Learning the Art of Storytelling with Pixar Story Artist Rosana Sullivan

The One Academy’s highly anticipated event – the Virtual International Design & Creative Masterclass – wraps up its third series! Held over three consecutive weekends in January, the masterclasses were open to secondary school students as well as The One Academy’s students to connect and learn from six esteemed creative professionals to gain insight into the creative professions and industries of digital animation, visual effects, illustration, interior architecture design and digital media technology.

One of the invited speakers was Rosana “Rosie” Sullivan, a Story Artist at Pixar Animation Studios, USA. With over a decade of experience, she is known for her work for The Good Dinosaur, Onward, Monsters University, Soul and more. Apart from a storyboard artist, she also wears multiple hats as a writer, director and executive producer. She wrote and directed her first animated short film, Kitbull, which received an Oscar nomination for ‘Best Animated Short Film’. She has also published an autobiographical picture book titled ‘Mommy Sayang’, which was inspired by her mother’s Malaysian roots in Masjid Tanah, Malacca. It was this connection to her family in Malaysia that her love for storytelling was born.

During her session, she explained about storyboard and walked the audience through the storyboarding process. “Storyboard is a visual blueprint for a film. It helps to visualize a script, find the potential problems before filming, generate ideas, communicate with the crew and shows the film’s potential, ideally saving time and money,” she explained.

She also shared the other processes such as coming up with a script, pitching the idea, receiving feedback, tools that a story artist should learn and important elements of storytelling. She said that as story artists, they do a lot of juggling, as they need to think about the entertainment factor, drama, character and how to tell it in a short amount of time.

“Storytelling is very important to us as humans. All of us have contact with it in some form or another, whether it’s reading books, watching movies or listening to a story from a loved one. That’s been a part of our species as humans as early as we could draw or talk to each other in developed language,” said Rosie.

“With storyboarding, it’s an interesting craft because there’s a lot of tools you have to use. It’s a pretty broad discipline, it’s the closest to actual filmmaking - you have to use camera, acting, a little bit of animation and illustration. There’s a lot of stuff that you need to have in your toolbox, basically to try to best express the story that you are trying to tell,” she told.

She shared one great way to learn about camera was by taking one’s favourite director or film and studying the shots by pausing the scenes, citing Quentin Tarantino as her favourite director. She also spoke on character arc, the range of obstacles that the character faces, environment setting, pace and staging.

“Like many artists, I started drawing from a young age. I wasn’t very good, but that did not stop me. As I grew older, I learnt to always carry a sketchbook with me no matter where I went, so that I could record what I was observing around me – who are the people, what are the stories. There was so much interesting stuff going on, and I needed to draw all of it. That was how I got better at drawing. Eventually, my hand-eye coordination also got better and my artistic progress gradually increased,” she advised budding artists to practice patience and keep drawing.

An inspiring sharing filled with interesting personal anecdotes and valuable advice, Rosie was showered with much appreciation from the audience. “The power of storytelling is that even if the whole world doesn’t get what you’re trying to say, if there’s one person out there that you’ve touched, then you’ve changed a life. That is why stories matter and that’s why your stories matter,” she concluded.

The One Academy is committed to providing the best art education programmes and continues to nurture its students passionately through its “Masters Train Masters” coaching philosophy, which has been practised for the past three decades, by providing diploma and degree courses namely Advertising & Graphic Design, Digital Animation, Digital Media Design, Film Visual Effects, Interior Architecture & Design, Illustration, Fine Arts and Paris Fashion Design & Pattern Making, Computer Science, Game Design and Computer Science in Real-Time Interactive Simulation. For more information on The One Academy, visit www.toa.edu.my or call +603-7875 5510 or e-mail your enquiries to [email protected].