We were lucky to catch up with Dan Caplan recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Dan, thanks for joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
Though I have a Bachelor of Arts degree in Illustration/Fine Art from a University, I did not go to an “Art School” with a focus on the Entertainment Industry. Outside of a unique insight on Old Master painting techniques from a maverick professor named Saul Bernstein, I got more of a survey of techniques, not specialized training, and only a basic familiarity with the procesess of Storyboard and Concept Illustration for Film. So I continued my education with some stand alone courses offered at the old California Art Institute and the Animation Guild’s Animation Art Institute. I learned some fundamentals from veterans like David Jonas and Bill Frake, and augmented with books like “Shot by Shot” by Stephen D. Katz.
But I really learned the craft by diving into work, asking Directors a lot of questions, and observing other Artists who did have that “Art School” training. When I start a Storyboard job, I typically meet with the Director for an hour or two, going over their vision for how the story will be told. There are many considerations and choices to make–how low or high should the camera be and should it move; what actions take place; do we need to hide a Stunt performer; are there Visual Effects; etc.–all of which are issues I will encounter when I sit down to draw. So over time, I learned to ask important follow up questions, anticipate the choices that will have to be made, and developed a better collaborative working relationship. This all allowed me to improve the quality of my illustrations, and enjoy doing them.
Along with that process, I also learned that developing the Art of Listening was critical to performing at a high level, leading to more and more high level jobs. Working with Directors, you literally have to be able to take direction well! To do so means asking the right questions, taking notes, and making sure you understand what the Director intends, maybe by suggesting an example, relating it to another film or piece of Art, and/or scribbling a quick thumbnail to show that you’re on the right track. Other professionals can impart vital information, so it’s good to also listen and track other conversations which might pertain to my work.
Of course it’s always important to continually improve my drawing skills as well. Having had an analog education, this also meant learning how to transfer traditional methods to digital skills in order to remain competitive for the long run. It can be extra tough to have access to current hardware and applications when working freelance, since you have to choose platforms and pay expenses on your own. So I had a lot of trial and error, spent a lot of time mulling what to focus on, and toughing it out through jobs which I felt could have been done better. But as long as I met the core needs of the job, delivered it on time, and was pleasant to work with, I was able to keep the work coming in, and continued to improve and meet the high bar I set for myself.
Dan, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
The moment I set eyes on Alex Tavoularis’ storyboards from the original Star Wars (A New Hope) and Apocalypse Now in an exhibit at my university, I decided that was the form of Illustration that I wanted to focus on. Storyboarding combines draftsmanship, storytelling, and creative problem solving in a grand collaborative artistic endeavor to produce motion picture entertainment. This is the craft that I have specialized in for more than 30 years now.
My first paid storyboard job was part of a presentation pitch for a TV network children’s reading show, which I got by way of my listing in a trade publication (several years before the days of websites). Finding work in this field was–and still is–difficult. I ultimately contracted with an agency for representation, which turned into a fairly steady flow of work in commercials doing “shooting boards” for commercial production companies. There is a lot of Storyboard work in commercials because it is very useful for communicating a Director’s vision and means of implementing an Ad Agency’s concept for the Client. A Storyboard Artist can help develop the best storytelling visuals with the Director.
I gradually added low to medium budget feature films and television series to the mix. Though simple drawings can often effectively communicate the action and camera angles that will tell the story, I approach the frames as illustrations, and strive to include as much expression, gesture, perspective, composition, and mood as I can within the quick turnaround time that is required. I think that my ability to render recognizable likenesses, realistic character poses, and images that almost look like they could be screenshots from the show/film/commercial helped distinguish me from other Artists, and contributed to the cultivation of “repeat customer” Directors, Producers, and Assistant Directors. That’s what reallymade this career sustainable.
Though I have worked on many feature films, Television has been my main playground. The first TV series that became a somewhat regular gig for me was Ally McBeal, working on many of the imagined fantasies that relied on Visual Effects, from which I learned a lot. I’m very proud of having worked on many of HBO’s signature shows during its years in the vanguard of Cable TV such as Six Feet Under, True Blood, Game of Thrones, Westworld, and Big Little Lies, among others. And as streaming platform dominance expanded, so has my range of credits. A couple of my favorites of those are Star Trek:Picard, being a lifelong Trek fan, and the recent hit Fallout.
Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
It took me a long time to realize that other Artists are much more than competition–they are in fact a great resource for knowledge about the craft, solutions to problems that I might not think of, and referrals to jobs that they are already on, or are too busy to take. One thing I wish I had done earlier was seek out more Artist relationships—and maybe expect a little less career development from an Artist Rep Agency. In fact, one of my biggest breaks came from another Storyboard Artist. We separately worked on the same film, and he subsequently referred me to a Producer for work on a TV show that he couldn’t take. I not only got that job, but I did it well enough to impress the Producer, who asked me to work on Six Feet Under, which was my portal into the world of HBO prestige TV.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
There are a lot of ups and downs in any freelancing career. Having one good month, or even a good year, is no indication of how the next one might go. I have had many droughts of work; stressful stretches of time with no money coming in or reliable expectation of when it will. Many people got a taste of this during the Covid Pandemic and the Writers Guild/Screen Actors Guild strikes. But it has been either a present or foreboding factor in all of my 30 years doing this work. I find that it is important to always stay in touch with my creative nature, and to nurture my own projects, my own expression and creative experiences. These fill the void, allow me to feed that creative need, invariably building skills and fulfillment that help ward off the nagging negative doubt that creeps in when the phone isn’t pinging and the inbox is only spam—is the work not coming in because I’m not good enough?…What can I do about it?…So in these times, in addition to reaching out to contacts, I go back to the Oil Painting I like to do. I work on the graphic novel ideas that have long been gestating. I play around with new digital applications… And I dive back into the fundamentals of Life Drawing, which led to my self-published book “Figuratively Speaking,” a collection of sketches done at uninstructed workshops. I’ve also returned to landscape and urban sketching, mainly with pen and paper. Ideally, at all times, I am working on something, planning something, and planning to plan something. I find this gives me some shock absorbers for the bumpy road of a creative career.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.filmsketches.com
- Instagram: @dancaplan_art
