Absolute TV spot
 

 

The cool thing about work like this is, for one thing, like theme park caricatures, you are forced to work on the spot and under extreme pressure.  It's not uncommon to get a job at 8:00 at night, and have to have 20 or 30 color frames done by morning.  This is the nature of the world of advertising.  You learn to become extremely efficient at drawing, being able to make fast last minute changes, and to take art direction from clients for on-the-fly decision making.
Though it'd be fun to really refine some cooler boards I've gotten to do, the reality of it is that you can't spend more than 20 to 30 minutes on any given frame.

Product shot for Totino's TV spot
(These are two FRAMES, that make up a BOARD, which usually consists of 8 or so FRAMES)

The work I get in storyboarding for the most part is from an ad agency that is making a pitch to a client.  Some client, in the above example, Totino's pizza rolls, puts the word out that they are looking to hire an ad agency to sell their new or existing product.  Ad agencies then spend oodles of money putting together a 'pitch' to the client.  This involves a team of creatives to come up with an entire ad campaign from start to finish: brainstorming, conceptualization, design, writing, illustration for all types of media.  Often times the ad agencies only have days to do this, and thus oftentimes hire specialized freelancers like me to come in and do much of the grunt work, and, like I said, oftentimes overnight.
One of the kickers is this: the ad agencies most often do this work on spec, meaning they do it without getting any money from the client!  The goal then, obviously, is for the client to choose that ad agency to follow through with the campaign under contract.  These contracts awarded then are often for millions of dollars, so one idea sold to a major client can (somewhat) easily justify numerous unsuccessful pitches to various other clients, not mention lots of work to outsourced freelancers like yours truly.
 

Part of a pitch for Dell computers

I've worked on hundreds of ad campaigns, a few have gone on to become major ones that pretty much everybody has seen.  ("What's in YOUR wallet" comes to mind).  With that, it's assumed that the more successful an ad campaign, the more money I get.
I wish.
The truth of the matter is, this type of work is Work-For-Hire, which means I get paid a flat rate per frame (drawing), and that doesn't change whether in the heirarchy of advertising decision making, that idea gets killed immediatly after I'm done drawing or it goes on to become the next 'Where's the Beef?'  I used to find this frustrating, but to be honest, the number of unsuccessful campaigns greatly outnumbers the number of successful ones.  So I think I come out ahead.

Some boards from a Mastercard commercial that's currently in heavy rotation

 I've learned in doing this that the faster I draw, the more cartoony they end up.  This has its ups and downs, but I've got a big enough portfolio that clients who chose to work with me do so because they like that light, cartoony look.  (luckily for me!)

When I first began doing these I worked everything was done on paper the old fashioned way, drawn out, colored with markers and scanned in.  Now, the process has gotten so efficient that with the help of the Wacom Cintiq tablet, everything is actually drawn and colored ON the monitor. 

Got any questions about storyboards?  Drop me an email or leave a comment.
In a day or two I'm going to post about some movie work I've done that's going to be used as actual props in an upcoming major motion picture  (hint hint, DeNiro and Drew Barrymore star in it...)  Mum's the word right now, and I've got to get permission from the nice folks at Miramax to actually blog about it.  If I get a big NO, I'll wait until the movie comes out late November.
Until then, here's some more samples of past storyboards I've worked on.

Have a great day!

Dell Computers


Cabo Wabo Tequila





The video game Spore










This was part of a Wendy's spot


I have no idea what this last one was for!

 

 

 

 

 

Post a Comment:

Name:     

Email:

Text from Graphic on the right: