Board with Emotion

Notes from a former Show Fixer

I get a lot of grief about my focus on emotions. People often dismiss it as ‘You know Chuck. He likes romance.’ My detractors usually seeing two characters falling in love as the only ‘emotion’ in a story.

Far from it.

Emotions are a great many things. Fear, sadness, pain, anger. Ignoring emotions in a story will hobble that story from the first frame. An emotionless script or board will likely be a flop before it even begins. I’ve seen great scripts made terrible by bad storyboarding. I’ve seen bad scripts made great by fantastic storyboards that then make you think a few hours later, “Hey. Wait. That story made no sense.” I’ve been moved to tears by a simple camera hold, I’ve been pulled out of a story by a flying camera move that would make Michael Bay nauseous.

But when the boarding and the script are in emotional sync, you get—magic.

Storyboarding isn’t about changing camera angles simply to make them interesting. Storyboarding is about choosing the best shot for the emotional heart of the moment. It’s about using the camera—the viewer’s window into your world—to captivate and entrance. And you can only captivate and entrance by engaging your audience’s emotions.

For a grand lesson in this, I recommend watching Casablanca. Then watching it again, with the sound off.

To help you focus on specific ideas, here are some clips from Casablanca that show the subtlety of playing with the viewer’s emotions. All their emotions. Not just the romance between Rick and Ilsa, but Renault’s charm, and immorality. His fascination with Rick, and Rick’s backstory. The emotions inspired by love, and country, and bravery in the face of certain death. Most importantly, the emotion of giving oneself over to a higher cause.

Moving the camera can make us laugh in the right spot, and cry a moment later.

1)

Here’s an example of a subtle use of camera close-ups, and then a move to convey an important point in the development of Renault, in Casablanca, starting at 4:02.

The camera shows the bottle, then tracks down with it as it is thrown into the trash. The trash can is a reveal, and a subtle way of driving home how Renault is done supporting the Nazis. If the camera doesn’t move, we see the trash can too soon. A static shot above the trash can reveals the end of the scene too early. This same rule applies to the most famous scene from Casablanca.

2)

We don’t see the croupier—lost in the exiting crowd—and his wad of bills until Bogart moves aside for the punchline, because if we did it would reveal the gag too early.

3)

The camera, and the board can also help you maintain tension, keep the audience guessing, all by building the emotion of a scene.

In the opening of this series of scenes, the young wife walks up to Renault, and we are focused on the woman to show her discomfort with her husband’s gambling losses, knowing that it means to get out of Casablanca she’ll have to sleep with Renault. As she walks past, we shift focus to Renault, who quite obviously isn’t sorry at all. These story beats set up the conflict in clear terms for what comes next.

In the next shot we begin with Rick plainly drowning his sorrows in the foreground creating an emotional shift to the intensity of self-pity he feels, and how it portends the unlikely idea that he will be willing to help anyone. Placing him somewhere else in the shot, or in the background, the wife in the foreground, would soften the intensity, and deaden the drama as we don’t recognize that he’s lost in his own, dark place.

The camera then moves in to tighten on the pair, raising the intimacy, intensity and stakes with that simple adjust. Rick is plainly cynical, and continues drinking. All leading us to teeter dramatically on that precipice of ‘will he help, or won’t he?’

Then, as the shots get tighter, and move into singles, we teeter more, until the young bride breaks through with a story that touches Rick. Moves him in a way we see clearly in Bogart’s magnificent acting.

But it doesn’t work. He shuts down, and rejects her. “You want my advice? Go back to Bulgaria.” Then he leaves her.

He goes into the gambling room. What’s he going to do? The camera follows him, just wide enough to show the despondent husband. Is he going to make the husband leave? Have him thrown out? The turn has begun, but it’s subtle. We don’t yet know that Rick is about to get involved.

Until he does.

Now the bride arrives. The tone shifts. The maî·tre d’ watches, and becomes emotional.

And so do we.

Renault picks up on the shift, and becomes distressed by what he’s seeing. All these emotions grab us. What comes next? Will Renault object? Will the situation become tense? Angry?

Importantly, after the money is ‘given’ to the couple, we get a pair of emotion relieving jokes, and Rick is approached by the wife, who offers him affection. But Rick is uncomfortable with it, and removes her embrace. This moment is crucial to differentiate Rick’s actions from those of Renault. The shot clearly tells us that he didn’t do this for selfish reasons, but selfless ones. He wanted nothing in return for his act from anyone, especially the wife.

Rick has gone from “I stick my neck out for nobody,” to someone who does.

This is the central emotional shift in the character that gets him involved once again in life, and we see it through the emotional reactions of—and to—the people who work for him.

Many of the best shot choices in Casablanca are static holds on Ingrid Bergman or Humphrey Bogart. No tricky gimmicks needed. That’s because they’re such magnificent actors we feel boatloads of emotions simply watching them process feelings on their subtle, yet expressive faces. As a board artist, know when less is more.

To achieve these emotional moments, here’s a shorthand to some of the shots and why they work.

The below YouTube video (I get no money from them, and have no idea if their software is any good, I’m just using it as an example of what’s out there) helps explain many possible shots, but it focuses on the variety, and tension you can create, and even suggests not being constrained by what’s been done before.

While I agree with that to a degree, it’s important to know that connecting with your audience is always the most important thing, and that means choosing a shot that best engages your audience emotionally. Not choosing a shot simply because it wows with its technical, or creative brilliance. You’re telling a story, and entertaining people, not critics.

On King of The Hill, in an episode called “A Beer Can Named Desire” I once had to animate a scene that was performed by Meryl Streep. It required that I board it on ones, using a CG model as a base so I could capture the immense subtlety of her performance.

In animation storyboarding, you have to follow the performance of the actor. Don’t add to or interpret what you think it should be (unless instructed to do so because there’s going to be a reworking of the line, or a recast of the actor).

As Shakespeare might say,

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to
you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it,
as many of your players do, I had as lief the
town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air
too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently;
for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say,
the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget
a temperance that may give it smoothness.

It’s always about the emotions, and are those emotions conveyed in the board. Not about the technical shine of something no one’s ever seen before. I’ll always hire someone who gets this, over someone who doesn’t, any day of the week.