April 17,1946 - August 3, 2024
Timothy Braniff, age 78, passed on August 3, 2024 at Garden Village Care Center in Yakima, Washington. He was born on April 17, 1946 in Portland, Oregon. No service is currently planned.
Hollywood ending: Storyboard artist Tim Braniff's show opens Friday
By Pat Muir
Yakima Herald-Republic
Dec 11, 2014
Tim Braniff was going to throw it away.
The sketches, the fully realized color work, the conceptual drawings that shaped the look of dozens of films and television shows - he was just going to throw it away. He had so much of it, stacks upon stacks, and he didn't really have any plans for it. Never mind that it was a lifetime's worth of work, or that some of it played a key role in defining the visual style of important films such as "The Last of the Mohicans" and "Blow."
"It would have been in the garbage, a lot of it," Braniff said.
Fortunately, he hired local contractor Al Rogers to build a carport for him. Rogers got a look at the work and told another of his clients, Yakima Light Project Gallery Director Laurie Kanyer. And now, instead of in the garbage, the work is the focus of "Lights, Camera, Action!: The Works of Tim Braniff," opening Friday at the gallery.
If not for that happy accident, Yakima at large never would have known that Braniff was even here. He wasn't born or raised here; that was Portland and Seattle, respectively. The only reason he came to town after retiring from Hollywood work in 2007 - just after working on "The Invasion" with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig - was to help his ailing mother.
He has picked up abstract painting since moving here, and some of that work will be in the show, as well. But mostly it will focus on the work produced during his three decades in film and television.
Braniff actually started his career as an illustrator for an advertising agency. Then he served in Vietnam from 1968 to 1970 and came back not knowing what to do with his life.
"After the service, I had difficulty readjusting," Braniff said. "They gave me a full-ride rehabilitation and education at the Arts Center of Pasadena."
He followed that with two years at Green River Community College in Seattle. He knew he didn't want to go back to advertising because the work was getting redundant and he had more of a fine arts leaning, anyway. So he sought work as an illustrator in other media. One of the companies he approached was Disney.
"I just cold called and took a portfolio over," Braniff said. "They had asked me to do the portfolio over the weekend, and I did. Then they hired me. Disney hired me."
It was a great job, and it's where he started doing storyboard work, not for theatrical films but for travel films used at Epcot Center. He stayed till 1983, when he decided to try his hand as a freelance storyboard artist for film and television.
"I was just a little more adventurous," he said.
The way it worked, a call would go out for artists to work on a given production and freelancers would bid on the work. The job of a storyboard artist is essentially to create a shot-for-shot visual representation of the script. The artist, not the cinematographer, makes those decisions. Then it's up to the cinematographer to bring the vision to film. Of course, the director has input throughout.
"It varies, though," Braniff said. "For the most part, I'd read the script and just illustrate the script."
He figures he worked in the art department of about 50 television and film productions over a three-decade career, either credited or not. The list includes light fare such as the 1988 teen comedy "License to Drive" and the superfluous 1989 comedy "Police Academy 6: City Under Siege," as well as cult hits such as the Bruce Campbell vehicle "The Adventures of Brisco County Jr." Braniff also worked on Ted Demme's 2001 hit "Blow" starring Johnny Depp, the 1999 television version of "Annie" starring Kathy Bates, the 1998 Robin Williams film "What Dreams May Come," and many others.
But his proudest work was "The Last of the Mohicans," Michael Mann's 1992 film starring Daniel Day-Lewis. Storyboards from that film, which are part of the exhibit opening Friday, show meticulous attention to detail and extensive notes. They are typical of Braniff's work.
Visitors to the exhibit opening will be able to get an idea of just how closely the drawings hew to the finished product, as they leaf through full-scene booklets. And Braniff will be on hand to autograph his work for buyers.
"We're also showing some of his non-storyboard work, which is really good," Kanyer said.
The idea, said the show's curator, local artist Kristen Michael, is to combine his Hollywood work and his fine art into one cohesive show.
"It's an exploration of his life in the movie industry and his life personally," she said.
And it's all happening because Kanyer and Braniff happened to use the same contractor, Al Rogers.
"He came to me and said, 'There's this guy I met who worked for Disney,'" Kanyer said.
Then she laughed.
"Isn't it great?"
If you go
WHAT: "Lights, Camera, Action!: The Works of Tim Braniff"
WHEN: Opening reception at 5:30 p.m. Friday; exhibit runs through Jan. 10
WHERE: Yakima Light Project Gallery at The Seasons Performance Hall, 101 N. Naches Ave.
ADMISSION: Free
