist whose style I really admire. It's not fair to call him 'a great visual artist' because that really doesn't say enough. Beyond the beauty of the individual panels is the smooth flow of the story, that cinematic quality. s far as quality of art itself. Neal Adams has always been one of my heroes-- Neal and John Byrne. I"ve got probably 20 or 30 original comic book pages in my house. Talk about inspiration! I sit at my drafting table and agonize over how to do something, and then I look up and see one of those pieces and it's like, 'Wow! How did they do that? That is just so awesome!"
Looking at his experiences as a storyboard artist, visualizing countless action sequences, environments and even alien worlds, Mark Simon would be happy to follow the same path as another one of his inspirations. "Anyone who's a storyboard artist knows of Joe Johnston, who was a storyboard artist on Star Wars and is now a very successful director [Honey, I Shrunk The Kids, The Rockeeter]. You think about that-- it's not hard to--and considering what you do as a storyboard artist, you are a director. I'm doing a lot of the breakdowns, scene-by-scene, often shot-by-shot. I've gotten the opportunity to direct second unity a few times. So, I've had a taste of it and I really enjoyed it. I've art directed outside projects, industrials before, and I've even directed some. And yeah, it's fun. Is it a goal of mine? No. Would I love to do it? Of course!"
Starlog Science Fiction Explorer
December 1995
by BILL WILSON
"I consider storyboarding to be the greatest example of motion in still art," declares Mark Simon, storyboard artist for seaQuest. "I take a script and an idea and I illustrate what it's going to end up being in motion. I have to take the director's ideas and present them to a crew of 200 people so that everyone understands and can work toward a common goal. Because science fiction and fantasy projects generally require more FX and more extensive action sequences, they therefore require more storyboarding. There are so many different elements that go in it that the only way you can keep the story flowing so that it makes sense from one shot to the next is to have a visual design of the entire story. You have a director who has his own vision of that script, but everyone has a different idea in their head of what the story should look like. So, I sit down with the director and I visualize what he has in his head, and that becomes the guideline for everyone else to work around.
"If you can look at storyboards and tell what's happening without reading anything, they're successful," Simon continues, emphasizing that the key is substance over style. "Being a good artist does not make a good storyboard artist. Drawing a pretty picture does not necessarily make motion sense. Being able to carry a story visually is totally different from being able to draw a realistic apple. IT's getting the idea across, more than the art itself, which makes a storyboard successful.
In addition, Simon explains that detailed illustrations are mostly unnecessary as well. "we're not talking stick figures here, of course, but sometimes on a set, my work may not be much more than that. I may not even draw eyes: I may just draw cross lines on a face to show the center lines of the nose and where the eyes would be, just to show what direction the head is looking. If I'm in a real hurry-- and I'm pumping out as many as 150 of these a day--that's all I can really afford to give them. It comes down to not one drawing, but how many drawings there are in a row, and how they flow to show the action.
"I tell artists who are learning how to do storyboards to show someone their work, and if that person has a question, don't explain it to them," he insists. "If I'm showing someone my stuff, and they look at something and say, "Well what's this?" the first thing I do is pull it away and ask them "OK, what don't you get? What do I need to fix?" That's my problem. I obviously did not make something understandable enough.
"That's tough for an artist," he continues, "Because there's a lot of ego involved. You're not talking about something designed for just one person to enjoy; there's a purpose behind it. When I go over the script with the director, I pay attention to every little detail. If there's a question, it may mean an additional drawing or two, or it may be handled as easily as a description of to the side. You have to make other people understand it. It's not like you can take it around to all 200 people and explain it to them!" he laughs.
"Storyboards also aid in budgeting. The stunt coordinator can look at the scene and know exactly what his people have to do, how much time it will take and how much it will cost to do the stunt. The FX guy can see how many bullet hits there are to judge how many squibs are needed, or he can see a fireball that requires this much material which will cost this much money. Now you can budget and schedule off the storyboards. My storyboards are the blue prints for the production." Simon asserts. "Storyboards are not cheap, but they can save so much money. If the director sees only one camera angle looking into the corner of a room, you only need to build two walls instead of a huge four-wall set. The savings on that alone could more than pay for all the storyboards. Storyboards help the production in many different aspects, but the biggest element that is that it provides the entire crew the director's vision to work towards."
Board Stories
Simon explains an instance last season where storyboards had a particular impact: "One really bizarre episode was the Poseidon story, where the seaQuest encountered Neptune. Obviously, on something of that size and scope, we had many different elements to contend with: underwater photography, green-screen photography and several completely computer-generated things.
"There was a sequence in which the seaQuest is fighting head-to-head with Neptune," he continues. "The director had an idea of what he wanted, but I think where my expertise came in is where I suggested a different angle to shoot Neptune reaching down to grab the ship. The director just wanted him to reach down for it. I said, 'Let's put the camera right behind the seaQuest, and do some foreshortening so we see this hand come up huge in frame to grab the ship." With the hand bursting out of the screen towards you, it's so much more visually dynamic. Shooting with a wide-angle lens so you see this enormous hand reaching closer and closer towards you is much more exciting than a static shot of a guy reaching down to pick up a toy."
In his book, Storyboards: Motion in Art, Simon explains that, in the film and television industry, a picture is not worth a thousand words, but actually much more than a thousand dollars. The importance of this visual blueprint of a production's flow of action and design can't be underestimated or overlooked, but that's not to say it comes without creative rewards. "This is like the ultimate for a graphic artist,"Simon declares exuberantly, "I get to draw, I get to work with great people, I get to do special FX, period pieces, high action, super heroes, anything and everything--it changes constantly. This is just plain fun. I believe in having fun in what you do for a living. I can't imagine working a nine-to-five job and complaining to my wife every time I get home."
Simon brings years of experience in a diverse number of fields to his job as one of seaQuest's storyboard artists. At age 12, he designed skateboards for Schwinn Bikes, and he later ran a small advertising company, published his own collegiate magazine, syndicated his own weekly cartoons and managed a custom home building company. IT is this variety which lends a fresh perspective to his creative pursuits. "For the past 15 years, I've been running huge crews, overseeing a ton of money--big construction projects--so now it's nice to be totally creative and avoid all that other stuff,"he says with a sigh of relief. "What I'm doing now is totally creative, and that's empowering."
And this creative power comes through the use of the simplest of tools. "Fine artists cringe when they what kind of paper I use: plain old ordinary typing paper, Why? Because the drawings have to be reproduced hundreds of times very quickly for distribution to many different people. What better paper to use than a kind that can easily run through an automatic feeder on a Xerox machine? Beyond that, it has a nice texture, so you can get some nice shading with it. The need for speed dictates the medium."
While advancements in computer technology are often evident on screen as ever more outrageous and envelope-pushing special FX, Simon embraces the technology as an additional pre-production tool as well, within its limitations.
"I've actually done some storyboards right on the computer, " He explains, "There are a couple of programs out there that are great for producers and directors who need to do their own storyboards or are using them to develop their initial ideas. It's fantastic what it can do, but for me it's so much more limiting and time-consuming than what I can do by hand, so it's not really a practical solution for all storyboard work. Besides, any good storyboard artist will agree it's always going to be better by hand: you get the nuances.
"Obviously, any computer is limited to how many images you can manipulate at one time. I'm so used to doing everything so quickly that these storyboard programs tend to slow me down. What I mainly use the computer for is the construction of the seq-Quest sets in 3-D. With a program like Virtus, I can build something really quickly, in color, and then texture-map it and embellish it. I then take it to the director and Vaughan Edwards, our designer and actually walk them through it. Then, I can either do a color print from a video printer or a black-and-white print from a laser printer. When we want a lot of detail, Ill print out a line drawing as a template to pull all my perspective lines from. Because everything is dimensionally correct in the computer, I save valuable time because I don't have to figure it out by hand."
Board Teacher
Storyboards: Motion In Art is not Simon's first entry into self-publishing. "I actually wrote two others before this one. I have the art direction book Art Direction, The Craft In Your Career and a follow up called The Art Direction Workbook. I've always loved writing and drawing. Now here I am doing these cool things and I'm really good at showing people how to do it. I love teaching. Once again, it boils down to fun. I enjoy seeing people learn and helping them with it. These books area great way to do it."
Simon's business experience has helped him avoid many of the pitfalls other creatives encounter, and his books share these valuable insights with his readers. "I've never been a 'starving artist' and I've never sold out. But I know business, and that has a lot to do with it. I write about the cold, hard facts: how you work, what the options are, how to make your stuff better. I'm not getting into the theory of design--you go to school to learn that."
Simon is quick to note that the reader best not expect an art-course-in-a-book. "In Art Direction, am I going to teach you how to be a designer? No. That's not what I feel I'm best at. I'm not trying to teach anyone artistic ability; I'm passing along the little things I've learned that I wish I had known before. I've talked with tons of other art directors and they all said, "God, if I had only known... if there was some way to learn this stuff."
His books are an outgrowth of several lecture series he developed while teaching. "Several years ago, I started lecturing on art direction, and that led into lectures on storyboarding and combining the two. Putting those notes together, I noticed that I had collected a lot of information I would have loved to have had when I first started. I thought if I wanted it, other people would want it as well, so I decided to write a book. As I was working on the art direction book, I realized that I needed some feedback. I taught the art direction course at the University of Central Florida and an extension course at another university. At the same time, I was updating the book and the workbook. I would come up with ideas for the exercises in one class, the students would go through them and I would jot down notes about what worked, what didn't, and what kind of responses I was getting. Then, I would redo it and use it in the second class as I was refining it."
His hectic work schedule became even more so when seaQuest's production came to town in 1994. "Actually, I started seaQuest about a week after finals. I had no personal contact with anyone on the show until a friend put me in touch with Mike Metzel, the construction coordinator. I showed my work first to Mike, then to Vaughan Edwards, the production designer, then finally Oscar L. Costo, the producer. I was hired a few days afterward. At the time, I had the film The Walking Dead coming up and I thought, 'The timing's perfect. I can go right from a feature into a TV series.' Unfortunately, the film got postponed several weeks and seaQuest moved me up a couple. I worked practically 24 hours a day, nights and weekends, doing both at the same time."
With the film industry continuing to grow at a rapid pace in the Orlando area, competition for work has heated up, but Simon welcomes it. "I do have a book which teaches people how to do what I do, which might increase my competition even more, but the more people who buy the book, the less I have to work!" he jokes. "Seriously, I"ve found that as I've seen my students get really good, it has only served to push me to make myself better. It has given me that kick in the butt to increase my own ability. Plus, I have the added satisfaction that I've helped someone to improve their own skills."
Storyboarding for seaQuest presented Simon with a unique opportunity--to work on a network TV series about a subject he knows and loves, produced by one of his idols. "It never really crossed my mind that a series would want or need a storyboard artists full-time. The fact that Steven Spielberg's name was associated with it, though, had a lot to do with my decision to come on board. I would love to work with him personally; that would be the ultimate for me. He's the greatest filmmaker I've ever seen. Just working on something he's a part of is extremely satisfying. But that part of it is far from the overriding concern to be involved in seaQuest. That would be the science fiction element. It's what I love most, what I've enjoyed reading the most my whole life. Science fiction is really what I will always prefer doing, and seaQuest gives me a great opportunity to do that. You realize it's hard work; it's not glamorous. But then one day you show someone your drawings or walk on a set and you realize that, yeah, this really is like a dream come true.
"I like living that dream,"Simon smiles. "You realize, 'This really is a cool thing I'm doing!' It's like comic books. I read them as a kid, and I still do. You'll find most people in this industry read comic books; it's a natural connection to another visual storytelling medium. Working on storyboards is like designing a living comic book. I get to design a comic book that shows up in a film or on TV every week. It's an extension of my desire to create comic strips, though the purpose and style is totally different.
"Being a comic book fan growing up, the first artist that comes to mind as an inspiration is Gene Colan [best known for Tomb of Dracula]. Colan's comic books are storyboards. Take any of his comic books and shoot a movie from them." Simon's eyes widen as he explains himself. "The motion, the way the story flows, the way he pushes in when you need to see tighter, the way he has a wide establishing shot when you need to set a scene. Long before I ever thought about doing storyboards, I looked at his work and thought, 'This is like reading a movie!'
"Frank Miller is another artist whose style I really admire. It's not fair to call him 'a great visual artist' because that really doesn't say enough. Beyond the beauty of the individual panels is the smooth flow of the story, that cinematic quality. s far as quality of art itself. Neal Adams has always been one of my heroes-- Neal and John Byrne. I"ve got probably 20 or 30 original comic book pages in my house. Talk about inspiration! I sit at my drafting table and agonize over how to do something, and then I look up and see one of those pieces and it's like, 'Wow! How did they do that? That is just so awesome!"
Looking at his experiences as a storyboard artist, visualizing countless action sequences, environments and even alien worlds, Mark Simon would be happy to follow the same path as another one of his inspirations. "Anyone who's a storyboard artist knows of Joe Johnston, who was a storyboard artist on Star Wars and is now a very successful director [Honey, I Shrunk The Kids, The Rockeeter]. You think about that-- it's not hard to--and considering what you do as a storyboard artist, you are a director. I'm doing a lot of the breakdowns, scene-by-scene, often shot-by-shot. I've gotten the opportunity to direct second unity a few times. So, I've had a taste of it and I really enjoyed it. I've art directed outside projects, industrials before, and I've even directed some. And yeah, it's fun. Is it a goal of mine? No. Would I love to do it? Of course!"
Animatics & Storyboards, Inc.
407-370-BORD (2673)
marksimon (at) storyboards-east.com