Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1153535
D E PA R T M E N T 25 KEYFRAME FALL 2019 25 WHERE THERE'S ANIMATION, THERE'S ACTION. SOMEONE IS FIGHTING, CHASING, FLEEING OR GETTING INTO SOME KIND OF MAYHEM, OFTEN AT BREAKNECK SPEED. THESE SCENES MAY LOOK EFFORTLESS, BUT IF YOU'RE GOING TO CONSTRUCT A SEQUENCE THAT RISES ABOVE THE ORDINARY— SAY THE ARTISTS AND WRITERS WHO TRAFFIC IN THESE SCENES—YOU'RE GOING TO NEED COMPLICATED CHARACTERS PLACED IN UNFAMILIAR SITUATIONS, A CLEAR DEFINITION OF WHAT IS AT STAKE, SOME INTERESTING PROPS, CAREFUL ORCHESTRATION AND PLENTY OF FORESIGHT. below: Noëlle Raffaele whose credits include The LEGO Ninjago Movie and DC Super Hero Girls. and and DC Super Hero Super Hero Super Girls. To elevate the action from great to awesome, you'll need to think outside the box. Or in the case of Noëlle Raffaele, you have to figure out what's actually inside the box. During her work as a storyboard artist on The Lego Ninjago Movie, Raffaele worked on the showdown between Lloyd and the evil warlord Garmadon, who is also Lloyd's father. Garmadon possessed the ultimate weapon; Lloyd was trying to get it back. The weapon was inside a box, which Raffaele and her team realized represented far more than just a container. That particular sequence took up eight different storyboard files based on changes in emotion within the scene. "Lloyd needs the ultimate weapon to fulfill his mission, but what he really wants is for his dad not to leave again," says Raffaele. "So, we're trying to get into the emotion of a fight. They're fighting over the box, but the box is the thing that keeps them together." That box battle presented a classic conundrum. Storyboard artists and writers alike insist that no matter how eye-popping the action gets, an effective scene must know the "why" behind the action and keep it firmly in the characters' sights. That tenet holds true whether someone is fighting a death match, fleeing for her life, pulling off a rescue cliffhanger or, yes, trying to wrest the ultimate weapon from his estranged father. Raffaele, who directs on DC Super Hero Girls, is often cutting through the mayhem to figure out a character's motivation. "I work with some very talented board artists and whenever I have an action sequence, they're doing this amazing choreography," Raffaele says, "but then I step back and think, ' Wait a minute. What does Wonder Woman want in this fight? Why is this even happening? Why does the audience care?' That's what you should always be servicing." Image courtesy of DC/Warner Bros. Photo of Noëlle Raffaele by Tim Sullens