TAS Storyboards

[Captain_Koloth]

Not sure if this is the right place for this thread, but seems to fit here about as well as anywhere. Anyway, I recently picked up an interesting collectors' item at a convention- a single page of a storyboard from TAS's "Beyond the Farthest Star". It looks exactly like the storyboards here: http://www.knowitalljoe.com/treking-animated-star-trek-storyboards-script/

The dealer I bought if from didn't know much about it, and not knowing much about the detailed history of Filmation, production of TAS, etc. I was wondering if anyone here knew the significance of these storyboards and where exactly they fit into the overall TAS production scheme.

 

[Maurice]

Looks like a basic breakdown of the script into shots with dialog pasted to the drawings to indicate what shots would accompany the dialog (and sound effects, etc.) As Filmation mostly relied upon re-using stock animation most of it appears to be photocopies of stock poses. Once the shots were selected someone likely did a dialog breakdown (syllables and timing) so that the correct mouth positions could be timed to match the recorded dialog to get lip sync.

 

[Christopher]

Yup. Storyboards are the first step in creating animation. Because it's such a slow and meticulous process, with every frame having to be created individually, animation has to be completely planned out in advance. In live action, you can try out different camera angles and stage business and film it all and then decide in editing what bits you want to use, but animation has to be "edited" in advance, in the storyboard and layout phase. Storyboards are how you determine the shots and angles and timings you want to use before you animate. Basically the same role that storyboards play in creating special effects shots -- a way to save time and money by locking down in advance just what you need to create. Many animators, like the Pixar staff, actually "write" their movies in the storyboard phase, starting with the visuals rather than with the script. Although Filmation worked script-first.

And as Maurice says, Filmation relied heavily on its stock system, in which they created a catalog of stock character poses and movements that could be pieced together to create the animation more quickly and cheaply than if they had to be newly drawn. Or if they did need to animate a new character, they could trace the movements from a stock shot of another character, so you'd see a lot of recurring motions over and over (although Filmation hadn't started using rotoscoped movements, i.e. animation traced from live action footage, at the time of TAS, except for one or two rotoscoped shots of the Enterprise in motion from the title sequence). They worked out their stock system meticulously so that storyboards and animation could be constructed quickly and efficiently, since time and money were at a premium.

Lincoln Enterprises, Roddenberry's memorabilia company, used to sell TAS storyboards along with TOS and TAS scripts. Decades ago, I bought the script and storyboard of "The Eye of the Beholder," partly to see how the storyboards were done, and partly because Alan Dean Foster's novelization of that one changed the ending, and I wanted a reference for the original ending.

 

[Captain_Koloth]

Thanks so much!

As far as the individual history of the one I bought, I don't suppose storyboarding was the kind of thing that one particular person did, it could have been several members of the staff I assume? Would there be lots of copies of a storyboard? I guess I'm just interested in the progeny of mine in particular. Would there be any way to tell if mine came from filmation directly or from Lincoln Enterprises for example?

 

[Christopher]

As far as the individual history of the one I bought, I don't suppose storyboarding was the kind of thing that one particular person did, it could have been several members of the staff I assume?

Generally animation storyboards are done by a small number of artists, maybe 1-3 people for a half-hour TV episode. IMDb lists eight storyboard artists for TAS as a whole, but there's no way to break down who did which episode.

Would there be lots of copies of a storyboard? I guess I'm just interested in the progeny of mine in particular. Would there be any way to tell if mine came from filmation directly or from Lincoln Enterprises for example?

No doubt they'd make plenty of copies as reference for the various animators and other staffers. But Lincoln Enterprises no doubt made many more copies of their own for sale to the public. It's unlikely yours was actually an original or anything.

 

[Captain_Koloth]

Yeah, I expected as much. For future reference would there be any easy way to tell an original from a copy? (assuming it doesn't obviously look photocopied of course).

For example for something like this . Obviously hard to tell ebay being ebay but are there any telltale indications one way or the other?

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, I expected as much. For future reference would there be any easy way to tell an original from a copy? (assuming it doesn't obviously look photocopied of course).

I doubt it's a meaningful distinction. Whatever original pages the storyboard artists put together (which may well have involved photocopying stock artwork quite a bit), they no doubt ran off a bunch of photocopies to hand out to the staff.

 

[Maurice]

The scan you posted looks like a scan of a photocopy. An original would likely be a cut and paste job with the typed dialog glued to the sheets, and probably would look something like this (link).

 

[Christopher]

^Fascinating.

 

[FormerLurker]

I'm going to nitpick and say that in 1973 they would have been using mimeograph, or 'ditto' machines rather than photocopiers. Those didn't come into wide use until years later.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

In any case, it is interesting material.

 

[Maurice]

I'm going to nitpick and say that in 1973 they would have been using mimeograph, or 'ditto' machines rather than photocopiers. Those didn't come into wide use until years later.

You'd be wrong. By the time TAS came on the scene Xerox copiers had been well-established and the company had its first color copier on the market. And animation departments were using Xerography as far back as 101 Dalmations, released in 1961.

 

[Lieut. Arex]

Not sure if this is the right place for this thread, but seems to fit here about as well as anywhere. Anyway, I recently picked up an interesting collectors' item at a convention- a single page of a storyboard from TAS's "Beyond the Farthest Star". It looks exactly like the storyboards here: http://www.knowitalljoe.com/treking-animated-star-trek-storyboards-script/

The dealer I bought if from didn't know much about it, and not knowing much about the detailed history of Filmation, production of TAS, etc. I was wondering if anyone here knew the significance of these storyboards and where exactly they fit into the overall TAS production scheme.

thanks much It's crying shame so little of TAS preproduction art is availible there was precious little in that big Art of Star trek book from @ 15 years ago guess most of it went into dumpsters 30 or 40 years ago

 

[FormerLurker]

I'm going to nitpick and say that in 1973 they would have been using mimeograph, or 'ditto' machines rather than photocopiers. Those didn't come into wide use until years later.

You'd be wrong. By the time TAS came on the scene Xerox copiers had been well-established and the company had its first color copier on the market. And animation departments were using Xerography as far back as 101 Dalmations, released in 1961.

With all due respect to Lou Scheimer, Hal Sutherland, et al, you're talking about Disney. Filmation was notorious for working on the cheap. Having used mimeograph machines myself, I can easily see Filmation using them to at least copy the individual images for distribution to their writing and animation staff. Any actual photocopying would then be of the finished storyboards, for use when they're submitted to the higher-ups for approval.

Not to mention that your link describes something completely different, using the Xerox machine to facilitate transferring the animation art directly to the animation cells, eliminating the job of animation inker in the process. Filmation may well have been doing that all along. Even then, I doubt Disney began using their new, expensive Xerox machine for inter-office memos until years later.

 

[Maurice]

5 seconds of Googling finds this in the TAS credits:

John Remmel ... xerography and paint supervisor (22 episodes, 1973-1974)

Sure, the process used for cels isn't a plain paper copier, but photocopiers were in common use by 1970. Heck my podunk high school in rural NV had a photocopier in the mid 70s. You're seriously suggesting a company which produces for TV wouldn't have one a three years earlier?

Sure, it's possible they could have "ditto"ed it. But is it likely?

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Looking at the storyboards for "The Eye of the Beholder" that were referenced in the OP, wouldn't the faded lines in the storyboards be indicative of photocopying and not mimeographing?

With mimeographing, there is a stencil which should not produce faded lines in the same way, at least as long as the ink supply is steady.

On the other hand, the occurrence of faded lines in photocopying is common in cases when the source page is not perfectly flat on the scanning glass. That would in fact be the case, if the source page had cutouts pasted onto it as described upthread. Not only would the cutouts force the main part of the page away from the glass, so that the page couldn't lie perfectly flat on the glass, but also there could be some crinkling as a result of the pasting. In addition, there would be no need for the studio to exercise its maximum quality control simply to run off copies of the storyboards. All that would matter would be for the intent to be clear enough for the staff to understand what to do.