Cheap Movie Tricks by Rickey Bird

Author:Rickey Bird
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mango Media
Published: 2017-05-13T02:16:54+00:00

DIGITAL STORYBOARD

Now that you have all the pieces together, it’s time to create digital storyboards of each scene you’re going to be shooting.

What’s a digital storyboard?

Almost forgot! Glad you asked. Storyboards are drawings, 3D renderings, or in this case, digital photos, that when laid out, resemble comic strip panels. These scene panels provide you and your crew with an overall sequential view of your short film. Anyone on the crew, whether you as the director, the cinematographer, or someone else, can examine your storyboards and tell what will visually happen in each scene.

For starters, print out your script, hold onto that notepad, and go to your location. Bring a smart phone or digital camera. If you already have a camera for shooting your film, then bring that. It’s also important to bring someone to be a stand-in. Only your sister is available? Perfect. She’s your model. Treat her well. You’ll position her at film locations to give you a better understanding of actor placement in each shot.

Yes, we said each shot.

Suck it up and quit bellyaching. Your short film requires careful planning.

Lots of planning.

While grabbing these storyboard shots, you need to mark scene numbers on pictures so you don’t get confused. Trust us, these pics will pile up fast in a folder on your computer. So make notes. If you’re using your phone, each photo you send to yourself has a corresponding number. Correspond those with each scene number in your notes. This will help you keep track. Use those numbers and a brief description of each scene shot. This will help you as you either upload your shots to some kind of free storyboarding program (once again, do your research!) or make panels on your own in Photoshop, Illustrator, or some other program. By the way, you can view all kinds of storyboards online as examples. Make Google your friend! How many times have we said this?

Walk through your location going through your script and grabbing the shots you want. Have your sister pose in the spirit of different characters. Hopefully she really gets into this! Carefully create the point of view (POV) you want in each shot as she takes the stance of the main focus in each scene. Use her to anchor your shots. Creatively consider every angle, every kind of trick camera shot you can do. Experiment with low angle, close-ups, medium shots, high angle . . . Make notes for when you want movement via dolly shots and more. We used GoPro cameras in our films for cut-scenes to crazy wide-angle POVs of claustrophobia. Maybe you can imagine some of those (look at our Shot Types list for more tips or create some of your own).

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