Shot-by-hot

Today I created a storyboard ePad with a script legend on each page. I used it to easily input the shot-by-shot notes I had made while attending conference events this weekend. It was a fantastically fun and helpful step in making this film/series. I could map out all the vignettes that I knew were a part of it and string them together in an order that allowed for logical camera action.


Please either use this link to go to a full screen view of this pdf --or, if you prefer-- click to download the pdf to your desktop via the link under "original pdf" at the top --or-- just scroll to the lower right hand corner of the 16:9 pages in this mini-viewer to get a taste of a few shot descriptions.

Here's an in-progress pdf of the 22 scenes already applied to the storyboard sheets. There are about 9-10 more yet to go before the first series of micro-shorts is done. Surprisingly, the exercise also showed me that another 10 scenes already mapped out would be better crafted as....

Film Series: 2

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Comments

  1. Great blog Shelley, wish I had discovered it (and SMA.com) in time to make you a woolly sea creature! I'm also very jealous of that Smoomoo, I wonder if my uncle could build me something similar - his hobby is being a mad inventor.
    Keep up being inspiring, and thanks for the comments on my blog :)

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  2. Welcome, Ceri!! Thank you for visiting! I love getting to see your projects taking shape!

    If you want links to the material to make a Smoomoo in the UK, lemme know. The main bit is 80/20 aluminium extrusion (ours was from here: http://www.8020.net/) A length of it (you could buddy up with another animator near you and split the cost like we did) and a platform that rides it, a few bolts, and boom, one uncle made camera hand mover, thanks to your Uncle and Yuji!

    I meant to mention this the other day, if any reader would like to contribute a fish for the underwater scene--I say GO FOR IT! Please!!! YES. You see, now that I know that I'll be shooting each contribution separately and compositing into the scene, there's a bit more time to get one in!

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  3. Oooh! Can you wait until mid August for a woolly sea creature? I'm booked up until the end of July, and postage will take another week.
    Any special requests or requirements for the aquatic little critter?

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  4. start breakin the film down and it doesnt seem impossible!

    cool step toward a finish line.

    jriggity

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  5. @Ceri! Yeah!!! Send it send it!! (That goes for everyone reading this!) I haven't scheduled the underwater shooting yet but I suspect it won't begin until Mid-August.

    Your wonderful woolly creature will arrive at the perfect time to have his debut!

    Any creature it pleases you to make is welcome, any material, or type. The size should be small; about 4" or so as the set is pretty small (although, any too large will be shot on green and composited into the scene.)

    Extra clever points for creatures that are a pun or about things being half. (Examples of this are Jeffery's "Octopussy" that is half cat/half octopuss; and Nick's "Quadropodes" where there are 2 octopi each with just 4 legs; and John's Peanut butter & jelly fish smammich, etc!)

    Let your vivid imagination go WILD! THANK YOU thank you!

    Please mail to: Shelley Noble, POBox 111509 Los Angeles, CA 90011

    Be sure to put the name and link you'd like to appear in the credits (and a return mail address for me to use to send you the next Highly Collectable Limited Edition Halfland Memorabilia Button! and handmade Christmas card!)

    Note to everyone, I have not forgotten about my next button at all! I'm only delaying it until I have a new creature built to feature on it! It's between the Time Frog or the Birds in Hats... maybe both?! 2 buttons?! Hmmm.

    @Justin! You're soooo right! Although, when I think of the vignettes I don't see them as impossible--only must do-s. Maybe that's madness!

    I get to work on it today!!! Here we go....

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  6. Oooh, fantastic! Do the puppets need tie-downs or are they going to be suspended by rigs?

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  7. @ Ceri - I guess that depends on what you make. A swimmer would need rigging, but if it's something that walks on the bottom (not sure what that would be actually) then it needs tie-downs. I imagine most would be rigged?

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  8. (^ so I've been reading the script.
    (^ and think the underwater stuff may need be boxed and stored till all the background shots and atmospherics of above ground can get digitally archived before the whole set need be dismantled and transfered to another location.'

    (^ I like "poe" comming out almost like a tuvian throat singer.

    (^ two notes intertwined.. the sound of a whisper on the wind but sort of like this sound you get when you have the right table: the right glass of water.. and the right drag agross the table.

    (^ or the sound created by rubbing a wet finger along the rim of a bell jar shaped goblet.

    (^ sorry to intrude.. it's just that I've been doing so much research into certain things like mixing metaphors, and aphorisms as well.
    (^ nice spider refs.
    (^ lots and lots of types of spiders.

    (^ entemology doesn't even cover them.

    (^.. but I regress.
    (^ " disgreshion is imppliered " .

    (^ ooomph! those two words spell check nicly!

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  9. Thanks Edwound, yes, the pressure now to finish the exterior cottage scenes before possibly having to move is intense BUT-- know this...

    The underwater set, and the desert set, the only other two set locations in the series are table-top sized. At least I'm not trying to make more than one ginormo set.

    But you are correct, nothing else can be worked on at least until the big set is complete. I doubt I'll be able to shoot the entire scenes involving it all the way through to special effects and editing though.

    But I'm not too concerned as it's all about doing the best with the flow of things rather than filmically correct. yay.

    Thanks so much for getting the Poe sound and the spiders! The Poe sound is, in this case, acts like a key or spiritual opening into Halfland. The audience is there to hear the sound from the mystical mermaid creature and are thereby transported to a place very nearby yet very far away.

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  10. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyBZHgt7lGQ

    (^ think THAT SLOWW.
    (^ I mean hey. it's all saved in binary.

    (^ the more input you got? the easier it is to edit out.

    (^ if you interlace and or sanwich multiple frames, you can still do some amazing things.

    (^ :shrug. : just depends on how much digital archiving space yopu got.

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  11. Great band, great film/video, great pace, thanks.

    Although I'll want the fishy scene a leeeetle faster for audience pandering sake.

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  12. (^ yes yesyes of course of course.
    "Although I'll want the fishy scene
    (^ PLAYED BACK a leeeetle faster
    > for audience pandering sake.

    (^ I was trying to take pitty on the EDITOR.
    (^ I sent you a VERY BORING slow pan.
    (^ now add everything else INTO that:
    (^ you understand what I mean?

    (^ a sample of hi def crawl to mix all the other elements into .
    that shot was mearly an example of how slow to think WHILE SHOOTING.
    you can always crop it FASTER.
    (^ think: better recording ? 17rpm or 45?
    turn table. analog.
    you know that master ecordings are recorded incredabley slowed down , not quick dubbed?

    (^ that's what I was implying.

    (^ when I was backing up and tar taping , the amount of layers and elements needed to be backed up per frame was INSANE: in FULL REZ: in Kodak format to print to film.
    (^ each frame was like 6.8 meg.
    (^ for full pixel resolution of widescreen for theater.

    (^ all shots were stored as tga, or targea for tv/video, whioch was 1/4th the size
    welcome to sun stations and terabytes. gigaflops. words this spell checker doesn't even know.

    (^ but when you master /render all the stuff tofgether? sure. cut out frames to make the action sync up to the sound.

    (^ nick, does this sound correct?
    give you as much wiggle room and play in the scenes that you NEVER have the danger of the 3/2 pulldown crisis?

    (^ when I was working on Xena, we were interlacing the dbbles. using whole whole whole odd lines half interlaced witheven lines from next shot: then odd lines of last shot/even lines of next: then next ..
    sigh. frame 1,2,3, oddlines of 3, even lines 4: oddlines 4, even lines 5, %,6,7, oddlines7... etcetc.
    but that was for USAvideo broadcast. frame rate of 30:
    not 25 pal: ntfc.
    or whatever. heck I ferget the terms. I just pressed the buttons.

    (^ all digital film editing IS collage. and then having to convert to all these diffent low end resolutions tfor tv broadcast was KILLING the image makers.
    and costing far to much to make things backwards compatable.
    so? analog abandoned .
    simulating analog via digital distortion filters? is cool but easy to spot if trained to look at the binary.
    (^it.. FEELS ..fake.
    (^ too perfect.
    (^ the scratches aren't random enough unless CREATED BY HAND.

    (^ yeash. sorry I can get a little BEYOND technical scematic right on back to technique scheme.

    sort of like painting the sky black: then adding a second layer of prismatic distortion that causes the spectrum to fall into the bluish range.. then adding water partical layers to create mist, ans condensation..

    anywho. back underwater.
    (^ light fragmentation underwater gets really weird. ask a scuba diver.

    I'm fastinated with the idea of using gobo lighting to simulayte sunlight filtered through wave patterns and shadow drops from kelp sea flotsam and jetsam...

    starting off with oil driplets on a simulated spider web might be good practice though.
    (^ just keep the drips INCONSISTENT.

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  13. Never fear, my friend BryEND, I will always hand-craft these films, even when enhanced with new digital tools, analog aesthetic prevails here.

    If you even had a hint of the wild analog effects I plan to employ, you'd plotz! ok, I'll hint, it involves a shoebox! I'm all about visual distortion, you'll see.

    One of my chief complaints about most stop mo I see (aside for content) is that the frames are too "clean" Bleckh. So much can be added with a little (or a lot) of atmosphere.

    As eminal visual source in my life is my precious copy of Lona. Now completely a rare book and wholly unavailable, it features photograph works of art by the strange and genius artist known as Dare Wright (her real name).

    Two of the jaw-droppingly beautiful images from it here: http://www.wehaveyourcollectibles.com/products/646/121/%22%3Blona:_a_fairy_tale%22%3B_by_dare_wright.html

    I should do a whole post on this book now that I think of it!

    I followed some of what you said above, mostly grabbed the concept that "(^ all digital film editing IS collage."

    THAT is profound and useful. Thank you. I got it. Cheers!

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