boards

Here you can see a few examples of where I felt we could enhance a sequence in someway after receiving the first pass of the storyboards. After receiving the first pass boards, we would generally send them straight on to the editors for a first pass animatic and from there I would compile my notes on both the animatic and boards. This was one of my favourite parts of the director’s role. 

The Empty City

This was a hugely exciting and ambitious episode. The recruits were searching for a distress signal in this empty city when It turned out (spoiler alert!) that the entire city was a Titan Transformer!

In this sequence, the city is transforming around them and closing in on them. It had a bit of an Indiana Jones feel to it. I definitely wanted to push the tension here as much as possible.

What we had in the first pass boards was really nice, but a little too ambitious for a 2D series. Nice shots like where the group of characters were running towards the camera with the walls slamming behind them would be very difficult. Also, really wide down shots as you see at the end are very difficult.

I felt we were also missing an opportunity for tension where we could have some of the recruits cutting it really close on their escape. I opted to have Hot Shot stumble and Wedge have to go back and save him. I went for faster shots, from simpler angles in order to boost tension without overwhelming production levels.  

You can see some of my sketches for the board artist below.

Brushfire

This sequence is a good example of how I didn’t think a gag was working on a technical level at board stage. Hot Shot is briefing the other recruits on how they need to keep a low-profile with the locals. However, when they look up, they are in the vast Australian Outback, and there is no one to be seen for miles around. 

What we had in the boards was the whole gang looking out across the empty landscape while Hot Shot delivered this line. It was problematic because, Hot Shot was looking out towards the empty landscape as he delivered the line, so it didn’t make as much sense for him to be seeing that there were no locals around and to be saying this at the same time. 

What I went for instead, was to have Hot Shot hopping around, super-pumped for the mission (as was fitting to his character) and not noticing that there were no locals to be seen for miles. This way, the gag is aimed more towards Hot Shot, and we as the audience enjoy it more as we’re laughing at Hot Shot.

You can see some of my sketches for the board artist below.

Griffin Rock, Rocks

This was an incredibly fun and challenging episode. The clip I have taken from it shows an example of how we were able to amend a slight structural issue from the initial boards and add a little gag. 

The recruits were called in to rescue a damaged stage barge. As you can see in the first pass boards, it’s all very close to the final product for the most part. However, you’ll notice toward the end of the sequence that the tugboat is puling the stage along on a cable. We had a shot of the recruits pulling the stage free of the rocks, but there was nothing to show how the stage was reconnected to the tugboat. To rectify this we added the shot of Hoist’s hand coming out of the water and attaching the cable himself. This presented the opportunity of adding the visual gag of showing one of the tugboat workers idly standing by and catching a glimpse of Hoist’s hand coming out of the water. 

You’ll also notice how we removed the scripted gag from Whirl about Heatwave’s sense of humour. This was a great gag and relevant to Heatwave’s nature, however, I felt it was slowing down the sequence a bit too much as it was supposed to be rescued after all. 

The final cut is still a good bit shorter even with the added visual gag of the tugboat worker and the clarification of the sequence.