Hello everyone! I’ve been a storyboard artist for twenty years, working on such major film and TV productions as Terminator Salvation, Breaking Bad & Better Call Saul, Coyote Vs Acme, and Percy Jackson Season 2.
Blake Evans, the Director of Photography for Dark Winds, said this about my work: “Ted is not just an illustrator but a valued collaborator. His understanding of the flow, mood and tempo of a sequence and his input has been invaluable. I can recommend him to anyone in the television, commercial or the feature world that needs story boards to help focus and define a production vision.”
Here's a PDF with a list of my credits as well as some recent samples. If anyone is considering storyboards I'd be happy to talk about it. Thanks!
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I'm not sure if the PDF uploaded or whether anyone can see it, so here's a sample from it.
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Hi, @Ted! It's great to meet you. Congratulations on your success as a storyboard artist! Great job on the storyboard!
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Impressive credits, Ted! With 20 years of experience, how has the role of storyboarding changed as production workflows and technology have evolved?
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Great question, Zoltan! Among live-action video I'm seeing higher demand for storyboard artists in high-budget, effects-heavy properties where synchronizing the VFX work with the shot footage requires extra coordination and communication, while I'm seeing less storyboarding being done for other purposes -- possibly because of tightening budgets among the movies that aren't high-budget, effects-heavy properties.
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Welcome Ted Slampyak !
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Welcome to Stage 32, Ted Slampyak! My name is Ashley Smith, and I’m the Head of Community here at Stage 32. So glad you jumped into IYW to introduce yourself!
Twenty years as a storyboard artist with credits like TERMINATOR SALVATION, BREAKING BAD, BETTER CALL SAUL, COYOTE VS ACME, AND PERCY JACKSON is a genuinely phenomenal body of work. Storyboard artists at your level are such a critical (and often underappreciated) part of what makes production work land visually, and the fact that you’ve been trusted with material of that caliber over that many years speaks to real craft mastery.
Storyboard artists with your experience are also genuinely valuable to so many members of the Stage 32 community. From feature directors preparing their shot lists to producers building pitch materials to independent filmmakers trying to visualize their vision before shooting, your skill set solves real problems for creators at every stage.
A few resources to help you make the most of your Stage 32 experience:
- Be genuinely active in the Filmmaking, Directing, and Producing Lounges! These are the three most important Lounges for you specifically. That’s where directors and producers gather to talk about the projects they’re developing, the crew and collaborators they need, and the visual challenges they’re wrestling with. Consistent engagement in those spaces (asking questions, contributing to others’ conversations, sharing craft insights from your 20 years of experience) is one of the most powerful ways to organically become the storyboard artist that members think of when they realize they need one. Those genuine relationships lead to real work that goes so much deeper than a one-off post: https://www.stage32.com/lounge
- Reach out to our Success Team at Success@Stage32.com to tell them about your experience, availability, and goals. Given your senior professional credentials and your interest in remote work, Success can help connect you with Stage 32 Executives and filmmakers who genuinely need storyboard collaborators and can help you strategize the strongest way to position your services on the platform.
- Register for our next FREE Community Open House on Wednesday, September 23rd at 12pm PT. It’s a wonderful way to get a full overview of everything Stage 32 has to offer AND direct access to me and our team to ask any questions about how to make the most of your experience here. Even if you can’t attend live, registering guarantees you the full recording: https://www.stage32.com/education/products/stage-32s-september-2026-comm...
Welcome again, Ted! Rooting for you and every wonderful production that gets the benefit of your work next.
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Great you have in the S32 Club Ted Slampyak! Very impressive career! This total newbie is humbled! Cheers.
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Thanks for all the welcoming sentiment, all! And Ashley Renée Smith, thanks for the tip on the open house -- I signed up!
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You're welcome, Ted Slampyak. Some of the arrows in that storyboard are white and some are black. What's the difference between the arrows?
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Ted Slampyak , those credits are incredible! I actually just did the BREAKING BAD & BETTER CALL SAUL tour in Albuquerque a couple of weeks ago, so seeing that on your list immediately jumped out at me.
With 20 years in storyboarding, I’d love your perspective on AI. Are you seeing it affect storyboard work on productions yet, and where do you think the experience and creative collaboration of a human storyboard artist simply can’t be replaced?
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Well, that's a great question. There are really two main ways I help a production as a storyboard artist. The first is to accurately show the shots that the director and DP want for their scenes -- the perspective and layout, the proportions, lighting, etc. The second is collaborating with them to find new ideas and solutions, to point out any problems that their ideas might have, and to provide a fresh perspective on the scene, another set of expert eyes on the sequences to see other ways there may be to tell the story with whatever technical, time- or budget-related limitations there may be.
AI is getting better at the first one, though still not as well, I think, as a human being would be -- you have to give AI the right prompts and probably need to revise a lot. The second one AI will never touch.
However, while that might be the truth, the problem is there are too many people who will believe what they want to believe, and will use AI even if the results are slop, simply because it's cheaper. The best productions won't go there, but quite honestly lots of storyboard artists can't live on just the best productions -- we need them all. And AI is draining enough work from the marketplace that storyboard artists will face greater and greater pressure to lower their rates in order to compete.
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Also, how was the BB tour? I miss Albuquerque -- I don't live there anymore -- though I don't miss it as much in the hot summer!
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I really enjoyed reading your take on AI Ted Slampyak - I'm in full agreement with you that you need the human touch in order to truly connect with the director (and guide the production for that matter!) AI slop cannot compete with that. You raise an interesting point about being competitive with rates which presents it's own challenge for your livelihood. I think where the opportunity lies is all the influx of international productions, though. Get on the radar of those and that generates more professional work.
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The best way to describe the BB tour was how my friend described it "deliciously cheesy and awesome" - both parts rolled into one :) It was so much fun getting to see the locations from the show and I loved it. They did such a great job. I was a sucker and came home with some Breaking Bad shot glasses in the shape of a beaker lol And, you're right. It was HOT.
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Welcome back, and it's great to have a storyboard artist with twenty years of experience on productions like Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and Terminator Salvation offering their services to the community.
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Hey Maurice Vaughan! I'm sorry, I didn't see your question earlier. And it's a great question! I don't think anyone's ever asked me that before!
I usually use open, white arrows to delineate camera movement, and black arrows to show movement of actors and things in the space that the camera is filming. That's why, in a couple panels of the sample page above, there are both arrows -- the man is running left-to-right, and the camera is tracking with him.
This isn't set in stone -- sometimes I'll use white arrows so they stand out more, or because something big is moving in the shot, but overall that's my own visual lexicon on arrows -- there's no established rule to this that I know of, I made it up myself. I like to think it helps the viewer unconsciously make sense of some complicated scenes, but I know it helps me decide how to present them.
Hey, @Ted. No problem. I think using different arrow colors is a great idea for storyboard artists! It reminds me of when I use different highlighters in Microsoft Word to label things in a script outline. Thanks for answering my question.