Storyboards, Time, Designers, and More

Today (Monday) turned out to be a holiday, so I wasn't able to make any of the informational phone calls I needed to. That will all happen tomorrow.

I did however gather more information.

I spoke to my props friend about certain make up effects and sets and was not shocked at what I heard. What I was mostly looking for was the shocking price on something. The special effects lenses for the eyes might end up being more expensive than I would like, but I actually had suspected this already.

I also sent out letters to several producers and producer reps asking advice on how to approach the agents for the actors I want.

I also began to address storyboarding. Now... my absolute favorite way to storyboard is to actually use photographs of live actors and I may end up doing this - but I have been experimenting with using poser with some luck. The advantage of live shots is that it goes so incredibly fast compared to any other method - even included the necessary post fixing.

With either method I still sketch really really rough thumbnails on paper first just as a list of what I want. It's part of the brainstorming process. It's fun. Low pressure, very creative - and absolutely essential. Do not go into your first film without having boards. Seriously. You don't need to stick to them, but you will absolutely want something to fall back on.

Another thing to do is mount your boards for everyone to see them on a set. Mount them on an easel. You would be surprised at how much this can help motivate everyone. Everyone knows what you're going for and what is coming up.

Be careful with letting people know that the lighting in the boards does not indicate the set lighting (unless it does) - because DP's and gaffers will sometimes think the boards are an indication of this.

During the thumbnail process, you really need to have broken down your script first. You need to really understand why each character is there, what they want in that scene and you want to place your camera to comment on that in some way. You don't have to. Kevin Smith certainly doesn't - but it's always good to think of have everything you do from designing a set to designing a shot comments on the story of the moment. Mammet in the book I suggested actually contradicts this notion in some ways - but not totally. My feeling is that no matter what you do, you are making a comment. If you just walk in there with a camera on your shoulder, you are making a comment - so you'd better make sure you are making the right comment. The comment that helps tell your story is the right comment. Unless your goal is to confuse your audience. I like surreal films, but I don't like confusing films.

The other thing you're figuring out is flow. If you're on a budget you might need to be thinking about shot economy as well. There are only so many times you can move the camera in a day. There are definitely a limited number of times you can move lights. That's the break down in time:

Location
Set
Angle or Time of Day
Camera
lens

This is the order in which things are difficult to change while shooting. Location is at least 1/2 a day. Set (at the same location, e.g. a room change) is around 3 hours depending on many factors. Angle or time of day is like 30 minutes to an hour or so. Camera position without a lighting change is about 10 minutes. Lens is about 3 minutes.

I'm making up those numbers and conditions vary wildly - it's just to get you thinking about factors like this.

So - figure out how fast you think you can shoot (hopefully something you can evaluate by experience). Then cut it back some because something always slows you down. Then calculate how many shots you can actually get. For example: If you're shooting 18 10 hour days... and you have a mix of angles per scene, maybe you can get 16 shots off per day. 288 shots in your entire film (not cuts, because you can come back to your same shots many times in a scene). So, you have 288 shots to tell your movie with. That doesn't seem like a lot does it? Make them count.

By the way - I know you can shoot a lot faster than this. But you can also shoot a lot slower than this.

The important thing at this stage - is just to keep in mind that you have a limited number of shots. 3 per page according to our previous calculation if your script is just shy of 100 pages. Now, in actuality, if you can get clever and do some lens changes - take a medium shot and then swap lenses to a close up, you can cheat a few extra shots. DP's will sometimes want to tweak lighting on a shot that will appear for a split second. You need to let people know when a shot will be on screen for 12 frames. You are responsible for the balance of effort on your film. Don't let a prop designer spend 4 days on something which is 20 feet from the camera and 1 hour on the thing the camera sits on. For every key on your movie (a key is the head of a department) - they need to know what the importance of each aspect is. It's your job to tell them. There is no way for them to know otherwise. If the movie is called "The Locket" - they might guess the locket is very important... but outside of that, they don't get a lot of clues. Baz Luhrman believes every aspect of his costumes and props has to be designed in tremendous detail. That's great if you can afford it. If you're reading this, you probably can't. So get clear before they ever start.

Since I'm talking about designers, I might mention this: This is one of the few quotes I can attribute to myself....

Speak to designers in adjectives; speak to actors in verbs.

And limit the amount that you speak to either. Let them speak back to you to make sure that they understood you.

Designers understand a statement like, "This room is foreboding, cold, shadowed, sinister." They can visualize these things and come back with samples. Not so easy for an actor though you might think you could say these same things. It's very hard to "play" sinister without resorting to an archetype and usually actors do that timidly and the performance goes away. For actors focus on what the want and what they are doing to get that. It isn't a bad idea to explain the scene from the characters point of view. I may launch into a discussion of talking with actors as it is something I have a lot of thoughts on as I was actually a theater major in college and continue to workshop and study. But I will save that for a later blog. I've been tangential enough.


Okay back to the movie:


Right now I'm feeling the actual production is quite manageable. I think a lot of effort put into the right props and set items and prepping the set will create for a smooth shoot.

The location, the cast - these are the primary factors which will determine the go ahead on this. I'm thinking of March/April as the shoot date. The reason for this is that I need about 3 months to meticulously prepare for everything.

On a side note, I'm actually thinking about not working on movies one day a week. It's a crazy thought... but it might be healthy. Not sure what I would do though. Probably going to see a movie wouldn't really work.