'The Cell Cycle' Storyboard

Finally here is my complete storyboard for my animation! I've sorted out all the colours for each component including the backgrounds, but not all the backgrounds are necessarily going to be plain like the later ones. This is something I will have to test out.

 

 

'The Cell Cycle' Storyboard- Act 1

Here is my storyboard so far, all of act 1 so one down two to go! This is the first time I've done my storyboard in photoshop, normally getting the old pencil out but I'm glad I decided otherwise because it's a lot clearer and more striking. Great for showing the style I'm going for! :)



Concept 4- S Phase

Concept 4 revolves around the second part of interphase where the cell's DNA duplicates ready for mitosis. In this part of my animation the DNA strand comes out of the cell's nucleus and splits in half, it then continues down the screen as two pieces and the word 'duplication' bounces on and then changes into the extra bases for the DNA.
As I cannot show this all in one image I have focused on the change of background the G1 checkpoint leads to and the actual simplifying of the DNA and how it can come apart.

Concept Steps

Concept 3- G1/ G0 Checkpoint

A key part of the cell division process is the G1 phase checkpoint where any defective cells or any that are not needed to divide are stopped from continuing the process and sent to the G0 phase.

Originally for this concept I had thought of having a stop sign shape which changes colour but thinking about it now it is really important for my art direction to keep it simple. So the use of colour changes and the defective cell being bouncing off the barrier seems enough to show this part of the process.

Concept steps

Concept 2- G1 Phase

For my next concept I wanted to capture the action of the G1 phase of interphase. To me this would mean a different background to show the change but I didn't want it to be too sudden. I liked the idea of the cell wall background continuing to feature but being a bit darker, like you are going deeper into the body.
I had to consider how to show the growing of the cell and the development of organelles (ribosomes and mitochondria) within the cell. I could change the colours to match the theme of my world but I had to simplify the shapes of these organelles and find a way to include text to show what they were.
The ribosomes seem to line up like on a piece of thread so I tried to include the name in this way whereas, the mitochondria have a squiggly pattern inside them which I simplified and on one of them used text in the shape of this pattern.
To show the growing the cell will obviously get bigger but I have taken away the dashed wall/membrane and made it change into the word grow to really show this.

Steps


Concept 1- A few more tweaks

A few more changes to my first concept :) I think it's definitely looking a lot better and more Saul Bass. Doing these little changes is definitely going to help me continue the stylisation of my world into the rest of my concepts!



Concept 1 edited

After feedback from Phil I went back to the drawing board to play around with some colours that were less realistic and more stylised. I used the very helpful colour scheme designer where I put in the main colour of my cell and looked at colours that came up alongside it. I attempted a range of them but none of them worked as well as this one which I colour overlaid onto my previous version.



Concept 1- The Cells Arrive

For my first concept I have focused on portraying the introduction of the cells to the animation. I think this is probably one of the more difficult stages to portray as you really need to show just where they are. So I have attempted to simplify down the well known images of cells going through the body to a more Saul Bass style.

I'm not too sure that it is Saul Bass enough because it seems quite busy but I know there is only so far I can go to make it simple but understandable scientifically. I also think this could work with the original background from the titles shrinking down into the circle at the back of this tunnel and all these colours whizzing on to form the rest. Then when the cell starts to go through interphase moving onto a more blocky/solid coloured backdrop as the whole interphase will be more important than the background.

Here are the steps for it.

Developed Cell Designs (2)

Some more cell designs with a different background colour to affect the other colour choices. I also tried to smooth out one of the cut outs to make it follow the cell shape better. I am really starting to be able to see how I could put these together to achieve my Saul Bass art direction as well as visualising how each individual component of the cells could be animated.



Developed Cell Designs

After some feedback from Phil it was back to the drawing board to try and simplify my cells further to really correspond with the art direction I am following. It was also important to really neaten up the cell forms so they looked more like they came from a graphic design background. I started off attempting this in Photoshop but it soon became clear that I just wasn't achieving the effect I wanted and so knowing that Adobe Illustrator can be a preferred tool for graphic design I attempted some experiments there.

Below are the ones I have produced so far using the blue/purple background as a basis for linking in the colours that feature on the actual cells. This link between colours is an important element in my design because of the solid colour background I need to have which my cells etc. will sit on. This colour cannot clash because it has to make these objects more attractive and noticeable.