WEBTOON Basics Writing Storyboard: How Many Cuts Per Episode?
GCC Academy
Learning Goals To explain the characteristics of storyboards for different media To explain why limited content is important and how to write a storyboard with that limit
Learning Content Characteristics of storyboard for different media How to write a storyboard with limited length
HAGA Webtoon Artist Debut 2014 Webtoon For the Sake of Sita Career Mentor for Seoul Webtoon Academy (SWA) Works King's Maker Nessun Dorma Non Shall Sleep
Hello, I am HAGA or Lee Sang Mi, a Webtoon artist
of King's Maker at Kakaopage
Today's title is Writing Storyboard: How Many Cuts Per Episode?
We will learn about planning for a scene based on the number of cuts per an episode
We will talk about different characteristics of storyboard in different media
And why limited length matters as well as how to write a storyboard with a limited length
These are the two sub-categories
Characteristics of Storyboard for Different Media
What is a storyboard?
Comic is a mixed art with word and drawing
And the strengths of each differ
The shape and function of the lens in the pupil
Or the movement of a knee, imagine describing this in words
It has a spherical eyeball and the outermost surface is the sclera
There is a lens in the center of the sphere, and the ciliary body controls... It's hard
But this is much easier when we use drawings
And when we talk about how a knee works
There is a space between the thigh bone and the shin bone
It looks like the kneecap is floating in the air in that space
The ligaments that hold the patella in place run up and down and lie on top of the knee cartilage...
This is very difficult to explain, but this is much easier with this
Instead of these wordy explanations
When the image of an object is reflected here, enters through the lens, and is focused on the optic nerve
The image of an object travels through the brain through several nerves
We can understand it with this drawing
The thigh bones and shin bones are here
The kneecap is floating on top, so it moves up and down
While being held by muscles, again, much easier
And when you say that you saw the sun and a sunset colored sea that were majestic
We reply with okay, that's cool
Rather than writing, when we actually show them with a photo or a drawing
This induces a much direct impression
This scenery shows how powerful that sunset colored sea was
And with this contrast, all the rocks are gathered
Into a collection against the waves, which looked very majestic
Like so we can enjoy this impression by the others as well
But does this mean that drawings are always a better communication medium?
The shouts of a million troops pouring down as if to cover the mountain rang loudly
How do we draw this scene? It is a very difficult thing to draw
Or imagine the following only presented in a drawing
A hand over the face, the shoulders on a desk
And we see some shaking movement
So is this a crying face?
It could be holding in laughter
Or shivering in fear
Or someone so excited for something
Like so, drawing cannot explain as clearly
And it induces a very subjective impression
So words and drawings each have their own strengths
And in order to utilize both in order to
Provide the most amount of visibility and entertainment is this mixed art
of comics, or storyboarding
The characters of words
Are brought into speeches or narrations
And the visibility of drawings that can present
The felt emotions right away
These two advantages are available in a storyboard
So what should be the form of a storyboard?
Let's start with the difference between storyboarding for physical comics and Webtoons
The current generation is more used to Webtoons than comics
A Webtoon storyboard has no limits in scrolling
Let's take an example from the prologue scene
Of my work, King's Maker Season Two
See how we scroll down a lot through the ceiling
How are you, mother? I am doing good
The new kingdom is busy meeting with the new king
The people no longer suffer with tyranny, the children are no longer sacrificed
And we see some trails of blood at the back
And the line saying the previous emperor had been beheaded, this is from the last season
And we see the emperor being put down by the main characters
And it says now the new emperor will be our wise, kind leader
And that's how the prologue begins
See how we can scroll down
For a seamless view from a ceiling to its floor
This is a special type of presentation only possible in a scroll-type comics
Just like how the blood from the beheaded tyrant drips down like a red carpet
This is also something enabled with the long scrolling
Because you can only add more image files to continue the scroll type comics indefinitely
You can make your own limits in length, and experiment with such long-cut scenes
In contrast, the advantages of a physical-page comic
A physical comic's strength is that it is limited in pages
I just told you that a scroll-type comics is advantageous with its limitless character
And now I'm saying the opposite, that here the advantage is that
There is a limit; so how do these make sense?
Let me take an easier example
As the era of Internet shows unfold, we watch YouTube a lot nowadays
A lot of streamers work in both YouTube and Twitch
Or run both a main channel and a full-length version channel
And there are more subscribers to the main channel with
The edited versions, around 10 minutes each
And something that shortens this 10-minute climax videos
Into a 30 seconds or a minute, YouTube Shorts
Shorts are even more accessible than regular videos
This is happening because
People usually consider the conre content more interesting
Without any other details or branches
Page-based comic was to be worked on for a magazine
Or a paperback version
Let's take an example
Say, this magazine can hold 100 pages of comic
And let's say there are five different comics
That means five authors can each have 20 pages
Let's say I'm one of the page comic authors
And one day, trying to make a fun genre comic, I ended up with 21 pages
You may be thinking, it's just a page over, which is manageable
But this combined becomes a work of 101 pages
And we need more than one paperback
This magazine is printed in millions and hundreds of millions of copies
As it gets sold into individuals and bookstores
So one page in a thousand copies is a thousand pages
And for two thousand copies, it is two thousand pages
Not only is this a big difference
But also, when the next comic continues
The author must've calculated the page position, either left or right
And that episode could have a full view spanning two pages
But once I make my portion 21 pages and adds one page
The full view will be cut into half
And the left and right will be mixed up
With this character of the magazines
The authors used to be trained to limit the story
Into the distributed page limit
Because they were thinking about printing, in magazines or later in their own paperback
They trained for completing the story within the limited page numbers
And this was also training for preparing for the story, removing unncessary details
As well as making a polished final result
That's what the authors of this era could naturally pick up
Of course, though the magazine inudstry isn't as active nowadays
The same applies for individual paperback versions
Have you ever printed your own Doujinshi?
Same with Doujinshi, but for printing a paperback
You print on a big piece of paper and then fold it into pages
So a piece of paper makes four pages
And how it works is, let's take a regular A4-sized paper
And fold it into half here
So page one, page two, and at the back we have page three and four
That's how we get four pages out of one piece
So for each paperback, the pages are limited to the multiples of four
Either eight, 12, 16 pages or more
If the pages do not end in the multiples of four
You have to have some blank pages or even some bonus cuts
And this also limits the presentation you can have in a page
Meaning, everything should be contained in a page
So however big the paper may be, you have to plan for all the cuts within the page
When you plan for your story and your drawings
And this prevents for any unnecessary cuts and bits of story
As the author tries to create a story
Within this limit of quantity
This actually creates a polished content
Here's a photo of a paperback version of my work
See how it is all printed on a huge piece of paper
And these will be gathered into a paperback version
We can see that in this photo
Like so, each medium has a different characteristic
So based on where you're serializing your work
It will be efficient to plan for your story and write the storyboard based on that medium
How-to: Writing Storyboard with Limited Length
Let's talk more about why limited length matters and
How to write a storyboard with such a limit
So how many cuts are appropriate for Webtoon?
In general, Webtoons use around 50 to 60 cuts
And this is the appropriate range
And what are the reasons?
If you go over this, at around 70 to 80 cuts
It will be a lot of work for an individual artist
And as one continues on with that overwhelming workload
It will be hard for the author to stay healthy
Which will lead to taking more hiatus, even for a week
And this will be a disadvantage for the Webtoon platform where the ranks keep changing
In contrast, if you draw too little
Which will be around 40 or below
And this will fill the comments section about it being too short
This is the pattern we see for works under 40 cuts
In order to contain adequate amount of storytelling for a week
Readers usually consider 40 cuts as too little
So in sum, 70 to 80 is too much
and 40 is too little
So around in between, from 50 to 60 cuts
So around 60 cuts is a nice place
For a Webtoon to position itself at
Therefore, especially for incoming artists
Letting them storyboard for a big scaled scroll-type Webtoon
This will often overwhelm them
Or they may focus on too little details
Which will drag the story overall
Therefore it is crucial to storyboard within the right range
And to get the right range, rather than starting with the drawing
It is more economical to start with writing the storyboard
It is more likely for drawing for storyboard first to fail
So first break up the text based on speech and situations
And try to fit in a cut for a line of text
And this is the written storyboard
Let's take an example from my written storyboard
To talk moare abou tit
I first start with writing for a storyboard
And when I realize that it does not fit the right length
As you see, I have numbers next to the storyboard
If this needs to be shorter
Because I cannot complete this much work for a week
I can remove this and combine number seven and eight into one cut
In contrast, once I try making cuts out of this
If I realize that I have too little cuts
And I think people will not be satisfied with this much content
I can divide a line
Into more cuts
Like so, one line equates to one cut
One line equals to a cut
That's the written storyboard
And because this already has the final length
It requires much less effort than editing the drawn storyboard
For example, let's say that the end of episode one
Is number 59, a speech saying interesting
This means that this episode has 59 cuts
Which fits into the range between 50 to 60 cuts
And this will be episode one
But if I want more cuts for the story
For example
A solemn face of the protagonist
I can add more like this
One more background cut
I could increase the cut number like this
And also for those that I already have
I can break the line
Somehow my memories about you feel like they have been removed
I'm breaking this line into several lines
So that the story has more cuts
Or, in contrast, I can delete line breaks
To reduce the final cut number
This is how decision making becomes faster
And less effort is put in compared to
A drawn storyboard
Another strength of the written storyboard is
When we make a story
When it's only one artist who completes the whole story
From planning to finishing
You do not need this much details
But nowadays authors usually have
One or two assistants
Or they may send the storyline to a PD
To fathom beforehand whether this could make it to the platform
Or the artist may be part of a team
Where there are many parts, such as storyboarding, line-drawing, coloring
And a work of Webtoon requires many people
To work on one single thing
This is how studios make Webtoons
If we only have speeches
People won't know whether
It's one person speaking, or a conversation
Or whether it's an actual speech
A thought or a narration
For this, for the written storyboard
If you have the character names in front of each line
You can tell who is speaking right away
And inside the parenthesese will be descriptions of the action
And the thoughts or narrations get this symbol
Or narrations can go into brackets
Such patterns make sure, despite different people participating for storyboarding
That it becomes less confusing in delivery
Even if there are many characters
Color coding the names of the characters
Allow for distinguishing them
Also, by adding a one-line summary of the episode
In the beginning
Those who make the story
Are not those who anticipate for
Any surprise at the end
These people must know clearly
How to plan for a story in order to build
This cathartic twist
So with this, even before reading it, I can tell where this storyboard is going
And by adding this background setting
Those who extract background images from SketchUp
Can tell easily what atmosphere, what time period
And what source of light will be in the scene
By making the written storyboard
The actual work requires less effort
The written storyboard works as a very helpful map
And this page that you're seeing here
Is a Notion page
You can use things other than Notion, like Words or Hancom Docs
And they all add numbers automatically as labels
By pressing Enter you get 1, 2, 3 and more
And to add line breaks within a cut
You can do Shift and Enter, or Control and Enter
To remove this label
So, for example
Have I been living like this all along?
And right behind this speech
Say, you do not want a separate cut for this description
If you only want a line break for readability
If you only press Enter
This will add the label of 9
But by pressing Shift and Enter
This breaks the line without the label
Which adds more readability of a cut
Each program is different, whether it is
Shift Enter, Control Enter or all of the three
But in Hancom Docs, Words or Notepad
You can rearrange these labels
As numbering line breaks
Or simple line breaks
And by using this we can
Easily build a story with the written storyboard
So by using all these
If you have completed your planning for the episode
Within the range of 50 to 70 cuts
Let's compare it to the actual finished work
With this storyboard version
The left of the screen is the written storyboard
And on the right we have the drawn storyboard
Let's compare it to the completed drawing
We see gurgle, some water
Strange, I should be in the hospital
So why does this feel like I'm drowning?
And for the text storyboard, I'm using square brackets
To clarify how this line isn't a speech
But a narrated line
So I did not use any speech bubbles, just some blurs at the back
To express how this line isn't an actual voice
But something that is reverberating
And this is how I added that aspect visually
Let's scroll down, is this some narcotic analgesics? This feels so real
A face that I hardly remember
It's so hard to breathe
Brrr, and splash, and the scene continues
This actually changed a little from the written storyboard
Here it says, is this some narcotic analgesics? It feels so real
Even this pain, it says
And as I made it into a drawing
Since there is a lot of sea foam
And the character's face as intentionally covered
So with too many lines
I decided that the readers may
Find it hard to read
So I wanted make it more concise
Which ended up removing the final bits of the line
And this line, it's so hard to breathe
The font is a bit bigger than the ones above
Because this part has less information compared to this part
And the text storyboard tells us that this is the last part of the narration
After which the background will shift right away
So I decided that we can go with some bigger font size
That's why I made it bigger
After that splash
Cough, cough
That wasn't hallucination, it was actual water
Where is my gown and my scapel?
And this drawing
What, a Hanbok?
No, is this Chinese clothing?
And as it was finalized
Why am I wearing this?
Am I not in Korea?
The lines changed a little but
We see the same cough
That wasn't hallucination, it was real
All these in one cut
It is reflected here without any line brekas
In this text storyboard
If you don't mind, stop...
This is like a whisper
Where is my gown and my scapel?
Is this a Hanbok? These are in one cut
So although the lines changed
The overall cut has not changed too much
Likewise, by making the written storyboard
Into actual drawings
We get to see the right details that are needed
And the written storyboard helps with this process
Of course, one exception is the Cut-Toon style
Cut-Toon style, usually used in themes of daily life
This can sustain the service even with comparateively less content
This is because each cut allows for its own comments section
Like this, for a Cut-Toon style
You flip each page like this
Which resembles flipping a paper page
In requiring a bit of a human work
And this stimulation of swiping
It resembles the swiping action at social media platforms
Swiping up or down
To refresh and bring some new content
And this action is so small that we do not consider it
A labor or work
However, this process of action
Followed by a new stimulant
Is a big stimulating factor for our brain
For it to keep secrete dopamine
So even for Cut-Toon
There is more action required than the scroll-type Webtoon
Because you swipe over each cut
And because there are comments in between the cuts
This is a new content
Like this, the readers add the comments for the cut
In the comments section, for each cut
Which is a new content of the readers communicating with each other
The readers could talk about some particular things
About their own favorite scene
And because the comments section is divided
For each page
You can have the most number of likes more easily
How comics works is
It provides content, stimulates to entertain people
And progresses the story for them to feel satisfaction
And when we talk about content
Though comments are not content made by the author
As readers realize that many people feel the similar ways for the work
Or if one finds this character
This villain character very charming
While others all hate this character
Then, this reader may decide that
Their love for this character will continue
Despite the hate, like a pioneer
And to become the best comment
Is to get a lot of sympathy
Everyone feels joy in sympathizing
And being sympathized with
And being agreed with
So to become the best comment
Or even being more likely to become one
Is another form of entertainment
So for Cut-Toons, if there are too many cuts
Or too many pages
This will drain the readers
Because they have to check for each comment
And having to check for all comments for too many cuts
It will take too long to read an episode
But you cannot remove this individual comments section
And only provide the content of Cut-Toon on its own
Because the readers will not be fully satisfied
With the amount of given content
Therefore, even if there isn't a smuch content
As there are more comments
At the final page, like this
Because each page has different number of comments
The final slide also shows
Which comment is the best of the best
With these more additional contents
These replace the entertainment factor
From the scroll-type Webtoon
So if a Cut-Toon is too long
It may overwhelm the readers
For scroll-type Webtoons, 50 to 60
Or even until 70 cuts is a right amount
That adequately progresses the story
But for Cut-Toons, this needs to be reduced
While each cut has to contain more information
As scroll-type Webtoons require scrolling
Basically the drawings keep on moving
Therefore too many lines will not be read carefully
Because moving letters are less readable
And less advantageous for remembering
That's why even for naming a character
We use common sounds, like Lily Lileo
And to limit a certain color chip for a character
Such as blonde and black hair
To differentiate them completely
It is just like how web novels add character faces next to their speeches
Which contributes for the snack culture, easy to digest
But for a Cut-Toon, after a swipe
The screen stays there
It resembles a paperback versionp
So even if there is more text
It is more readable than a scroll-type Webtoon
And because of that effort put into the swipe
The readers expect
Just like they do for a new social media post after a swipe
That the new cut after a swipe at the Cut-Toon
Has a lot of information
So this means, the final number of cuts decrease
While each cut has more lines
And for this example cut in the center
Isn't poop the ingredient for perfume?
They make perfumes out of whale poops! This is one
If you sniff at it, this is two
And the fainting scene, three
Never try at home, four
Oh my, and the cat is shivering
And finally this human saying, oh my
There are more than six lines and speech bubbles in a cut
This is how Webtoons differ
Among scroll-type, page-type or Cut-Toon type
Or whether it's a paperback style
Where each page is actually printed out
Or, even within the paperback style
You could make it an e-book, like a full-page service at Ridibooks
The key to this lecture is that the Webtoon should be planned differently based on this platform type
Based on the service medium of the Webtoon
You should prepare for the storyboard, written and drawn, differently
In order to efficiently reduce the storyboarding time even during the service
So, in order to take control over this length
Let's move on to this final point
It's the thumbnail storyboarding
This is to connect thumbnail and written storyboards
Thumbnail comes from the finger or thumb
And nail of that thumb
A thumbnail storyboard is a storyboard as big as that thumb's nail
For example, for a page-type Webtoon
Or a scroll-type Webtoon that will become
A paperback version later
I told you how the page number is a multiple of four, like four, eight or 16
Let's say that I'm going for a 16-page episode
So on this A4 sized paper, or any sized page on your screen
5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16
Add all these little thumbnails for the 16 pages
Let's plan for a very textbook-styled beginning of a story
The main character has no parents, struggling with part time jobs
And has a car accident
Must've been a truck
And as they fall down, she thinks
I've never been happy in my life, what a watse of life
And thinks, I should've at least finished that romance fantasy novel
That I started reading last night, and the character dies
And when she wakes up, she's now the main character of the novel she's been reading
So it will start with staring into an unknown ceiling
And she must go look into a mirror
And what she sees is a beautiful blonde girl with a Rococo-styled outfit
And as she looks into it, she thinks to herself, is this me? And let's say that this is the ending
Up until here is episode one
And we at least have the last scene
Looking into the mirror, thinking to herself, is this me?
And the beginning should start with the contemporary world
Of her struggling with part time jobs
And the event in the middle should be
Some struggles as she works her part time jobs
All the struggles, and then the accident
And then she will regret about not having finished that novel
And wakes up, is this me? That's the storyline
And then we see where the accident shoudl happen
And where the regret scene should come in
We can divide the cuts rougly
So she wakes up under an unfamiliar ceiling
And thinks to herself, this is strange, and this should come around here
And her running into a mirror
The maids could follow her, asking what's the matter
That could come in around here
And then the regretting scene
About her unfinished novel
This takes too many pages
Then let's put this waking up scene a page before
Then the regret scene will take
Around three pages
So she can look at the ceiling here, find things strange, run out
And look into a mirror within three pages
And the struggle part with her part time jobs
If I don't want this struggle to take up too many pages
I can just allocate two pages
Then the accident scene
It will take five pages, which is a bit too long
Like so, you can start by allocating the cuts
And then fit the text storyboard into it
In a format like this, as we saw before
A page usually fits in around five cuts
Five cuts, up until this is page one
Then the next page, we can have up until cut eleven
So add a line break to visualize a text storyboard per page
That's how we could work on it
For this general thumbnail storyboarding
By making the text storyboard first
You can polish your storytelling
And not exceed the limit of the length
And we've just looked at that with some examples
Today's title was Writing Storyboard: How Many Cuts Per Episode?
Where we looked at how to calculate cut numbers to create scenes
I hope today's lecture helped you
Writing your own storyboards
Thank you
Summary Storyboards for Different Media What is a Storyboard? Mixed art: text and drawing Clarity of text for speech or narration Visibility of drawing for delivering affect
Webtoons Unlimited scrolling Free to set one's own length Can have a long cut scene Page Comics Story development within a limited number of pages Polished entertainment
Storyboards for Different Media Cut-Toons Usually has themes of daily life Less number of pages for a stable service Yet each cut contains more speeches and information compared to scroll-type Webtoons
Each cut has its own comments section where the readers can talk to each other This adds new content between cuts, which provides entertainment
How to storyboard within the limited length Around 60 cuts for a Webtoon is an appropriate number It is more economical to start with the written storyboard to fit into the limit
How-to: Text Storyboard Labeling function for Notion, Pages, Hancom Docs, Words or Notepad
Use patterns of symbols for character names, speeches, narrations or action descriptions In order to share the direction and background of the episode