Story Sketch Buffet
While the focus of this website is on showcasing my recent work over the past dozen years, I thought it would be fun to share a few bite-size samples of paper boards from earlier projects. These pencil and ink sketches will undoubtedly look simple compared to modern digital boards, but that was the point. The panels needed to read clearly from across the room during a pitch. With no Photoshop tricks to hide behind, we drew quick and rough, committing to the etched line, imperfections and all.
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DreamWorks Feature Animation
Seq. 300 - "Enter Tai Lung"
DRAMA
After the contest to determine Master Crane's replacement in the Furious Five, the team goes back to the temple and laments the lack of viable candidates. The way we boarded on a lot of DreamWorks projects was to draw thumbnail size and then blow up the panels on the Xerox machine for the pitch.
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DreamWorks Feature Animation
Seq. 1200 - "Fiona Gets The News"
DRAMA
A short poignant sequence at the castle where Fiona wakes up the morning after having a fight with Shrek, only to find him missing and discovering that he read her diary.
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Seq. 2500 - "The Muffin Man"
DRAMA
Donkey (Eddie Murphy), having been turned into a majestic white stallion through a magic potion, and the other fairy tale characters go looking for Dragon to assist them in saving Shrek, but instead find the Wolf in her lair housesitting.
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"The Muffin Man" Script Pages
Ultimately this sequence played out differently in the final film from this early draft of the script that I boarded. The fairly tale creatures instead show up to rescue Shrek and Donkey from a prison where they're shackled.
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Warner Bros. Feature Animation
Seq. 11 - "Nose Dam"
ACTION
Frank (live-action Bill Murray) gets the sniffles, but it's a tidal wave to white blood cell Osmosis Jones and antihistamine pill Drix as the mucus dam breaches inside his nasal cavity. Jones surfs the tsunami of snot, dodging tree-size nose hairs while trying to avoid being dripped out of Frank's runny nose.
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"Nose Dam" Script Page
Often in animated scripts, big action set pieces are written with minimal stage direction, relying on the story sketch artist's imagination to fill in the blanks. For the Nose Dam sequence, I boarded "Ozzy and Drix run down the massive tunnel of the nostril" into a fast-paced surf for survival. Cowabunga Dude!
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DisneyToon Studios
Seq. 31 - "Race Against Time"
ACTION
Anastasia steals Fairy Godmother's magic wand and reverses time in order to undo the events of the first movie by deceiving Prince Charming into marrying her disguised as Cinderella. In this sequence, the real Cinderella frantically rides a horse into town to try to stop the sham wedding and set things right.
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"Race Against Time" Script Pages
My assignment was to come up with a library of modular shots depicting Cinderella racing a horse through various rugged terrains. While the script only briefly describes the action, director Frank Nissen wanted to have enough material to choose from in editorial to weave throughout the film's climax.
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DreamWorks Television Animation
Seq. 0900 (Episode 112: "Rehabilitation")
COMEDY
This one-season primetime show about Sigfreid & Roy's white lions in their Las Vegas revue was DreamWorks' first animated television series, airing on NBC. The timing of this series premiere was unfortunately right after Roy's mauling accident, but the show was a lot of fun to work on.
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Walt Disney Television Animation
Seq. 19 - "Lumpy's Spirit Sag"
DRAMA
After spending the day together, Roo and Lumpy find themselves alone in the forest searching out the mother Heffalump. This sequences was draw with pencil on small Post-It Notes, then Xeroxed up to normal size.
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Meatball Animation/Happy Madison Productions
Seq. 3 - "Patch Song"
SONG SEQUENCE/FANTASY
A fun musical number featuring Adam Sandler singing all three parts: Davey, Whitey, and his twin sister Eleanore. While the full sequence would be too large to display here, I'm providing the beginning and the end sections to give a sampling of my story sketches.
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Seq. 6 - "Technical Foul"
SONG SEQUENCE/COMEDY
A fun musical number featuring Adam Sandler singing all three parts: Davey, Whitey, and his twin sister Eleanore. While the full sequence would be too large to display here, I'm providing the beginning and the end sections to give a sampling of my story sketches.
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"Technical Foul" Script Pages
Storyboarding song sequences always demand a higher level of planning. On Eight Crazy Nights I boarded several songs, but "Technical Foul" was the most complex, particularly when Davey, Whitey and Eleanore all sing different choruses simultaneously as the camera rotates 360 degrees around them.
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Nickelodeon Animation Studios
"I Was A Teenage Gary" (Originally Titled "Critical Condition")
COMEDY
This episode, paired with "Scaredy Pants", made up the very first SpongeBob Squarepants Halloween show in Season One. I storyboard the first half and my partner Chris Mitchell storyboarded the second half.
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Click Storyboard Grid to View Split-Screen Sequence PDF
Click PLAY to View Aired Episode
"I Was A Teenage Gary" ("Critical Condition") Outline Pages
SpongeBob SquarePants was a storyboard-driven show (as opposed to script-driven), meaning that our two-person storyboard teams used the writer's original outline pages as a jumping off point, reworking and rewriting the episode premise until series creator Stephen Hillenburg gave his seal of approval.
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Click Outline Pages to Enlarge
