David Allcock

I am extremely proud of ANNA KARENINA'S nominations and so happy I could be a part of it. I think the nominations are well deserved. The whole team worked tirelessly to create what I think is a totally unique and bold interpretation of the material. Sarah Greenwood's art department is one of the best in the world and they embraced Joe Wright's unorthodox vision and really brought it to life. It was a daunting task, re-interpreting and re-imagining the whole scenario within this theatre set-up but the concept worked and we all pulled it off. It was brave and challenging but often the best things are. Joe was right in not doing another traditional adaptation. I love the artistry and creativity - all with practical FX and some stunning set design.

At the moment I'm working on ALL YOU NEED IS KILL at Warner Bros. Leavesden. It's a massive sci-fi blockbuster with Tom Cruise and couldn't be more different to Anna Karenina. But that's what I love about this industry - variety is the spice of life and each new project brings new challenges.

Below is the original interview with David from 2011 with updated images and clips.

What are you working on at the moment?

Right now I’m doing Tim Burton’s new movie DARK SHADOWS at Pinewood Studios.  A wonderful, retro, gothic horror comedy based on an old TV show from the 70s. It has a great cast and a great script and all the genre elements that Burton does so well. It’s very visual and the whole thing is a dream project for a storyboard artist with my sensibilities.

What got you started in the industry?

I have always wanted to work in film and TV since a very young age. I grew up with STAR WARS, INDIANA JONES and JAMES BOND.  I had to get involved and I never entertained doing anything else. I loved action films. A friend and I used to steal his Dad’s camcorder and make our own mini-epics in the back garden. We dragged everyone we knew into it. We’d make dummies and throw them out of windows and splash fake blood everywhere. We’d do car chases by shooting each other in close-ups sat in our parents’ cars in the driveway then splicing this together with wideshots and stunts from Hollywood movies. I’d edit by plugging 2 VCR’s together, plus a microphone for sound effects, and my Dad’s record player to lay music over the top. My parents tried to dissuade me from actually working in film though. They believed I should keep it as a hobby but not a career choice. They didn’t think I could make a living at it, but since breaking into the industry they have been extremely supportive.

I left secondary school with some decent A-levels and I went straight to university and did a degree in film and video at the Surrey Institute of Art and Design in Farnham. I told them I wanted to be an editor. They liked the sound of this and let me in because everyone else had come in saying they wanted to direct and thought they were the next Tarantino.

After graduating I managed to get some work experience at a commercials production company as a runner. I ended up staying with them and working for a long time unpaid before becoming a full-time production assistant. This was my initiation into film and advertising. It was a crash course and a real eye opener. A million miles away from the cosy world of student film-making. I learnt so much. Vadim Jean was one of the directors at the company and he let me get involved in all aspects of the process. My main job was putting together the showreels and distributing them around town. I was a gopher, but I also helped out the production manager with organising shoots, I got to go out on location, did some AD’ing, sound recording, casting, went along to the editing – every part of the process. I saw how it was really done and got an invaluable insight into the entire process.

One day a storyboard artist had come in to do some boards for a commercial and after leaving they decided some changes were needed. A big video conference call was set up with the American clients but the artist couldn’t get back in time. The office manager must have seen me doodling away in a lunch break and she told them I could draw. So I put myself forward and offered to sketch the changes for them. They liked what I did, we made the deadline for the meeting and from then on I sort of became an in-house storyboard artist between doing the showreels and making cups of tea.

I continued as a PA and travelled with Vadim on commercials and feature films as his assistant, but also did the storyboards. I started to get requests from other people outside the company for drawings and reached the point where I could go freelance as a fully-fledged board artist. This was far more my cup of tea. It combined my love of film-making and my strengths as an illustrator perfectly. I fully admit I was not a great PA. It just ain’t me, but it was a brilliant foot in the door.

Along the way I saw what the editorial life was like and decided that I didn’t want to be stuck in a dark room 24/7. I specialized in editing when I graduated. I think like an editor and I have a huge admiration for what editors do. They are massively underappreciated sometimes but I couldn’t do it for a living. I would have turned into jack Nicholson in The Shining! I had found my niche and it was storyboarding.

Which other artists inspire you?

As far as other artists go, I have always been a comic book fan and an avid reader of graphic novels – sequential art has always been a part of my life. I never read superhero stuff. I used to like Tintin, Asterix and 2000AD when I was young, then when I was a teenager I loved crime and horror comics – The Punisher and Tales From The Crypt were my favourites. When I learnt about storyboarding I discovered Martin Asbury’s work through behind-the-scenes books and making-of documentaries. He came from a comics background. He’s been the number one storyboard artist in the UK since the early 80s and I absolutely love his work. I used to hunt down everything he did and study them meticulously – the way he broke down the shots, indicated camera movement, pacing, editing, notes on FX and stunts. He is the master. Another favourite storyboard artist and major inspiration is Mike Ploog, he also started in comics and moved into film. I got to hang out with him at Comic Con in San Diego a couple of years ago which was a dream come true. A great guy and a great artist. He showed me some of his original pencil storyboards for John Carpenter’s THE THING and my head nearly exploded. They are stunning. My geekiness went into overdrive!

What was your first paid job and how did you get it?

My first job as a professional freelance storyboard artist was a movie called WHITE NOISE, for director Geoff Sax and Gold Circle Films. I had been out in Vancouver with Vadim doing another movie for Gold Circle and they had seen me boarding away while I was there. This was my last job as a full-time PA and just as I went freelance Gold Circle said they had this horror movie starting up and the director was based in London – could I meet him and do some boards.  The budget was fairly tight and they needed to plan out the more complex stuff as best as possible for budgeting and scheduling. I boarded all the main action/FX sequences with Geoff and thoroughly enjoyed it. The movie turned out great and Geoff is a very good friend to this day. I recently worked with him on his fantastic Christopher Isherwood biopic for the BBC called CHRISTOPHER AND HIS KIND.

A sample of David Allcock's work from the film HANNA (dir. Joe Wright)

When you started freelancing as a storyboard artist, what sort of work was available?

When I started it was mainly small stuff. WHITE NOISE was a diamond in the rough and I was very lucky to be in the right place at the right time and get a feature film as my first gig. Apart from that it was all little things. I did numerous short films, low budget music videos, corporate stuff, development work as favours for directors - anything I could to build a portfolio. It was my second initiation. I had to build from scratch again, carving my niche and creating a reputation, working for no money round the clock just to gain experience. This led to more high profile commercials, then TV drama and feature films. I grafted ‘til my fingers bled!

What research will you do before you take a job? Do you use any software for your work or is it all traditional method?

I will try and do as much as possible and be as prepared as I can. You should always do your homework.  I find out who the director is and the other HOD’s and get a sense of their style and the tone of the project, adapting myself to the environment as best I can. I watch the director’s previous films and see what shots he likes and how he tends to cut a sequence. Some directors love dutch angles, others hate it. Some like tight, handheld long lenses, others prefer wide angle tracking. For example Guy Ritchie likes to mix things up a bit – using slow motion mixed with fast cuts. He likes to push the technology and get quite stylised and dynamic. He lets me do my own pass on scenes and think outside the box before we go in and refine things. On the other hand Joe Wright likes longer takes and sweeping camera moves, every composition is carefully considered and he likes to play with symbolism. I know this going into the project and I apply it.

If it’s a period film or based on existing property I try and immerse myself in that time or that world and sort of get “in the zone”. I also make little notes and thumbnails on the script when I first read it. On the big studio movies nowadays there will be a researcher  and a central computer network with all kinds of reference material stored up. When I’m actually in the office or studio I will often have access to all this reference plus books, set designs, costume drawings etc….specific to the project. I like to do my homework.

I value my time in production and seeing all aspects of the process. I try to get on set when I can and learn about new technology and techniques, particularly with stunts and visual effects. The more background knowledge I have and sense of exactly what goes into achieving a shot the better informed my storyboards will be.

Everything is digital nowadays. All departments now have a digital workflow. I have had to follow suit. I still draw pencil on paper to begin with though. I always have and I always will. It’s the fastest and purest process for me and I hope I never lose that. But I then continue my work on computer. I often scan my drawings and clean them up in Photoshop, rendering them, labelling, re-organising, layout etc…..Storyboards are constantly changing and I will do numerous different versions of the same scene. The digital process has made this part a lot easier. No more cutting and pasting with Sellotape and scissors! Now and then I do some digital painting in Photoshop and Corel Painter as well for full colour concept art and key frames. Biro thumbnails are my pre-production, neat pencils on paper is my production and Photoshop is like my post-production. I then have the ability to save my artwork in any format , which is usually as separate jpegs for printouts and sending to the editor if they want to play around with a scene early on, or PDF’s for a whole sequence which is good for distributing to other departments. The digital content then also allows me to cut animatics if that is required. They are fairly crude but when you add some music and sound effects it can help with pacing and get a sense of actual screentime for a sequence.

When do you typically come aboard a production (& when do you leave?)

I am usually one of the very first people hired on a project and I have the luxury of seeing it grow and develop. If I come on really early in prep or even in development then I get some great one-on-one time with the director and sometimes DP and production designer.  As the project gains momentum you see them less and less as things get busier and their time is limited. The storyboards are then used to inform the prep process as schedules are drawn up and budgets made. On large-scale features I will usually work all through pre-production and maybe a few weeks into shooting, but then I’m gone and onto the next thing while the rest of the crew slave away. On smaller scale projects I might only be hired for a couple of weeks to work on one scene. Nowadays though projects are constantly evolving all through shooting and well into post production as so much is done with CGI and reshoots are built into budgets to tweak things after test screenings. I will sometimes be re-hired during post to help figure out stuff that didn’t exist initially (just a load of green!) or to help plan new scenes that have been added at the last minute and decided upon during the editing process and test screening results.

How much consultation will you have with a director? What’s it like trying to interpret their vision?

In a perfect world I would get lots of time face to face with the director and have constant access to them and a hotline to their brain! In the real world this simply never happens – they are just too busy. I have to use my time with them as efficiently as possible and make the most of the brief meetings I get. I try to stay one step ahead and fill in the gaps as best I can. If I can gain the director’s trust I can keep pumping ideas through and making suggestions.  I also work with the 2^nd unit director, stunt co-ordinator, DP and production designer. Often I have to talk on the phone with them or Skype and email stuff back and forth as they are off at other meetings, scouting locations or on set shooting. I work remotely more and more and the technology allows this nowadays. I have worked on projects based in the US and all over Europe without ever leaving home.  I don’t necessarily have to be in the same room with them. Some directors like to go into great detail during storyboarding and are very specific and board everything. Others like a bit more freedom and like to keep things looser, allowing for more experimentation on the day. Good storyboarding should bridge those two worlds – providing enough information clearly so everyone knows what’s going on but not getting bogged down. They should suggest not dictate. And it isn’t about pretty pictures, it’s about information.

Action sequences need to follow the storyboard tightly, is your imagination at the mercy of the budget or do you have frantic re-drafting the night before a set piece?

The big action scenes are often the priority as they are the most complex. Time is money and they take a long time to shoot and involve lots of special equipment and specialist crew. They are dangerous and expensive so the more it can be figured out ahead of time, the better prepared everyone will be. I will usually end up re-drafting an action scene many, many times over a period of weeks and weeks as more and more information is fed in and the sequence is shaped and refined. The board becomes a visual script. We often start bigger and whittle it down as the days are scheduled. There is never enough time or enough money so the budget is always a concern. Sometimes the storyboard informs the budgeting process and other times the board must fit the budget. It depends on the production. Nowadays there are lots of VFX involved too and the storyboard will be handed over to a previz team to construct an animation factoring in precise lenses and all the live action elements and CGI elements. So on the big movies a lot is figured out way ahead of the game to avoid those frantic last minute changes. There is so much at stake, it has to run like a military operation. Of course, you still get the occasions where you’re re-drafting the night before because even if one small thing changes it has a knock-on effect. It’s a house of cards.

Which sequence are you proudest of and why?

I’m very fond of the Tower Bridge finale in Sherlock Holmes. That was very heavily storyboarded. When I started on the movie it was the first thing I did. I met the producers and they said “Hi, nice to meet you, thanks for coming in, here’s the script…….now go and figure out the ending”. I was given a lot of freedom. I worked quite closely with the VFX team as there is so much green screen in that sequence. A lot of my shots are in there and it ended up very close to what I boarded. That is always satisfying.

I am also extremely proud of all my work on HANNA. I really enjoyed working with Joe Wright and the DP Alwin Kuchler on that in Berlin. Just the three of us sitting round a table being creative. Joe is a true visionary and a master film-maker. I loved the approach to the action – we tried to make it as beautiful and fluid as it is brutal and thrilling. I think it elevates action cinema to another level – it’s art

If you could change one thing about the UK film industry, what would it be?

Better films! Honestly, a lot of our home-grown product is severely lacking. Maybe it’s the scripts, maybe it’s the type of projects that are gaining the funding but I think we have fallen way behind within the international market. Most of the large-scale movies made over here are funded by the US studios and the smaller films which are often UK developed are so limited in their ambition and appeal. We have Bond and Potter. We make some great period costume dramas. A ton of gangster movies and countless kitchen sink dramas…..but what else? That’s an extremely limited repertoire. Take a look at the Asian market – they are making some of the most eclectic and groundbreaking cinema in the world. I am a huge fan of Korean and Japanese films. They vary in quality but they are brave, bold, complex, experimental, thrilling, entertaining and technically amazing. They cover so many genres and subjects it’s mind-boggling. They are unique and original and they seem to have a huge output. They also get a lot of international recognition nowadays. Many Hollywood movies are remakes of Asian films or they are copying their style and techniques. Asian films are winning awards at ceremonies all over the world and conquering festivals left, right and centre. Because they are unique and bold! UK film should take note.

What do you do to you relax when you are not working?

Relax? What’s that? Being a freelancer you have to take the work while it’s there and I’ve been very lucky recently and had more work than I can handle. I’ve never been out of work and I haven’t had a holiday in three years – I’m exhausted! But I’m a workaholic. I get paid to do something I love and I couldn’t be happier. When I do get some free time I like to do nothing. I’m a bit of a hermit. I watch movies and read. I’m a cinephile. I have particular tastes but I watch everything. I am obsessed with films and film-making and most of the books I read are about art or film.  I swim to stay healthy and listen to lots of music. I like good food and good wine, but most importantly I spend as much time with my family as possible.  I have been so busy recently that I’ve hardly been at home. My daughter just turned one, so any time off I have is devoted to her and my wife. Family is the most important thing.

Which film or film-maker would you most like to work with (that you haven’t already)?

Bond! That is my ultimate ambition.  I would kill to do a 007 movie. I’m a huge fan of James Bond and It has been my dream since I was very small.

All the directors I most admire are either dead or retired. In another life I would have loved to work with Hitchcock (who storyboarded everything), Kubrick or Mel Brooks.

I’d love to work with John Landis, John Carpenter or Ridley Scott. These are my favourite directors. Landis was over here recently doing BURKE AND HARE and a friend of mine got the storyboard gig – I was gutted. I would have robbed graves to work with Landis. But really, I was just pleased that Landis was back making features after such a long time away.  If I ever get to work with these legendary film-makers I will be over the moon, but I’m just pleased to be working at all, especially in these tough financial times.

David Allcock is member of thecallsheet.co.uk and you can see his page right here, or visit his website. David is also a member of the Guild Film Designers Guild