Life & Work with Daniel Tal of Glendale

Today we’d like to introduce you to Daniel Tal.

Hi Daniel, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Hey! I’m a storyboard artist in animation, and I’ve been at DreamWorks animation ever since I moved to L.A from Canada in 2017.

My journey to this industry started when I was very young, however it didn’t begin with animation, but with video games. At an early age I fell in love with games, notably Role playing games, and MMOs. I would get so immersed in the worlds and spend countless hours playing with the friends I had made. I loved games so much that I had decided I wanted my career to be making art for video games, as I thought that it would be a way I can have an impact on all these amazing worlds and stories I grew up playing.

When It was time to pick a school I decided to go an animation program at Sheridan College, which while not focused on games felt like the best choice to get my skills good enough to join a gaming studio, However while I was there I realized the thing I was drawn too wasn’t actually painting and designing, but the storytelling, and it was in school where I found out about storyboarding, and how you could just tell stories as a career, I didn’t need to focus on color theory, or rendering, I could just focus on this single part of the process that I loved.

From then on my sole goal was to become a story artist and be a part of telling an amazing story. So my path ending leading me down a different direction, to animation; and for me, the best animation was done here in L.A. And so I made it my mission to come here and work on an amazing film I could be proud of. I applied to the trainee program 3 times before I finally made it in, a year after graduating from Sheridan College.

I have since got to work on many films I’m very proud of, such as Wild Robot, Bad guys 2, Abominable, Kung fu Panda 4 and many others!

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
There were definetly many bumps along the road, while I consider myself lucky that I was able to get a job right after graduating, I derived a lot of my self worth solely from my job, social media, and how well I was doing. If I wasn’t doing well at work or a post didn’t get a lot of likes It would feel like my worth as a person was lower.

It took me a long time to begin to seperate myself as a human being from my job as an artist. I had to reframe my thinking to see work for what it was which was work, yes I could be passionate, and care about what I do, but at the end of the day what was important was family, friends, health, and of course my internal artistic journey outside of what I did for my job or social media. Obviously I still have a lot of work to do in the front and I will still get that imposter syndrome, but atleast for my personal work I have started to things I love rather than chase a never ending goal.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a story artist, as a story artist we basically lay the blueprint for a movie, show, or even games. We need to think of a million different components so other departments down the line have something to reference always. We need to think of the composition, acting, layouts, shot flow, sometimes even writing.

For me personally my favorite part of the job is breathing life into a character and making them feel real, creating acting that truly feels unique to that character and makes an audience instantly believe they are watching something real unfold. I feel that having characters that feel real makes all the other aspects of storyboarding fade into the back, that is the kind of work I love to do and what I focus on even in my own time when I work on my personal work.

Work that I’m most proud of would probably be some of the personal storyboards, and beat boards I have done, I did one about a girl finding a mermaid which I feel strongly towards, And I really enjoyed storyboarding solely for myself, and discovering what I kind of film maker I was after so many years storyboarding for others.

In terms of movies I’m proud of, I am really fond of Bad guys 2, as it was an incredible collaborative experience with leadership that both cared about the film, and the crew. Another movie would probably be Abominable, It was my first film credit at DreamWorks, and I think thats where I learned the most about storyboarding, especially joining the film so inexperienced, I was really taken in and was guided by other amazing artists.

Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
Don’t give up the things you are passionate about, but also don’t make your whole life about a singular thing, you need to experience life to be a good story teller and make good art. So please find a balance.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://danieltal.carbonmade.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/daniel.m.tal/
• Twitter: https://x.com/DanielMTal
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@DanielMtal

Image Credits
Daniel Tal