Ep 6: The Animated Adventure - Storyboarding your next d&d game with Diana Chao
2D Animator Diana Chao shares how she organizes her creative process to produce finished work. Can Dungeon Masters do the same?
In this episode, we learn about how creative teams come together to produce a finished piece of animation. From script to storyboard to the big premier, having a cohesive vision and production process standards is essential to success. How can dungeon masters learn from animators? Let’s dive in.
Diana Chao: 2-D Animator Extraordinare
First off, let us introduce our guest: Diana Chao. Diana has been working as a freelance animator in New York City for nearly 12 years, working in both traditional and digital 2D animation. She’s produced work for the FDA’s award-winning Real Cost campaign, Peloton Interactive, Rimmel London, Sally Hansen, and created assets for artists including James Taylor and Bill Plympton.
Now Diana is gearing up to open her own creative house: Chao & Friends. She also happens to be Sara’s oldest friend and has put up with her singing Weird Al for nearly 21 years.
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Keith: Hi, I'm Keith Hazen-Diehmm
Sara: and I'm Sara Shepherd. And this is Dungeons and
Keith: Documentation. The podcast in which we discuss information architecture and view it through the lens of the world's greatest role playing game, Dungeons and dragons.
Sara: In today's episode, we'll be interviewing Diana Chao, a dear dear friend of mine and an animator who's been working for 12 years in New York city as a Freelancer and a full-time animator for some big corporate companies. She's gonna walk us through the animation process and how it works in a creative team. We'll hear a little bit about storyboarding and how she manages her creative team to produce animated work. We'll then be talking about how that process can help you plan your next D and D session through a visual lens.
So we hope that you enjoy the discussion and without further ado, here's Diana Chao.
<< Musical Break >>
Diana Chao: Well, now I do mostly motion graphics, work for commercials. So anything that you see on TV or even social media now is, um, all I just make shit moves, basically, that's, that's like the general aspect of it. 2D animations can be anything two dimensional can be like drawings. I have some cells over here, from Bill (Plympton) actually. Um, and the old school ways that, uh, you paint it and then you go frame by frame and you take a picture and then it creates movement.
Keith: Yeah. So that's about where my understanding ends, you know, is. Yeah. Like the old, old, you know, Walt Disney, like, you know, drawing on clear plastic cells and you lay 'em on a black background and, you know, take pictures of it or whatever. So what is it actually?
Diana Chao: Yeah, I was traditionally trained to be animation and then I, and then I branched out cuz I wanted to make money.
Keith: You didn't wanna make 2 cents an hour sweating over your drawing desk or whatever,
Diana Chao: Even now, like when I'm trying to hire for bids and hire for projects and stuff. And I ask animators, some of them are like one 50 a day, which is like nothing
Sara: Yeah. Especially in New York.
Keith: Mm-hmm when you. Animating like on a computer or whatever. What does that actually look like? Like you build a model and then you, are you like actually manipulating it and still doing a frame by frame thing? Or is it, is there like a program that's like make this guy walk downstairs and then it does it, what does it actually look like?
Diana Chao: I think in commercial space, um, we're kind of like the central of everything. Right. We have to work with like accounts, people, strategy, people, designers. Um, and so we usually work with designers and they give us assets and things, and then we take those 2d assets and then I put 'em in after effects is what we use.
Sara: So someone might give you like, here's a lipstick. And we want this lipstick fly around. How would you make it move? Are you drawing like a little path on your computer?
Diana Chao: No, we use a lot of key frames is the best way I can describe. So if I wanted to move like this object from the right side to the left side, we key this right side. And then we key it moving across the screen, let's say, and then it goes there.
Keith: Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. And then you could like, have it get smaller if you wanted to look like it was going into the distance or something like that too. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Sara: Got it. So how long when I see like a 16, second animated ad on social media and maybe it depends on the ad, but when I see a 16 seconds of animation, how long did it take to make?
Diana Chao: Depends, also in commercial spaces, it's always fifteens. We have a 15, we have a 30, and then we have a 60. Cause if you go over the one second, you have to pay more. Right? Oh. So, or like the algorithm doesn't recognize that like an Instagram or something like that. It just, it will cut off. So we have to have those very certain time perimeters, but it usually depends, honestly, like I just made something and it took, say like 15 minutes, like 20 minutes.
But, um, it's more about the process of getting to that space, gathering all the assets. Making sure that everybody that you talked to in the meetings are aligned. And then what takes the longest is when people start to like either nitpick things or they didn't know what they want before, and then they change it all of a sudden.
So you have to find other things like. Different footage or whatever. Like, so it's all really the process of getting to that 16 seconds. Right. It's a bunch of politics!
Sara: Yeah. And is that because you're working in a commercial space, whereas like someone in the artistic animation, they're not working with all those stakeholders, although I'm guessing like with some place like Disney, it's probably similar where they've got so many screenwriters and so many people who are got their hands in the pot. Is that just the nature of animation?
Diana Chao: Yeah. So the nature of animation is just like, you usually like have a script and then you guys like whittle down the script and you make sure everything's right. Which then goes to storyboard artists. And then the storyboard artist creates like those key moments of like the script that's happening.
And then from there you create an, an animatic, which is like a, moving a moving storyboard, essentially that you. Audio next to, and then you play it down to make sure that the timing is correct. And then from there , then you can start to like, um, and then on the other side of it, like, people need to create all these characters and things, cuz they need like 360 views of this character and like what they do and how they're sad and happy and all that stuff from there, it will be time to key frames, give it to the lead animator. Lead animator creates all these different key frames, main poses of each character, let's say, and then give it to the in betweeners, which the in betweeners will draw from one key frame to the other one in between those frames. Right. And then from that , it's like clean up work, then you color then, uh, composite.
Um, so it's a lot of work and a lot of people that, that has to go into making an animation and in terms of commercial space, it's a little different because people want things like now they always want things like immediately. So like today, for example, I was like, when do you need this spot? And the answer is ASAP. It's always ASAP. But you know, sometimes they're like, it's so funny because it's. We have all these processes for animation and they give us a week turnaround time sometimes, and we're doing heavy V effects work, but like for some reason, Other people get to think about this idea for like a solid three months. And you're like, how does that make any sense?
Sara: So they get to think about it for three months and then tell you to do it in a week.
Keith: Yeah. So when you come to a job, like in your current, as a, as a freelance animator, Are you coming? Which phase are you coming in at? Do you, do you come in, like in the early sort of conceptual and story boarding phases or you come in once they like, know what they want and they just hand it to you and have you do it.
Diana Chao: It really depends right now. It's like they, the agency got a new client, so there's no processes built at all. Um, so it's kind of like, Build the car as you go, mm-hmm , you know, as you drive, you have to build this door and like, you know, you kind of have to piece together things. And I think a lot of people don't understand is that like animation is a lot of like most of the time 50% is problem solving and like dissecting what clients want and what they need and what they actually mean. Right. So if they're like, oh, I wanna make the logo. Like okay. Now I have to translate what I mean.
Keith: Yeah, fine. Pop. Yeah.
Diana Chao: Yeah. And then they're like, you know, "just like make it pop," it's just the same thing. Like make the logo bigger, right?
Sara: Like, you're describing this huge long process with all these people that are involved and then the animators take it and they run with it. And they're also doing all of their processes. Is there someone overseeing? Is that what a creative director is doing? Are they the producer, like who's in charge? The big picture, the dungeon master of animation.
Diana Chao: Ah so the dungeon master in this would probably be the creative director. They need to oversee all multiple projects that are going on. And they need to like, be able to talk to the client about what exactly that we're giving them creatively. And even then a lot creator directors don't even understand how to talk about animation, but their whole job is to like sell you on that.
Keith: So your comp, your freelance company is what Chao & Friends, is that it?
Diana Chao: Yeah. Chao & Friends.
Keith: Okay. So chow and friends, like how does, how does chow and friends operate? Do you operate as, as like a standalone animation company? So you'll like do something from start to finish or are you just sort of like the you're the animator that comes in and works with the creative director from another agency to like, make the thing happen that they're, that they're sold to the client or how exactly do you work?
Diana Chao: What I would like to expand to is to more so talking about systems and processes is to go into like tech companies or startup companies, and like help them understand how to build their own in-house animation teams. A lot of people don't understand like that. You need to have, you need to be organized when you're in there. And if you're not. Things can fall apart very quickly. Cause like, let's say you need all these brand assets or something like that. And everybody is sending you random slack messages. It's like, here's the logo. Here's the, the font. It's like, why can't we have a universal server that has all of these things together and then you just send me. Where to go, right? Like, so I think a lot of people don't understand that we need those things and so it gets really messy. And even in, um, after effects, it's like we have to be organized. Otherwise their files starts getting lost. Like things need to be named. A lot of people don't do that in the.
In in-house spaces. So when I come in, I'm always like, oh my God, what is happening? So anyway, long story: I just want to help people build that process and organizations within their own companies so that we can set people up for success and also like help teach them how to like their in-house animators, how to.
Essentially just mentor them and teach them how they can talk to clients about animation and what we do, cuz I think a lot of people think it's magic and it's not.
Sara: And do you feel like in your limited experience, I know you've done a lot of freelance with corporate, so you've worked with big companies and I know you as my friend, so I kind of already know the answer to this question, which is that there's a disconnect between the creative work and the like corporate needs, like they don't understand the value. They don't understand the work. They are looking for optimization without understanding what even can be optimized. Is that where a lot of the frustration comes from?
Diana Chao: Yeah, and I think the way that social is too now, right? Like we look at Instagram reels or TikTok or whatever, and then companies are like, I want exactly. But we don't wanna look like we're a corporation. We wanna make it look like DIY, like someone else did this. And you're like, that's impossible. Cuz your corporation . So like everything we do is gonna look polished.
Sara: Yeah. I feel like we can do a sub episode about a villain who hires an animation team to like make them look nice and work shopping this live right here.
Keith: So you've got your. You know, your advertising team has this new push. They want an animated asset. They're telling you their blurb and you're gonna distill that into what they actually want and then present them with a storyboard. And what is that process and how many people are generally involved in creating storyboards?
Diana Chao: It depends. Right? So, um, in commercial spaces, when we make storyboards, it's important because. There's a visual aspect to the storytelling. People can see in real time what it looks like and what it's going to be. I think a lot of people have all these different ideas and so it kind of locks them and grounds them into this.
Space of storytelling. And also it's like, it helps you visualize like, okay, what is the camera move that I want? Or like, who is the type of person that I wanna cast in or like draw or whatever. And it's kind of like, you know, like theater, like you have to block out where you're standing and where you move and where that character moves.
And it's the same thing as like, we're just telling it on paper. So we wanna make sure that like, everything that we do is locked because once you start to stray away, you're wasting time and you're wasting money, right?
Keith: So not only does it help you in your creative process, but it helps you in your business exchange with your client, just to say, this is what we're doing, and you've got it on paper, as opposed to a vague idea.
Sara: And have there been times when you've been giving a script and the script is very blah. but through storyboarding, you're able to put your own little touch on it and maybe bring some life into this otherwise very boring script that whoever gave to you?
Diana Chao: Yeah, totally. Yeah. Cuz it helps visualize once you bring in all the alert, other elements like the camera, the VO, or like whatever the script is gonna say. And like those things help picture the whole story.
Keith: Mm-hmm . Yeah. I mean, I, so I haven't seen your work, so it's, I'm, I'm just sort of like shooting in the dark a little bit here, but. I mean, you do animation on top of live video as well. Mm-hmm as like just pure animation. I mean, I kind of assume so. So when you're, when you're animating with live video and you're in that storyboarding process, how much of that, cuz I assume then you have, you have two creative teams, right?
You have the animation team and then you have the film team or whatever. So when you're in that storyboarding process, how much of that gets sort of decided by the animators versus. You know, director, you know, whatever who's managing the sort of shooting side of that.
Diana Chao: Well, it's okay. Now it's like a bigger role, right? Mm-hmm so, uh, usually live action directors. They have a shot list, uh, meaning that like, um, we're gonna have like an extreme close up of this moment, or we're gonna have a wide, uh, on this moment and we're gonna do this and that. And so. We work together in terms of, well, the storyboard always comes before it shoot that we shoot.
Yeah, sure. Either in live action or in animation, so that's helpful. And then usually on set, we have like, um, a VX supervisor, someone who can like be there to make sure that whatever they're shooting, they're also accounting, all the things that the animators need to do in post production.
Sara: And then the storyboard. Do they go through a revision process back to whoever the stakeholders are or does it just move forward from there to the animation team?
Diana Chao: Um, yeah, once everybody's aligned, then it goes to, there there'll probably be tweaks or something like, you know, it might be like a camera move or. A different setting or the, and then after that, yeah, they'll give it to key frame artists and then they'll start key framing, everything from that storyboard.
So that's why the storyboards also have to look very clean because you're passing it down to the a animators. And if doesn't look clean, then the animation's gonna look whack.
Sara: Because they'll be confused or they'll just like put in unnecessary elements?
Diana Chao: Well, they're gonna use those two. Have to key frame their initial animation. So if your arm is like all crazy and draw like this, then the animator is gonna draw this exact same thing that you decide to put on there.
Sara: There's so many people involved in this project of making a 15 second social real. How does the initial idea... It's like that game of telephone, like you whisper something to somebody and they whisper it to their friend and they whisper it.
And by the time it comes back around, it makes no sense of all. There's so many people involved. How do you keep it consistent? Is that just the creative director looking in at every point and being like, yes, this is good. Or is that how you end up with like really terrible, you know, movies and animation that it just makes no sense at the end because it's so complicated?
Diana Chao: We just have like multiple meetings and it's a lot of like, you know, do we have the like idea part and then, and then sometimes it's like, they don't wanna invite you to these meetings. So you get, you get it in, like later when they need help and they need you to problem solve something. And they're like, oh no, we did something wrong.
Please help us like. Um, so it's just multiple meetings and checking in and like making sure things are aligned. I think a lot of people, you know, the industry, the agency industry is so old school. I mean, it started by like old white people.
Keith: Right.
Diana Chao: And think about Mad... what's it called? Old man mad men. . Um, so I think a lot of these things, I think it's funny, right? We have creative director, we have associate creative director. We have art directors and we have designers. We have animators and it all kind of trickles down. But I think a lot of people don't understand that like, like someone like me is like. I'm more like, I like to concept work and I like to tell the story and I like to know why, and I love looking at data and like trying to figure this, these things out. But I think a lot of people don't understand that it's not all just one job.
It's like we can do multiple things. So I think a lot of people. Kind of wanna pigeonhole you into one space versus understanding like the multiple talents that you can bring to the table.
Sara: Right? Mm-hmm right. Yeah. You're a storyteller. You're not just an animator.
Diana Chao: Though, some people like wanna do that forever. Like they wanna just sit there and be like, yeah, man, I'm gonna animate this thing. I don't wanna think about anything. The only thing I wanna do is just like, make this guy like fight this other guy. And that's cool enough for me, which is great, but that's not my thing.
Sara: Okay. I think that was an interesting discussion because I was just planning a D and D session, which I ran last weekend. And as I was preparing, I was sort of. Unintentionally key framing it. I got overwhelmed by all the prep and I just started drawing moments that I knew I had to plan for, and that mostly to use that as a guide for building the terrain for that session. But. I think there's something there,
Keith: right? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. In the last session I was planning, I, I had an idea for where I was going with it, but when I actually started to flesh out all the details, I kind of got lost in the weeds at the very beginning. And then I ran out of time and the whole end of the adventure was just sort of rough ideas, you know?
Sara: Yeah. So, and sometimes that works and sometimes it feels like, well, they knew I wasn't prepared.
Keith: So I was listening to that and thinking about how to sort of build out an adventure all at once from sort of very rough ideas and then fleshing them out sort of all at the same time. So that at the very least, if you run outta time, it's all equally fleshed out.
Sara: That's good. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz I definitely am the kind of person who's logging into Role 20 about to run a game or being like I better upload a map real quick.
Keith: Yeah, sure.
Sara: Whoops I have nothing for that.
Keith: Well, let me just say the other thing that I found really interesting was talking about, um, having everything, you know, organized within your, um, within your sort of medium so that you can quickly adapt and, um, quickly generate new ideas. And I think that's especially important as a DM because you can spend hours and hours planning a session, but you sit down to actually play it. And a player makes a decision that you don't anticipate. And all of a sudden you're basically. Planning the entire session, or at least mm-hmm, the plot of the session on the fly.
Sara: Right. And if you are prepared for that, if you have all your assets in place and you, you know, can be flexible in what you've, you've set out, then that works just fine. And in fact, it makes it way more fun, but if you're not prepared for that, then it just sucks.
Keith: yeah.
Sara: I've yet to find a good system. I have like a giant Google doc, and I know at some point maybe we'll talk about systems. Organizing your creative assets. Yeah. Um, putting that in quotes, cuz it's sort of like, that could be an NPC. Yeah. That for whatever reason, your party really latched onto when they want to go back to his house and you're like, I don't even remember that guy's name, but if I, if I organized my campaign in such a way I could quickly pull it up and reference it.
Keith: Yeah. It's interesting. You should mention that because I think that that'll be an upcoming episode. Yeah.
Sara: Zettlecasting, spoiler alert.
Keith: So we'll talk about that.
Sara: Okay. I guess I'll say also when I was key framing, this session. I also kind of wasted time. Like I, I, and I feel like maybe DMS feel that way, where they prepare something they think is gonna happen and then it doesn't happen. And just being ready to let that go. Like I drew out this moment of like, and then this there's gonna be this great reveal. And through the portal comes this character, that thought was dead and mm-hmm and then the players never even ended up being close to the people. I don't know, I could have maybe changed it.
Keith: Mm-hmm
Sara: I was too focused on the location.
Keith: Yeah. So, well, let's take a step back and let's just run over cuz we talked about it a little bit with Diana, but we kind of talked about it. Not, not very in depth. We . So let's take a step back and talk through that creative process. You know, what I realized talking to Diana is how many stinking people could be involved in creating an animation.
Sara: Yeah. Well, you don't realize until you watch the credits of a Marvel movie and you see that like 25 people were involved in, involved in the animated fight background, right?
Keith: Yeah. just the background of Dr. Strange. Yeah, totally. So you start with a script. and then I'm just gonna hit the main steps. So you start with a script storyboard, an animatic. So that's like a moving storyboard with sound. And then, in the course of that, they're building their character creation. So they're getting all the 3d looks of their characters, how their expressions look, that kind of thing so that they can use that sort of pool of visuals to actually create the movement for the characters.
Sara: Yeah. Guide everybody, cuz multiple people might be animated in the same character they have, have to guide them.
Keith: Right. So at that point you have sort of a rough idea of what the movement is looking like with the sound and the timing, and then you have the specifics of your visuals and then they move to what they call key frame animation where they, they, and my understanding is, is that the key frame is like the boss animator, right? So they're, they're creating the main looks. Um, for each scene. So like, you know, guy standing on a cliff and then there's a guy at the bottom of the cliff or, you know, something
Sara: Or like a complicated action.
Sure. So they're gonna animate just that part and then, but brings them to that and what they do after that can be left to a junior animator, like the walking into the scene. Right. They'll
Keith: walking out. Yeah. Yeah. So then the, yeah, so then the, in between animators come in and actually. Fit the movement into those two things.
Sara: Mm-hmm or sometimes in her line of work, that's done by the computer. Through the magic of, you know, computers after effects, key frames.
Keith: So yeah. um, and then they go into cleanup and making everything, you know, look really nice
Sara: Yeah. And she did not mention, but between. The storyboarding and the final animation often towards the end, there's a team that's doing the background and she used to do that way back when she first started in New York, she was just drawing backgrounds for animated films.
Keith: Yeah. Um, so somewhere along the lines, they're superimposing those key frame animations and over a background. Right, which is drawn independently of the characters.
Sara: Yeah.
Keith: Sure. In older cartoons you can identify. I mean, I remember I used to be able to, you used to be able to watch cartoons and you could tell pieces of the animation were not part of the background. Like there's a rock, that's a different color from all the other ones, because that was drawn right by in the key frame and then the, in the, in between artists and then someone else drew the background. So they just wouldn't always quite match and you'd be like, oh, that's gonna do something.
Sara: Or like, you know, you see the Simpsons. They reuse the same backgrounds over and over and over again, and just animate them getting up and off the couch and they don't have to redraw it. So reusable and done independently of characters is location or backgrounds.
Keith: Yeah. So we thought we'd sort of take that structure a little bit and, you know, adapt it into, um, ideas for how you could plan a session using both sort of visual language. Literal drawings and then also sort of planning a secession from this holistic viewpoint, looking at the beginning to the end and fleshing it out sort of all at once, rather than, you know, just trying to start at the beginning and, you know, write the entire story from beginning to end.
Sara: Which as we've said, can often lead to you feeling like the end you're not prepared for and it fizzles out. So, and I think this is good because when you first suggested this, I thought, well, how is that different? But, um, It's different when you allow for the flexibility that a good Dungeons and dragons game requires.
Keith: Right.
Sara: So I think it is easy, like to say, oh, start with a strong start, which is great. Mm-hmm but often, yeah, the start is so strong. The middle and end are suffering because I feel like I can't plan those things, but I think through this, we can plan it enough.
Keith: Yeah, exactly. So, so let's, let's sort of look at our analogous pieces here for an adventure.
So script, so here we're talking about like, Basically the overarching idea. You could think about this as the adventure outline. So you get a adventure hook, you get a middle and exploratory phase, you get, you know, a crescendo, maybe a fight, or, you know, a puzzle that needs to get solved. And then a day new Mo of some sort, you know, basic your basic story stuff.
And that can of course change and adapt, you know, however you wanna write your stories mm-hmm
Sara: and you can really pull in what you did with the coffee roasting diagram and just start with that.
Keith: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Find out where your crack is gonna be. And for those that didn't listen to the coffee roasting episode, we're not talking about crack cocaine. We're talking about coffee. :isten to the episode, the crack episode that you hear when you're roasting coffee.
Sara: Yes episode four. Okay. So script is phase one and that's your general adventure flow. Hook a couple ideas, maybe a resolution. Um, but you're not actually writing a script. Yeah.
Keith: I mean, you can't really write a script.
Sara: You can't write can't although sometimes it's fun to have like a couple prepared lines from NPCs for the hook.
Keith: Absolutely. Yeah, sure, sure. But that's about it. Yeah. Or an event that they witnessed. So then, so then the next step is storyboarding. We, we were thinking of this as, as pulling, you know, maybe four to six key visual moments that you want to create in this adventure.
And this can help you to sort of flesh out both what you need for the adventure in terms of maps, visual elements. NPC mm-hmm , um, characters, et cetera. And it can also help you to actually create that, that visual imagery for the party. However you do that, whether you're building models or map, you know, physical terrain pieces or creating sort of descriptive elements, you know, like you find in the wizards of the coast books, mm-hmm, , you know, where they describe what the cavern looks like.
Sara: And I like that because, when you were telling me about this idea of story boarding, I remembered that Diana used to draw backgrounds. I came to this interesting realization, which is that you can storyboard these visual encounters regardless of the actual location, because otherwise you might feel like you're railroading the players if you draw, oh, they will arrive at the town square and witness the mayor be heading a thief mm-hmm . But if you just write or draw a little scribble of someone gets behead. A clue is revealed. It could happen anywhere. They could come across a junction in a road and they're dealing out justice, you know, the sheriffs caught them. And, um, so I think that allows for the flexibility that a DM needs, but you can still think of these really powerful scenes that your character could be involved in.
Keith: Yeah. And so in my mind, that's sort of the distinction between the. Storyboarding phase. So that storyboarding phase to me is almost like, how do I envision this, this adventure happening? Like, if I were just gonna write this story and play all the characters, what would it look like? Then you move to the next step, which is that key framing. So that's looking at what's the important elements of those moments. So it could be someone getting beheaded. It could be, uh, you know, the adventure. They enter a room and find treasure, but whatever the important moment is you have, that's where you sort of identify, this is the, this is the sort of beat we need to hit in this adventure to keep it moving along. Mm-hmm and it doesn't. And you can let go of the unimportant moments, like you said, like it could happen in any location or if the location is important, it could happen with any number. Characters, either player characters or non-player characters, but just sort of finding like, what's that essential thing that you need to sort of guide the party into actually doing. Yeah.
Sara: Okay. So you're thinking from the, from the sketch of four to six scenes, you move into key framing and key framing. How many do you think you would do for those like three key frames for. Eight long eight hour long session. I'll say a five hour long session?
Keith: Your basic 16 hour session. I feel like you would be standard.
Sara: Yeah. Okay. If you're playing, I think, okay. Four hours. Yeah. You're gonna play Friday night. I'm gonna have three key frames because I wanna actually maybe more well is a strong start, a key frame. Like the very first the adventure hook.
Keith: Yeah. I mean I, yes. Okay. I think like, I think the adventure hook could be a key frame. I mean, in, in my mind, You know, I, I, I usually think about sort of three sections to an adventure. I think about the, the beginning section, right. Is pretty obvious. Like how are the players gonna get into it? Right. So I think that's definitely, there's a key frame moment there, but you could have multiple key frame moments happening, right? Like you could have. You know, your classic scene where the players are in a Tavern, right? And they meet an NPC, never done that. Whose whose, you know, daughter was stolen by wear wolves, you know? Uh, and so that could be a key frame in that, but then maybe someone turns into a wolf in the Tavern or, you know, in the town or something, you know, they, they, they're gonna witness someone turn into a wear Wolf and that's gonna pull them into the next, that's gonna sort of light the fire to pull them into the next section.
So you could have two key frames in that one intro section sort of depends on how you're trying to, you know, move things along. Yeah.
Sara: Oh my gosh. I think we need to do a mashup. The key frames and the coffee roasting diagram. Cause really like it's, you're building tension, building tension, building tension through these encounters.
Keith: Yeah. Key frames.
Sara: Yeah. That lead to the crack. Right. The daughter was a werewolf all along. I don't know whatever it is. And then, you know, going into your resting phase.
Keith: Yeah. So I, yeah, so I, and to go back to like my general idea of a session, I always think of like, so you have the initial hook, you have the sort of building phase.
So that's where the characters are investigating or they're, you know, going through the first part of a dungeon or something like that. I, I like to build my adventures so that there's sort of a natural break, like halfway through the like action part of it. And so I sort of think I, I try and separate out to like sections because I always think it's, you know, it's nice to be able to have a, like a natural short rest mm-hmm in the session.
I don't like to do that. Oh, really? You like to just keep the fire burning all the way I
Sara: through. I like to watch the panic
Keith: I like to watch the excitement in the warlocks eyes when they get to take a short
Sara: rest. I'm like, you can take a short rest if you want, but the dragons are not resting. Yeah, totally.
Okay. Key frames. Got it. And then what comes next? Character development? Well, no, that's happening before all of this.
Keith: Yeah. So character development I think, is happening sort of in that storyboarding phase.
Sara: Okay. Maybe you're doing a little sketch of your
Keith: character. Yeah. And that could happen. You could have an idea of what those characters are before you start storyboarding.
I think that that storyboarding could be helpful in identifying what other [00:35:00] characters you need. You know, mm-hmm, , I've got this scene in, uh, let's go back to the classic Tavern. Right. And you've got, and you've got your NPC, right? That could be part of your, you. Plot idea, but then when you start storyboarding it, oh, well, there's this NPC, but there's also other people in the Tavern.
There's a, barkeeper sort of being able to populate those spaces that you create.
Sara: So it's like maybe there's two sheets. There's your planning key frames. And then there's the characters like you're cast, you're casting them. Yeah. As you go through the
Keith: story, your character and asset development too.
Mm-hmm so your maps locations, um, Items, whether that's, again, like whether that's a physical asset or whether it's descriptive items, treasure. Okay. So we've got our key frames, uh, in our key frames, we're identifying the essential elements. So, uh, either who, what, where, you know, who do they see? What do they see or where do they arrive?
Kind of thing.
Sara: Okay. And [00:36:00] the big reveal or the consequence of that key frame.
Keith: Yeah, right? Yeah. That, how is that? How is that moving the plot forward and then the in between artists, um, you know, going back to, you know, the, the animate, the, the in between artists would be the actual players that you're playing with.
Right.
Sara: They are establishing what goes between those key frames. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I like that. Yeah. Yeah. So regardless of the, character's the player character's actions. In most circumstances, you could still arrive at your key frame because it might not be tied to a location. Right. If it is tied to a location, you would inspire them to go to that location through yeah.
DMing.
Keith: Yeah, totally. And I think that the, the thing I like about thinking about an adventure this way, or even a campaign, I mean, you can think about it sort of larger story arcs this way too, is it keeps you nimble, right? It allows you to be reactive and. You know, when you're thinking about these like plot point [00:37:00] moments, you can also think about, well, if the characters decide to, you know, be friends with the bad guys instead of the good guys, you know, like how could we, how can you still use those same moments and the same encounters and adventures, and just sort of flip it around so that they're, you know, bad guys instead of good guys.
Yeah.
Sara: so the, the, um, benefit of planning with this sort of structure is not only do you avoid having such a strong start and having nothing later on mm-hmm you also create flexibility, right? If you're not dependent upon an actual, this happens and this and this and this you're sort of like, well, I know I eventually wanna hit this.
Idea and I've gotten it written or I've thought a doubt or I've drawn it. And because I've thought about it visually, it inspired me to have these items that I've drawn and little details about the MPCs and yeah,
Keith: totally. And in the course of the, just playing the adventure, you may need to revisit the whole thing.
You know, someone may. To pull a total wild card move. You can sort of go [00:38:00] back to the appropriate step. Like, you know, I don't know. Maybe the, that key frame is no longer applicable. Mm-hmm , you've gotta go back to the, you know, the very start, but I think if you have that sort of structure set up for yourself and you get used to building something that way, it just be, it makes you more able to do it on the fly.
Sara: So I just ran a really big combat encounter. Mm-hmm had five player characters, three. Groups of allied NPCs. So I had like a group of dwarfs and I had a magician and I had a dragon mm-hmm then I had two dragons. And cultists. Oh. And I had a whole ship of people and as I was running the combat, I did it traditionally.
So I had like, oh, like you like roll 12 initiative counts. Yeah. Oh man. And layer actions with the dragon. Yeah. And I was found myself thinking afterwards, like, oh, I wonder if key frames would've helped me here. Mm-hmm like replacing the dragons initiative, key or [00:39:00] initiative role with some key frames cuz sometimes the two dragons were fighting.
Totally. And at, at that point, do I need to roll? Against myself. Yeah. I think I could have upped the pace of that encounter. If I would've just had something repaired, like the two dragons soar off and they clashed in the air and, you know, like written something descriptive.
Keith: Yeah. You just have an idea of how those NPCs are gonna interact and you just play that out.
Mm-hmm .
Sara: And I was like rolling to see if the cult has succeeded and it was too much rolling. Right? Yeah. Um, it was fun, but I wonder, like if you could also take this idea just for one combat encounter, if you remember coming up to the grand
Keith: finale of yeah. Yeah, exactly. So you, you, you see what's important to the story, right?
How do you want the players to interact? Who do you want to be winning and losing regardless of the player's intervention and then depending on how the players intervene and how, you know, they get sort of treated by the. Dragons or whoever they're fighting. Um, how does that change? The sort of course of the bigger battle between these NPCs?
You know, like you say, you could [00:40:00] have several key frames within that one battle. Right. You know, you could have sort of an introductory, like, oh, you see these two dragons fighting and there's these cultists and you know, one of the dragons. You know, knocks the other one outta the sky. And
Sara: yeah, and I was actually thinking if I had that prepared, what I would've done behind my DM screen, I would be rolling just for the sound effects and then prepare, I would read my prepared.
Oh. And then talk through it, reframe and be like, man, she's so good. She's amazing. Awesome at this. She's amazing. And then I would turn to the player. What do you do? You're next, right? You're next in the
Keith: initiative. Yeah. Or, I mean, if you really wanted to get, if you really wanted to sort of leave it to the mechanics of the game, you.
Roll out the encounter, the sort of first part of the encounter pieces of the encounter ahead of time, right? Oh yeah. So that you're not doing rolling for the dragons. Yeah. So you're not doing it in the session. I think the one other thing that I wanted to mention is, so, so the, the other thing that Diana talked a little bit about, which I thought was very interesting is organization sort of within the department and it, you know, it's less specific to animation, but I think [00:41:00] a really good point overall, in terms of being able to organize your assets.
And have them sort of ready to go. If you have that all set up, then it's really easy to just respond to a situation. And the, the, the same is definitely true in Dungeons and dragons. And I don't think that wizards of the coast really does us any favors in that regard. No. Yeah. You know, like the information is all there within the books, but especially the way they've rolled out this latest edition it's.
Sara: Everywhere everywhere. Yeah. I, I always think things are gonna be in the dungeon master's guide that are in the player's handbook and vice versa said like,
Keith: yeah, I, I have found myself hearkening back to the days of second edition where you had, especially like, as a player, you know, where you had. A fighter's handbook that had a bunch of class variations and rules for fighters and stuff like that.
You know, I kind of wish that they, even, if they just, you know, rolled out the exact same content and just repackaged it into one book so that people could [00:42:00] buy one book instead of 10. I mean, obviously that that's not what they want, but I would buy all of them. Yeah, totally. And
Sara: it's interesting to hear her say that she has worked as a freelancer for 12 years.
Companies big and small and art studios, big and small mm-hmm and that this is a consistent issue. Yeah. Except in the rare outlier team, it's a problem. She encounters again and again, again, of, of not having their processes, um, not having it communicated to all the members of the team and not even having standards for naming files.
Yeah, totally. Um, and of course, like I'm, uh, I'm probably one of the most disorganized people, even though I love to talk about organization as a DM, everything's kind of scattered at, I have a binder and I, I, uh, right. But I recognize the value in being able to quickly pivot mm-hmm I don't know the best way of organizing that.
Keith: I've been thinking lately. And actually since sort of starting this podcast and thinking about this podcast, I've been thinking about publishing some of the like adventures that I write mm-hmm , you know, and [00:43:00] I don't know if I'll ever actually do that, but I do think that it's useful to building it and to organizing it, like if, to think about, well, if someone else was trying to approach this material, what would make sense to them?
Sara: Yeah. And how would I explain it and how they use it and access it?
Keith: Yeah. And how would I like format the adventure and like include the information for the, you know, monsters that they're gonna fight mm-hmm and you know, all that stuff, spoiler alert. It's not how it's written in the adventure books. for wizards of the coast.
It shouldn't be not that the content isn't strong. I mean, I'm not trying to complain about that, but the, you know, the way that they lay it out is not user friendly at all. I mean, I know you can pay $200 and get the like deluxe kit, but it'd be really nice if they just had maps in the back of the book that you just pull out, they could.
Again, they used to do that.
Sara: in the good old days in the good old
Diana Chao: days. Back when I was a
Sara: boy, well, I'm gonna start working. No, it will already be done by the time you listen to this podcast, we're gonna have a. Story boarding worksheet. Yeah. [00:44:00] For planning your next session. And I think I'm gonna, I'm gonna make a version that pairs it with the coffee couples with a coffee response.
This is my dream is that one day all of our worksheets will overlay one another to a super sheet. Yeah. The only thing you ever need to plan at campaign. Yeah.
Keith: We could have a wall. Sheet that's like, uh, everything you that's like one adventure planning,
Dungeons and documentation is a production of Keith and Sarah's free time. Our theme music is by Ian post. Our executive director is Oslo cobble pot. Our underwriting is provided by shepherd creative enter. Dungeons and documentation is recorded and produced in the tomb of the smiling glitch.
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Sara: This episode of Dungeons and documentation is brought to you by foam insulation, foam insulation.
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So let's take a step back and talk through that creative process, sort of from soup to nuts, um, soup to nuts. Yeah. Soup to nuts. I don't isn't that right? that's a thing people
Sara: say no, no one ever says that. Sure. It doesn't make sense. What are you talking about? Like I'm making soup and then at the end of the meal, I'm gonna serve you nuts.
Yeah. That would be like from nuts to peanut butter. .
The Animation Process
While the specifics of each step change depending on the nature of the project, most 2D animation work follows these steps:
Gather information from stakeholders and the creative team
Write the script
Create the storyboard
Establish Art Direction (creating characters and locations)
Record character voices
Illustration and Animation
Sound Design and Backgrounds
let’s transpose this for dungeon masters
Okay, how would we adjust the animation process for someone planning a Dungeons and Dragons session?
Gather information from your previous sessions and world building - what NPCs will be involved? Villains? Monsters? Items? Locations? Clues?
Write the “script” - the general flow of how the session might go. This might actually involve scripted moments such as location descriptions or a villain’s monologue
Create the storyboard - sketch out a few scenes you imagine might take place as a creative exercise to inspire locations, action, etc
Establish Art Direction - flesh out your NPCs and Monsters with unique features
Record character voices - Note a few things some NPCs / Villains might be thinking about
Animate your plans - play your session :-)
