I went on Chinese job sites like BOSS Zhipin and Zhiyouji and searched for “animation storyboard artist”, “storyboard” and “shot design”.
In simple terms, the job is to turn the written script into a “drawn story” that everyone in the team can understand. That includes first reading the script, then talking with the director or writer about their ideas, and then drawing the storyboard, breaking each scene into shots. On the boards you need to show the shot size, camera angle, composition, roughly how the characters move, and when to cut. Some job ads also ask you to think about camera movement, transitions and sound rhythm. A few JDs even say you should make a simple animatic, so that the director and animators can feel the timing in advance. When I looked at the requirement part, they often say you need to “understand camera language and rhythm”, and know how to use different shot sizes and compositions to control emotions and pacing.
When I compare this with myself, I feel that this job is basically “telling stories with images”. When I watch animation, I notice that I really like to see how shots are connected, how changing the camera angle can change the emotion of the whole scene, and how the rhythm is arranged step by step. When I get a piece of story, I usually start to think: if I were the one to shoot this, where would I cut, how would I place the characters, how would I arrange the camera. On top of that, the storyboard position itself can work across different media, which feels quite suitable for me.
I think the main problem for me is actually communication and revisions. Storyboard artists have to keep taking feedback and talking with directors and producers, and sometimes one section will be changed many times, or even thrown away and started again. I am really not good at communicating with people, so I think in the future I might prefer a work mode where there is a professional “middle person” who helps collect and summarise what the client wants, and then directly tells me what kind of storyboard they want and how they hope I can change it.
If I really want to move closer to this position, I probably need to do more focused practice while I am still in school, for example doing shot breakdowns and studying storyboard tutorials. Even if in the end I do not officially become a storyboard artist, I still feel that this kind of training will help me see things more clearly in other roles too. Whether it is animation, editing or 3D, all of them are closely connected to “camera” and “rhythm”.