Storyboarding the Gang Cartoon
Seventy years ago you could do a cartoon with nothing but a rabbit and a hunter and everybody loved it. No more. Something about modern life requires many people on the screen at the same time. A frame with only two characters in it now seems empty...desolate...icy...loveless. At least that's what employers believe.
If you're dismayed by this then cheer up! Help is on the way! Theory Corner offers you this lesson in storyboarding what I call the gang cartoon (gang = ridiculously crowded). The panels are unrelated, there's no story being told here. I'm just putting up suggestions for organizing the kind of crowd that modern cartoons require.
The organizing principal in a gang cartoon is fairly simple. In each set-up the crowd confronts a single speaker. I call that speaker (my term) the "solo confronter."In panel "A" we see a flying (i.e. downshot) perpendicular doublet/triplet wedgie (i.e. group} facing a reverse (back shot) solo confronter. In panel "B" we see two flanking triplet wedgies, also both facing the forward solo confronter.
In panel "C" a triplet wedgie confronts a reverse solo confronter with a few neutral "pawns" present as a sort of garnish.
Panel "D" shows two flying doublet wedgies facing a reverse solo confronter. Got the hang of it now? If so, you're ready for the grand finale in panel "E" below....
Panel "E" shows a cascading, right to left flying tsunami octet facing a forward solo confronter. Now THAT'S professional staging!
