Short Film: Storyboard

#10

Agreed. But some organization is good. I agree improvising is also a good idea. Scene 3 definetly should be a place for just letting loose. But I do think we need a beginning and an end. As a path to know what we need to do.

#11

Yeah as long as we’re flexiable :smiley:

#12

I love the story you came up with. Here is an alternate suggestion for the ending, playing with the ending concept a little…

Scene 5
skydiver – now rescued by his back-up parachute – glides down, wobbling in the air.

He sees the ground right under him.

A big goofy grin.

Reaches a toe to touch the earth…

HOOOOONK!

… out of the nowhere a semi-truck barrels through.

Empty frame.

---- or an alternate —

He lands. Hears the truck and casually steps out of the way – while the truck is rattling by, the previously busted parachute pops loose, catching on the truck and dragging him away.

#13

Great alternate endings. The advantage of this not being a production project is that someone can grab the files and change the ending. So we can have alternate ending versions.

For now, lets stick with the current story setup. And just flesh it out. Lets hear some ideas of what can be tweaked with the current story.

Keep the posts coming.

#14

I think your story idea works beautifully.

It’s something I’d really love to be a part of.

I like it how it stands.

Here are a few suggestions I thought I’d bounce out there…

eliminate scene 1,
– scene 2 pretty much tells us all we need to know

and

eliminate scene 5,
– it is similar in to scene 3
– going immedately from scene 4 to scene 6 might increase the impact of that last scene (i.e. cutting from “crazy with glee” – to an opposite attitude while tangled up (dispondent? angry? terrified? fuming?))

#15

Scene 1 is the establishing shot. And explains how he got there. I understand what you are saying but I think its a crucial part.

Not sure how we can eliminate scene 5. I do think the “Scenes” themselves can be merged a bit and thats something I expect the storyboarders to do.

#16

ok i have started working with some thumbnails for the SB in HD aspect ratio so that we can have an easy transition for both TV or 16:9 …

i was thinking that it would be cool to have some “crazy” intervals during the film like…
at the moment of the jump we can pause for 30f and insert a cutout animation -Montypythons style- fo Isaac Newton and an apple- so that we can pause and accelerate the pace …

of course that would characterise the whole thing so i am not sure it would be good or bad…

anyway just an idea…

anyway this can be done as a post thing …and during the final editing so it is probably
premature…and immature…

aw…

J.

#17

I’d say funny. But bad. Stick with the storyboard. Like I said since this is a group thing. Members of the group can do whatever they want with the final files and make little spinoffs. In fact I think it should be encouraged. But for now lets stick with the plan and not go off track.

#18

yeah… it has nothing to do with the story anyway…

#19

Just got an update from bardakos. Most of the storyboard panels are done and should be posted here by tommorrow evening. We’ll spend some time looking them over and in a couple weeks create the first rough animatic.

#20

Well, with storyboards done and animatic planned I’m not sure I’m not too late to take you back to the story itself but here’s my two bits.

The key scenes are going to be the first one and the last one: the setup and the epilogue, these are the two scenes which are the story. The rest of the scenes are really the path that the character takes and it looks like it will be a winding, wild path full of gags. Still, I think to make the film something more than a series of gags, it wouldn’t take much work.

First, we (the audience) have to know why he got into the plane and decided to jump: was it just for a thrill, was he looking for more in life, did he just do it without much forethought? The first scene really suggests that he has done it before, he likes it enough to do again and is feeling pretty confident that he’s going to have another excellent experience. Maybe he is extremely experienced, the penultimate expert at skydiving or maybe just expert enough to feel cocky. Maybe he’s just had an unfortunate experience at work or home and this is his way to leave all his troubles behind even if it’s only for a few minutes. Either way, I suggest we introduce that he’s got something to prove to himself or someone else with this jump. This jump means something to him.

At the end, he has to be thinking about skydiving in a whole new light. The experience has to have changed his outlook in some reasonable but unexpected way. The cocky or expert skydiver will be reminded of their mortality, the cocky one being scared off skydiving forever but the expert being wiser but still determined to jump again. Maybe the character who wanted to leave all his troubles behind finds out that his troubles follow him, or that having triumphantly survived a disastrous fall intact has the fortitude to face his difficulties.

You want to suggest that there is more to this guy’s world than just this jump and you want to add some aspects to his character that the audience can identify and connect with. “There but for the grace of god, go I!” is what the audience should think.

Our character (our because we need to identify with him) can start off happy/sad, mad/ peaceful, confident/scared or any combination of those. Personally I think contradicting feelings makes it more interesting: happy and scared, confident but sad.

Then in the end the character can either be alive or dead, battered or whole, but with a transformation in his original feelings from the start of the movie: from mad to happy, from sad to mad, from scared to confident.

I personally prefer the battered but wiser kind of ending myself.

Along the way, the things the skydiver encounters change his moods, moving him through these various emotions–happy, scared, confident, sad, peaceful etc.–possibly each change being an extreme change rather than a gradual one: happy to mad, mad to peaceful, peaceful to scared, scared to happy…

Hope that helps, although perhaps is complicates what was mearly supposed to be a gag reel… :slight_smile:

Peter
.

#21

An excellent crit of the story. This is what I was waiting for!!

I agree on much of what you say. A few simple adjustments could be made to easily bring more depth to the short. For instance inserting a quick view of the tail of the plane. Which has a sign “Pro Skydivers Club” on it. Or the character’s shirt could have a pro skydivers club badge of some sort. And at the end the badge could have been torn off his shirt and will gently float down into his lap.

We are looking at the first storyboard draft and first animatic draft. I expect revisions to take place.

#22

Glad to help. You don’t have to take too much time on it, but having some idea of the greater world around the character can help.

From the excellent book, Acting for Animators, the idea is that whenever an actor appears on scene, they must have just come from somewhere and their entrance reflects that: they arrive in costume in a particular frame of mind. When they exit the scene, it is because they are going somewhere and going to do something. We see a slice of their life and each edge of the slice is flavoured by what is on the other side of the cut.

So this can be shown in action, in setting/set dressing, costume and even as subtle as scene colour choices and camera angles. Once you know where the guy came from and where he is going, the little details to add should be pretty obvious.

I’m looking forward to the storyboard.

Peter

#23

i agree with first-last scene notation…

i have started working some ideas into a rough SB
and i am a bit behind because of stupid ppms for a commercial work
so i was away from the studio most of the day…
but here are the first 6 pages i finished …

this is not anything final because we must make it final with revisions and corrections :slight_smile:
as soon as i get some rest today i will finish and scan the other panels (for scenes3,5,6)
scene 4 need more thinking and i sugest we start gathering our ideas and choosing the best or at least the most certain ideas for that scene… (diver obstacles)…

i though for the last scene which is 6 after seeing him that we pan north so we see the sky…but with the smoke out of the hero…

this way we have first scene (quiet relaxing sky) last scene (quiets sky with smoke<–fire)

so in a mathematical form the film has an input of order and

film(order)=chaos
not so dramatic tho…

J…
so lets dissect these ideas for the sb…

#24

blah
blah
blah
blah

#25

Great stuff!! I’m going to print them out and look at them more closely. I’m seeing a few possible questionable spots around when he jumps out of the plane. Its a bit hard to grasp what is going on.

I’ll wait on a full crit until they are all posted, but excellent work.

#26

i will put descriptions and audio info but i want to finish all of them to add …

#27

Update from John.

after all it is a first preview …

but it is 25 pages :slight_smile:
which means it has alot of info for reuse and rearrangement…

as i told u i used

bird1,flies(insects),ufo,electricity from cables (in that order)
the damages that our hero gets…

#28

I think this would be funny to add 2 more birds to your original bird idea with the poop.

This would allow us the proper support for the main character.

Anyhow, just let me know if thats too much or if any other ideas come about with this input.

Thanks.

#29

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