Film Studies: 5 Tips to Get Started

After I shared my Terminator 2 film studies here last week, a lot of people got in touch to let me know they were inspired to try and break down a film on their own. And as I wrote in that previous article, in my opinion, doing film studies is the absolute best way to work on your visual storytelling skills, so I totally encourage everybody to give it a shot! Some people told me that the idea of doing a full movie is still a bit too intimidating for them, so instead, they want to start with studying a scene, sequence, or short. And that’s awesome too, I totally get that it is a little scary to do a full feature film and studying a scene is also a great way to up your story skills.

So this follow-up post is a list of five tips for artists who want to study a film or scene by breaking it down into sketches. These are just tips, not rules. There are many ways to do this, and you will have to find what works for you. But since I have now broken down four entire films and multiple scenes this way, I can tell you what does and doesn’t work for me.

• Study classic movies

The very first thing you will need to do is a select a movie to study. I always recommend to take a movie you love, since you’ll be spending a lot of time with it. Make sure you’ve actually watched the movie before starting to study it, it will allow you to better understand the creative choices that were made.

It is best to choose a classic movie. Preferably one that’s at least 20 years old. (The AFI Top 100 is a good place to look if you need suggestions) If you love a modern-day filmmaker, maybe instead of studying one of their movies, try to find out which films influenced them and study one of those.

Usually I have a specific reason for choosing a movie to study. With A Very Long Engagement I was interested in Jeunet’s style of storytelling and I liked the epic beauty of the movie, it seemed like it would be fun to draw. (And it was!) With Terminator 2 I wanted to break down an action movie and T2 is probably the greatest action movie ever made so it made sense to go with that one.

I also think it is better not to study animated movies, even if you work or want to work in the animation industry. With animation it is very tempting to focus on the visual style and instead of the visual storytelling you might get caught up in the character design or visual style. Also animated movies often try to replicate live-action, imperfections like blurs and flares or techniques like dolly zooms or split diopters -studying a live-action film will help you to understand how these live-action characteristics work and you’ll be able to use them in your animation boards too.

• Use frames with the correct Aspect Ratio

I briefly mentioned this in my previous article, but it is one of the most common mistakes I see when students do film studies, so I want to elaborate on it a little. To properly study a film’s composition it is essential that your frames are the same aspect ratio as the movie.

Aspect ratio means the dimensions of the frame, common aspect ratios are 2.39:1, 1.85:1, 4:3 and 16:9. If you are studying a movie shot in 2.39 but you’re using 16:9 frames you’ll have to either warp or crop the composition to make it fit the panel.

If you have trouble eyeballing your film’s aspect ratio, you can always look it up on IMDB. It’s found under ‘Technical Specs’. You might find different aspect ratios being listed, this is often because they used to crop movies for TV. The ‘theatrical ratio’ is the one you’re looking for.

With Photoshop it is very easy to make a panel in the correct size. First make a new document with the right dimensions. For instance for a 1.85:1 panel you could make a document of 185 by 100 pixels. You then enlarge the size to whatever you find comfortable. You stroke the edge of the canvas and you’ve got a panel. Now copy and paste it to letter or A4 sized document. Duplicate it until you got as many panels as you want and you’re good to go!

• Do your studies with ink on paper

Most of us work digital pretty much all the time now, right? And I know it is tempting to use a computer or tablet to do film studies, but in my opinion it’s better to do them traditional: working directly with ink on paper. First of all this is a good way to train being fast and decisive in your drawing. When we’re storyboarding we have to go fast, you get the idea down and move on. By working in ink there is no ‘undo’ option and you just have to keep going.

I also believe that working traditional forces you to focus on the essence of the shot, instead of fussing over details. When it comes to these studies less is often more. If you’re working digital it is very tempting to redo lines until you get them just right and you will most likely use different tones and effects like blurring too. None of this is necessary. The primary objective of doing film studies is to grow your skills, sure it’s cool if you end up with some nice drawings to share on social media but that’s not the purpose. So don’t be afraid to do ugly drawings. Do it fast and try to understand how the different elements at display, (ie composition, staging, blocking, lighting, etc.) are being used.

And finally it is just so satisfying to see the stack of studies grow as you make your way through a film. When you reach the final shot of your film it is such a kick to pick up this big pack of sketches and hold the entire film in your hand!

• Keep it simple

Even when you’re working traditional it is very tempting to get caught up in detail. Most of us are drafts people at heart and the desire to do beautiful drawings is always there. This is actually another reason why I think doing film studies is such a great exercise for storyboard artists. Storyboards don’t need to be pretty; they need to be clear. And with these studies it’s the same. Don’t copy the frame, try to get the essence of a shot down in a single sketch instead. I don’t try to draw the actors but instead use the exercise as a way to develop a shorthand for the characters.

As mentioned in the previous post I feel that all the drawing material you need is a regular pen to draw with, a bigger black marker or brush pen to block out shadows and -optionally- a grey marker to add some tones. But you only need to add tone for readability /clarity purposes. Again there is no need to get fancy.

Now, in fact I did get fancy with some of my T2 studies. The reason for this was that I felt the color in some of the sequences was an integral part of the visual storytelling and so I needed to study its use too. This is an exception though and in all fairness I probably went a little too far with some of the colors I added. But then I was having fun with it and I feel that is an important aspect of the exercise too.

• Take your time

The first time I sketched out an entire movie I would do it in large chunks, sitting down for an hour and a half to sketch out a large amount of shots. This didn’t really work for me. It wasn’t much fun and these long sessions made it hard to really focus on the details of visual storytelling on display. When I do these now I don’t even think about making it to the end of the movie until I’m about 75% in. My objective is not to reach the end, it’s to study today’s shots.

I think it is important to break these studies down in smaller chunks while at the same time keeping up a rhythm. That’s why for me doing them as daily warm-ups works so well. It's a bit like how it works with Duolingo. If you do one or two chapters every day and you keep up with it, you can actually learn a language. But if you start doing three different languages at the same time, doing exercises for two hours straight, you'll probably burn out fast, and all you have learned is how to say 'the turtle eats a sandwich' in Swedish.

So take it slow. Focus on the exercise, not the results. And always remember to have fun!

I hope these tips are helpful to you. If these posts inspire you to do your own film studies please share a link here in the comments, I’d love to see them!