Storyboards are a visual reference for the filmmakers—they show how a scene should play out. You tend to use them more for scenes with complicated camerawork, stunts, or effects. For a big action scene, you wouldn’t draw every punch, but you want to have all the main beats of the scene. The stunt coordinator can use that to estimate how much time it’s going to take to film it, and productions can count how many shots will need certain effects.

Another reason to storyboard is, you often shoot out of order. You’ll try to shoot everything you need to at the location you’re at, or everything you need from a certain viewpoint, before moving on. My job is to storyboard the sequence as if it’s cut together as a movie. That way, the filmmakers get to see how the shots will play together and what they might need to add or take out.

I’ve done a lot of action and comedy. I’ve made dramas—A Beautiful Mind [2001], Fences [2016]. I’ve gotten calls for war or period films, but I don’t get hired because they’re so specific about hiring someone who’s done that. As a Black storyboard artist, sometimes they want to set up Black directors with collaborators who they won’t have to explain things to, who might have a certain shared cultural understanding.

Sometimes you don’t connect with a director and you find another place of employment. Other times the director is magical to be around. I worked for 20 years with John Singleton; our meetings would just be me and him. Someone like [director–producer] Shawn Levy has fun with pitches, which is where you present your ideas. Ron Howard lets you do whatever you want, then gives you feedback. For Fences, I was on location in Pittsburgh and would meet with Denzel Washington, who was the director and star, on Sunday mornings. He’d take me through how he envisioned the scenes for that week, and I’d go back to the office and make them. Imagine sitting with Denzel Washington, who’s acting out the script in character, just you and him? It was mind-blowing.

I haven’t experienced racism as a storyboard artist, but I have done movies where I’ve been the only Black person. I’ve been Jackie Robinson. But if they get Will Smith to star, or a Black director, then you’ll see Black department heads. John Singleton’s crews were very mixed. Though I’ve never worked directly with him, Spike Lee’s crews are very mixed as well.

This business is very much about who you know. So sometimes, to move things along, you have to make a statement and say, “This is how we come to the 21st century, and we’ve got to hire certain people.

A version of this interview appears in the fall/winter 2021 Visual Arts Journal.

Features

An excerpt from the fall/winter 2021 “Visual Arts Journal”