Storyboarding

Re: Storyboarding

I direct with a partner (I'm part of a brother team), and we nearly always storyboard. The storyboard is a sanity check, a safety net. It will give you the confidence that if you shoot the boards, you've got good stuff. Of course, you should always look for more opportunities on set/location, and some of the time you're moving the camera to the performances instead of vice-versa.

We both come from animation, so we do the boards ourselves, but good drawings are not important. What is important is good communication. Someone should be able to look at the boards and understand what's going on, whether you have colored boards or stick figures. Others have suggested using action figures, which is quite an excellent idea (isn't that how most of us started in the first place). Another way is to take still shots of actors or stand-ins.

Oh, and BTW, we put the storyboards on a big board and cross off shots as we get them done. A.D.-wise, it's a great way to keep things moving and get the WHOLE crew on board with your ideas.
 
Re: Storyboarding

Additionally, storyboards help you and the cast and crew know what is important in a given scene. There's usually a hierarchy of importance when it comes to things that need to come across on screen, and the boards can help to highlight big things.
 
Re: Storyboarding

Thank you all for that info.... wow... very interesting inputs.

I was thinking of taking photos.. maybe I can find a cheap poloroid camera and take pics of scenes... but then again I would have troubles with the scenes that have 5 or people in them, don't think I can get that many friends to come out and do this.

Maybe I'll print those storyboard templates from sonnyboo, arhhhggg stick man drive me nuts... and it looks like what I have in my brain my vision of the scene... I can't put it down on paper with stick man.
 
Re: Storyboarding

[quote author=Woodson link=board=Directing;num=1088579791;start=15#22 date=07/06/04 at 20:46:59]Thank you all for that info.... wow... very interesting inputs.

I was thinking of taking photos.. maybe I can find a cheap poloroid camera and take pics of scenes... but then again I would have troubles with the scenes that have 5 or people in them, don't think I can get that many friends to come out and do this.

Maybe I'll print those storyboard templates from sonnyboo, arhhhggg stick man drive me nuts... and it looks like what I have in my brain my vision of the scene... I can't put it down on paper with stick man. [/quote]

Five people with signs on their shirts, 1 to 5, is all you really need.

Also, one reason for storyboards that no one else has mentioned. A director needs to appear to have their act together. Storyboards allow you to rehearse what you are doing and how you are doing it, so you can be the one with the final answer to a question.
 
Re: Storyboarding

[quote author=Slapdragon link=board=Directing;num=1088579791;start=15#23 date=07/06/04 at 20:49:36]

Five people with signs on their shirts, 1 to 5, is all you really need.

Also, one reason for storyboards that no one else has mentioned. A director needs to appear to have their act together. Storyboards allow you to rehearse what you are doing and how you are doing it, so you can be the one with the final answer to a question.[/quote]
LOL! How true. Our first big shoot, we made sure we had clear, organized boards. Boy, when the whole crew is questioning why you're the one in the director's chair, it's nice to be able to point at the boards.
 
Re: Storyboarding

[quote author=Stanrick_Kubley link=board=Directing;num=1088579791;start=15#24 date=07/06/04 at 23:56:09]
LOL!  How true.  Our first big shoot, we made sure we had clear, organized boards.  Boy, when the whole crew is questioning why you're the one in the director's chair, it's nice to be able to point at the boards.
[/quote]

Plus, when you are putting together this complex shot, amd everyone thinks you are nuts, the extra time with the boards makes you all that more confident that you can pull the thing off.
 
Re: Storyboarding

Here's another site for you all, one with a few simple (yet handy) resources for fellow low-to-no budgeters. In addition to storyboards, you'll find sample location contracts, cookie-cutter talent release forms, you name it.

http://www.dependentfilms.net/files.html


ps. its not my site, so all the kudos to them that have made it available to us all...
 
Re: Storyboarding

Ahtiro, thanks for that link. Lots of great documents.


Anyone know any links of storyboards that show stick man drawings?
 
Re: Storyboarding

Hitchcock storyboarded every shot so his movies were already done in his mind -- he just had to film them. You can conserve a lot of time/tape if you know what you want before you start shooting.
 
Re: Storyboarding

[quote author=Gabe link=board=Directing;num=1088579791;start=15#28 date=07/19/04 at 08:22:49]Hitchcock storyboarded every shot so his movies were already done in his mind -- he just had to film them.  You can conserve a lot of time/tape if you know what you want before you start shooting.[/quote]


I bet Hitchcock had great artists to do his storyboards.
 
Re: Storyboarding

For those that did shot lists, do you have examples of them that you can show?

Thanks
 
Re: Storyboarding

Has anyone here gone all out and "shot" their film using POV-Ray or Poser or one of the other CGI-ish rendering programs out there?

It seems to me you could pre-set everything...lighting, aperture, dof, angles, etc etc etc, and see just how things will look. Even do pans, tilts, zooms, and character movement with the animation features, if you wanted.

Dan
 
Re: Storyboarding

I know that the stage I'm at doesn't require a full-out CGI storyboard. Rough sketches and descriptions of scenes do for me right now.
 
Re: Storyboarding

We shot storyboards for one film by going out with a video camera and taking digital stills. Get some stand-ins to pose in position and take the shot... it was all a one-location film, so it took about half a day to storyboard the entire thing -- most effective storyboarding I've ever done, and by far the quickest, and you'd know exactly what the shots could look like because you'd place the camera where you wanted it and get the shot you wanted...
 
Re: Storyboarding

Back when I was shooting super-8 short films, I'd often take a crappy VHS camcorder to the locations with stand-ins or the actual actors and roughly shoot the entire project and cut it together before actually shooting a frame of film, which proved to be a very handy pre-vis tool, especially given how expensive Super-8 was (and is) to shoot, compared to video.

Whenever possible, I still try and shoot stills in the actual locations for use as reference and as storyboards. If I can't do this, I'll draw crappy stick figure storyboards, but since I'm the one shooting my movies, I don't need to decipher my drawings for anyone else.

Inspiration can often strike on a set or location -- you find a better angle, a shot that you didn't think of before, whatever -- but having a shot list and/or boards can be a safety net, especially on complicated shoots, to help you avoid forgetting some important bit of coverage.
 
Re: Storyboarding

I think how you work with storyboards really depends on your style during production.

I hate using storyboards for most things because I feel like I tend to focus on the little pictures as being the ideal sequence of the movie. I know that I get fixated on the drawings and somehow that limits my ability to rethink things at the location.

When I’m directing, I use shot lists only, covering each master, 2shot, insert, establishing, and closeup that I’ll need in the edit. I have a loose idea of how things will be framed, but by putting it in text rather then in pictures...I don’t get locked into a shot that might not fit the location as well as I imagined. Also, if I’m working with a DP on the shoot, that allows them to have a bit of creative freedom in framing the shots while still giving me what I know I’m going to need in the edit.

Every time I’ve used a storyboard, I find myself editing to fit the storyboard rather then editing to fit the scene, and as my directing style is more theatrical in nature, I need the extra freedom to cut the scene in the edit room rather then in the camera or on paper.

Of course, I’m really never doing anything action or physically oriented, and that stuff really requires the careful planning of a storyboard to make sense of the scene.

I tried using poser to do a few storyboards, but it still didn’t fit my style. The way I used it was to take a digital camera and actually photograph the shots I wanted to have in the actual locations I was going to shoot, then I used those shots as the backgrounds in Poser and placed my figures in the appropriate places and positions. What resulted were some bizarrely photo realistic storyboards, but because I’m not very familiar with the program they took twice as long as a simple sketch would have.

I don’t really have the patience to spend so much time on something I’m probably just going to end up tossing once I get into the shoot, but I must say that the mental planning that went into the storyboard really helped to flesh out the shooting style I eventually used.
 
Re: Storyboarding

I've started story boarding right now, and even though I'm a good artist, I'd rather do the photo idea.
I read the guy from Primer did that with a Tungsten based slide film camera? where he could story board and test his lights at the same time! I'm good with digital cameras, I think this might be a good idea.
 
Re: Storyboarding

Storyboards can be helpful, but you don't need them. I personally use them to keep myself organized on set. It just shows how your movie will flow on paper so when you're worrying about how your actor is acting you don't miss a crucial shot. It's a great thing to keep referring back to.

You also don't want to draw stick figures. Stick figures have no mass to them, a real person does. The thing you want to worry about most is simply proportions and eyeline in your storyboards... make a person just using simple geometric shapes so he fills the frame like you would want him to when you're filming him. Then use T shape on the oval that is his head to show his browline and nose...

a T shape is a great too to use to show where the person's looking...

I've even bothered to make an example. It's an over the shoulder shot at night... very basic and simple done in a few seconds in photoshop, even easier with a pencil and a piece of paper...

You want to focus on contrast and proportions...

http://www.midnight-tranquility.com/images/sbexample.gif
 
Re: Storyboarding

Thanks for the pic thinspirit!

That is true, you always want to have the *shot* be the same shot, with the same compositional elements...and unless your person is going to be two pixels thin, your composition will look different.

Then again, any storyboards are helpful opposed to no storyboards. If you are too lazy to draw the circles for heads and shapes for bodies, your storyboard isn't useless: it just becomes more of a shot list than a "storyboard" sheet.
 
Storyboarding is a problem solver

Storyboarding is a problem solver

I agree that this part of the director's preproduction duty and copies of the boards are useful to the other dept heads, like lighting, sound, art direction, etc for their input and embellishment. I have been using FrameForge and I love it... beats the hell out of my scribbled attempts at sketching years ago. Part of the value is that it causes a certain discipline in your planning, even gives you an exercise in blocking before you get to the set. It is useful to take digital shots of the locations, using a neutral lens setting, so you can reasonably imitate it on the computer. I don't think it is a good idea to show the boards to the talent until the shooting day, and only then to show them what their "space" will be in the shot. IMHO.
 
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