Storyboards & Animation

I typically work from a place of storyboard. Even if I am presented a location or situation where I have to adapt to the environment, and scrap boards completely, I find the process can be helpful to verbalizing with the director what I have in mind and make sure we are on the same page.

They don't even necessarily need to be drawn by me or be made originally for a shoot; sometimes for a shoot date, to communicate with director and gaffer simultaneously I will grab stills from reference movies and shows just to communicate light, and shot size at the same time. 

Recently for a project I shot, the director wanted an animation piece as the intro to the film. Since I come from a hand drawn background, I helped him storyboard the entire intro which led to me animating and painting the entire piece. It was a great learning process, which had me draw visual inspirations from a lot of non live-action pieces, and allowed me to retain control over the visual style of the short even outside of the camera.