Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1055975
14 KEYFRAME A F T E R H O U R S HOW JOHN EDDINGS' LOVE OF ACTING INFORMS HIS STORYBOARD WORK As a storyboard artist for projects as vastly different as Netflix's Disenchantment to Nickelodeon's Rugrats, John Eddings has built a reputation among animators as someone who can make his characters and stories thrive in seemingly three-dimensional worlds. This is probably because he does something similar when he's out of the office—except this time it's his own embodiment of these worlds as an actor that makes these details come alive. To hear Eddings tell it, one talent informs the other. He feels that he has peers in the storyboard community who are better visual artists, but says he makes up for lacking in that aspect of the job description through the subtle ways he zeroes in on animated characters' gestures and expressions. He adds that his experience as a thespian means that he has a tendency to "put in a lot more poses than most other [story] boarders would—sometimes more poses than my directors are really happy about, or at least the producers are really happy about, because I have specific acting that I want to do." He says he wants to make sure this gets translated over when it comes to filming. Specifically, he says he's found that "in the thumbnail sketches, they want to see layouts and compositions and more of the background. But … the flow of my scene JOLLY ACT top, clockwise: Playing Santa at The Magic Castle; Robyn the Clown in The Tragical History Of Doctor Faustus; Creon in Medea; Sir John Falstaff in The Merry Wives Of Windsor "...in the thumbnail sketches, they want to see layouts and compositions and more of the background. But … the flow of my scene would be dependent on acting choices like reactions of the character, which motivate camera movements."