sevencamels.blogspot.com

What is Temple of the Seven Golden Camels?

Temple of the Seven Golden Camels is a long-running blog about the craft of storyboarding, written by animator and story artist Mark Kennedy. Its focus is practical: how to stage a scene, pose characters, control the reader's eye, and build sequences that read clearly, rather than news or reviews of animation releases.

Temple of the Seven Golden Camels

What you'll find there

• Storyboard fundamentals — staging, silhouettes, cutting, camera placement, and clarity of action.
• Visual storytelling analysis — close readings of sequences from animated and live-action films.
• Production insight — notes from working in feature animation and what the job actually involves.
• Craft advice for artists — drawing for story, thumbnails, and revision habits.

Who it suits

It is most useful to animation students, storyboard artists, and filmmakers who already draw and want to sharpen how they tell a story in panels. It is less useful if you want software tutorials, portfolio templates, or career listings.

How to use it

Treat it as a reference library rather than a course. Pick a topic you're currently struggling with — say, keeping a conversation scene visually interesting — read the relevant posts, then apply one idea to a page of your own boards the same day. If you want a broader foundation in animation history and technique alongside it, Animation Obsessive and Animation World Network cover the industry side, while Cartoon Brew tracks news.

How can I learn storyboarding techniques from this blog?

Start with the blog's archive rather than its front page. Temple of the Seven Golden Camels is a long-running, text-heavy blog about the craft of storyboarding, so the fastest way to learn from it is to treat it as a course you assemble yourself: pick a topic, read every post that touches it, then board something using that idea the same week.

A practical way to work through it

• Skim the archive by topic, not by date. Look for recurring themes such as staging, clarity, thumbnails, acting, camera moves, cutting, and sequence construction, then read those posts together so the ideas reinforce each other.
• Take notes as rules you can apply. When a post makes a point about readability or staging, rewrite it as a one-line checklist item you can test on your own boards.
• Board along with the reading. After each session, board a short scene — two or three panels is enough — and deliberately apply one idea from that session.
• Re-board the same scene later. Redrawing the same beat after more reading shows you whether the technique actually changed your choices, which is more useful than reading more posts.

What this blog is good for, and what it is not

Pair it with other learning

Reading alone rarely fixes drawing speed or staging instincts. Use the blog for principles, then practise against real material: board a scene from a film you know, compare your version with the released shots, and note where yours is unclear. For broader craft context, Animation World Network publishes interviews and production articles, and Cartoon Brew covers industry and craft developments. If you want structured lessons, the story and boarding sections of StudioBinder offer free guides and shot-list templates you can use alongside the reading.

A useful decision rule: if a post leaves you with a specific choice you can make differently in your next board, it was worth the read. If it only leaves you inspired, save it and move to one that gives you something to draw.

What are the key principles of visual storytelling discussed here?

This site is a storyboard-focused blog, not a general filmmaking course. Its core argument is that visual storytelling is a craft of clarity, staging and emotional intent, and that most of the work happens before anything is drawn well.

The principles it returns to

• Story first, drawing second. A beautiful panel that doesn't advance the scene is a failure. The board exists to serve the sequence, not to showcase rendering.
• Readability in an instant. A viewer should understand the shot's subject, action and spatial relationships at a glance. If a frame needs explanation, it needs redesign.
• Staging and silhouette. Where characters are placed, which way they face, and how their shapes read against the background carry the drama. Strong poses read even as solid black shapes.
• Camera as a storytelling choice. Shot size, angle, lens and movement should express a point of view or emotional distance, not just add variety.
• Continuity and the 180-degree logic. Screen direction, eyelines and geography must stay coherent so the audience never has to reorient itself.
• Appeal and acting. Characters should be appealing to watch and their poses should communicate attitude and thought, not just locomotion.
• Clarity over cleverness. When a bold idea competes with comprehension, comprehension wins.

How to use this

Take one scene you're boarding and test it in three passes: strip it to silhouettes, check whether the action still reads; cover the dialogue and see whether the visuals carry the beat; then check screen direction across the sequence for flips or eyeline breaks. If a shot fails one of those tests, the fix is usually staging or shot choice, not more detail.

For broader grounding, compare with FilmSkills or the story artist resources at The Animation Guild.

How do I apply the blog's advice to improve my own storyboard portfolio?

Treat Temple of the Seven Golden Camels as a study companion rather than a checklist: its stated focus is "everything I know about the art of storyboarding," so the value is in how its posts change the way you draw and choose shots, not in a portfolio template. The practical move is to read for principles, then test each one against a short sequence of your own.

Turn reading into portfolio work

• Pick one post about staging, clarity or cutting, then redraw an existing three-to-five panel sequence using only that idea. Keep the before and after.
• Build small, themed sequences rather than a pile of unrelated panels: a chase, a quiet reveal, a character entering a room. Portfolios read as storytelling ability, and a finished sequence shows more than twenty loose drawings.
• Write one or two lines under each sequence explaining the intent — what the audience should feel or understand at each beat. Recruiters and reviewers often can't tell whether an unclear panel was a mistake or a choice.
• Revisit older boards after a few weeks and fix the weakest panel. The revised version is often stronger portfolio material than the original.

What to select and what to cut

Aim for roughly six to ten sequences that each demonstrate a different strength: action clarity, comedy timing, suspense, character acting, environment and scale, dialogue coverage. Cut anything that only shows rendering skill without a story purpose, and cut duplicates — two similar action sequences say less than one action sequence plus one intimate scene.

A quick comparison for deciding what stays

Next step

Choose one sequence you already like, apply a single principle from the blog to it, and rebuild it end to end. Then ask one working storyboard artist or a peer for notes on clarity alone — not on drawing quality. That single focused pass usually improves a portfolio more than adding another ten panels.

What common storyboarding mistakes does this blog help me avoid?

The blog is best understood as a working storyboard artist's notebook rather than a structured course: it helps you avoid the mistakes that come from treating boards as finished drawings instead of as staging for a sequence. Its recurring focus is on clarity, staging, acting and camera logic, so the errors it corrects are mostly judgment errors, not technical ones.

Mistakes it tends to surface

• Boarding for beauty instead of readability. Panels that look impressive in isolation but leave the audience unsure where to look, who is speaking, or what just changed.
• Confusing the reader with unclear screen direction. Losing the axis of action between shots so characters appear to flip sides or travel in contradictory directions.
• Cutting without a reason. Adding shots because the script says so, rather than because a new idea, reaction or spatial relationship needs its own frame.
• Flat staging. Placing every character at the same distance and height, which drains a scene of emphasis and makes dialogue feel like two heads talking.
• Weak silhouettes. Poses that read only when you can see the face or the details, rather than communicating attitude in pure outline.
• Ignoring the audience's eye. Failing to guide attention within the frame so the important action competes with background clutter.
• Over-directing the acting. Pushing expressions and gestures so hard that subtlety disappears and the performance reads as mugging.
• Treating the board as a final draft. Skipping the loose, exploratory pass where you find the scene's shape before committing to polished drawings.

Who benefits most

If you are a student, an animator moving into boards, or a filmmaker boarding your own short, the value is in catching these habits early. A professional revisiting a scene will get more from the site's specific observations about staging and cutting than from any beginner-level advice.

A practical next step

Take a sequence you have already boarded and check it against one criterion at a time: cover the faces and see whether the silhouettes still read; then watch only the direction of movement and see whether it stays consistent. Fixing one layer at a time is faster than redrawing everything, and it mirrors how the blog treats each problem as a separate craft skill.

For a broader grounding in staging and film grammar alongside it, American Film Institute and Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences publish interviews and archival material with directors and story artists that show how these decisions are discussed in production.

How does this blog compare to other storyboarding resources for beginners?

For a beginner, Temple of the Seven Golden Camels works best as a craft-essay archive rather than a structured course. Its focus is the thinking behind storyboarding — staging, clarity of action, character appeal, cutting for emotion — written in an informal, experienced voice. That makes it strong for building taste and vocabulary, weaker for step-by-step software instruction or portfolio logistics.

Where it fits among common options

A practical way to use it

If you are starting out, treat the blog as reading for the week you are boarding something specific. Sketch a two-character dialogue scene, then read a few posts on staging and acting, then re-board the same scene. Compare what changed. Pair that with a resource that gives you assignments and critique, since a blog cannot see your work.

Choose this blog when you want to sharpen judgment; choose a course or community when you need deadlines, feedback and a portfolio. Many beginners use both: essays for ideas, a class or forum for accountability.