Storyboard's

The (Noir) Detective

1940's/50's detective stumbles into a crime scene and begins to search for clues in an alley uncovering the events which transpired. The animation starts with a 1950's detective themed man walking into the alley from the street. The camera will be in the lane to keep the scene more enclosed.

Once at the end of the lane he will look around observing his surroundings which will be conveyed through the actions of the character and use of the cameras. He will then walk to a flask on the ground, pick it up, opening it and drinking its contents to show his lack of professionalism giving him more character before going to a chalk outline. He is crouching down and lifting some chalk left on the ground and he covers the camera with his back as he does something to the chalk outline. It is revealed that he has drawn a smiley face on the head of the chalk outline.

I tend to throw out older storyboards, I don’t like waste but I do have one or 2 storyboards so here’s one of my older ones. (no annotation)

The scene starts out with the car pulling into the side of the alley and the camera teleporting to the character’s feet to pan up and track the hand as he lights a cigarette.

Some establishing shots of the crime scene and then a high angle shot from behind the character as he sees a flask and goes over to inspect it.

Dropping the evidence, the subject walks over to a chalk outline of a body and as he slowly reaches down his back, he covers the outline from the camera’s view and as he waves his hand about, he reaches back, revealing he had drawn a happy little face. From there we have one of my cancelled ideas as he produces a gun and starts taking shots at a stack of cans he assembled on the bins.

Throwing away the gun he hears a siren and sprints for his car and as he runs through the narrow alleys, the camera pans the wall showing graffiti of the title.

I intended to add to this but at times nothing ever seamed right, the ending that I went with seems empty and hollow without any kick, but some of my other ideas were just plain bad from him drawing a gun and shooting cans, to playing hopscotch, to music. The middle was the good part that felt right so in the end it wasn’t a subversion of expectations and more failure to live up to them. I will chalk it up to lack of familiarity with the genre and overestimation of my abilities.