The Adventures of Captain Conroy, Storyboard 101 and Breaking Away

So last week Mark Andrews narrated to us this sci-fi space adventure he and a friend of his was working on, and our assignment was to illustrate one scene that struck with us.

Since this was a week ago and I barely remembered most of the details, I decided to go with the beginning, when the Captain and his motley assortment of aliens were held at gunpoint by spider-men with big guns and he was coolly relaying all his achievements in his nigh-immortal lifetime.



This being my first critique encounter with Mark Andrews, the only thing that held me back from crying like a little baby (from being the second person critiqued on and the class laughing at the work) was the fact he pretty much treated everyone the same way.

That and he drew out all these awesome alternative shots. A lot of which, as someone who drew comics and knows the importance of composition, makes me wonder 'Why didn't I think of this?'

What's the point of the moment, and how best to relay that point in the simplest and clearest way possible. My shot was a mess in that the lighting and tones were everywhere and nothing really popped. Conroy looks more angry than cool in the face of weapons (which you can baaaaarely see in upper left corner).

I also jotted some thoughts on the movie of the week, Breaking Away. The movie bored me to tears about this small town kid who wanted to be an Italian bike racer. It felt shoddy being one of two people who didn't like the movie and having to articulate my why's and being told I was thinking 'Dated'- taking the movie expectations of today with it's fast pacing to back to the 1970s.

I still didn't like it- maybe cause I couldn't relate or felt little empathy for the main dude. I just saw Mr. Smith goes to Washington last Saturday with friends and that's an older film and also slow movie but I felt more for the character there than Breaking Away.