The Stages of Creating a Joint Storyboard
Already from the first read-through of the script, it was obvious that this would be a story that heavily relied on its visuals and the successful delivery thereof. This was not only based on the fact that we wanted to include characters like a ghost and shape-shifter, which require precise planning and eye for detail in order to execute them well. No, this was also based on the fact that both Lynley and I initially wanted to try ourselves at the creation of a bravura shot within a script that was already 20 pages long.
Since I have never been really good at drawing (and my last art class on object drawing was in fourth grade), I kind of dreaded this bit. I was never a good artist in that regard, and apart from a few minor projects in the beginning of this course, I did not really have practice with drawing storyboards like our student directors Has and Lynley did.
Point made. With these storyboards, you can very much tell that camera movement was not yet majorly implemented in my head. While first attempts at it where there, a lot of the shots were still rather static and simple, something which I want to change tremendously.
Looking at examples of TV or Netflix series such as Game of Thrones (2011-) House of Cards (2013-), Suits (2011-), and Russian Doll (2019), one can tell that the ‘moving image’ or ‘das entfesselte Kamera’ [‘the unleashed camera’] is more and more becoming a centre-piece of successful cinematography.
My educated guess is that this movement is increasingly used as an implementation and recreation of human movement and human perception within the cinematic world to render this perception as seamless as possible and to draw the audience in. Since I don’t see that this trend is going anywhere anytime soon, I want to start acquiring it as a skill as soon as possible to be able to confidently and successfully pull it off after graduation.
And since I am here to learn, I decided that I would sit down and do some research on how to create intelligible storyboards, the types of storyboard elements there are and storyboard techniques as well as tips and tricks. For preparation is key, and a well crafted storyboard already gets half the job done (at least in my humble opinion).
My Research on Storyboards
Disclaimer
The following video tutorial made by RocketJump Film School could not have been better as an introductory tutorial and will thus serve as a guideline for this section of my blog:
This tutorial was helpful because it highlighted not only the most relevant elements of storvboarding, but also incorporated vital and befitting imagery to go along with it that made understanding the task much more easier. Thus, for the following research part, I will source a lot of the images from this video for purpose of easier understanding.
Introduction
In this part, I will show you the research that I have conducted so far and that I have found really helpful.
For a start, a storyboard is a compilation of different illustrations that represents the shots to be taken. As such, it allows you to build the cinematic world on paper before you go out and try rebuilding it on camera, which is much more tedious, time-consuming, and expensive.
A storyboard is usually created by the director, and/or the storyboard artist (if they are on a bigger budget). However, also cinematographers and production designers can pitch in on the creation of a storyboard, as they might have additional ideas (or restrictions) to contribute to the story itself. A storyboard not only reflects the characters, location, composition and framing of each shot, but also informs about the lighting (shadows), camera angles, and even the depth of field.
Execution
In order to create a storyboard, you would usually want to choose the template, which panels would represent the correct aspect ratio that you want to use for your scenes and/or films. If you want to show character movement across the frame, you usually place an arrow behind that character IN the frame to indicate their movement.
PLACEHOLDER In order to distinguish camera movement from character movements, you would want to indicate camera movement with arrows OUTSIDE the frame or AT THE BORDER of it.
PLACEHOLDER
These arrows can indicate any camera movements such as pans, tilts, crabs, but also zooms. With pans, you would usually place the arrows left and right of the panel, while with tilts, you would use the top and bottom. In the latter case of zooms – as well as with dolly shots – the arrows would be placed at all the four corners of the panels to indicate a push into the image.
PLACEHOLDER
This video tutorial especially, was more to the point as it elaborated on camera and actor movement – a feat that I never really felt I could implement or intelligibly recreate in my previous storyboards.
Additional Tips and Tricks
In addition to this resource, I furthermore found a couple of different videos on the topic that each highlighted a special aspect or trick that would be helpful. One of these tricks was the use of subsequent lettering of sequences in order to fully establish where each frame is supposed to go.
Another trick that I found really helpful for the depiction of moving shots, in which the first frame and the last frame are different – such as in zooms,for example – was the idea of adding a frame within a panel/frame to indicate where the camera would end up filming. This trick I gathered from Youtuber Russell of Indy Mogul, who suffers from the same ailment as I do: the inability to draw decently:
Another trick, which would have been splendid for me as a person who cannot draw properly even if their life depended on it, I furthermore found the free software Storyboarder, which would help me design the shots in a better way. However, sadly, this software requires the use of a rather expensive graphics board, which I neither have, nor could source from any friend within the time frame given. However, I liked the fact that such software is around and I will definitely have a look into it at a later point.
My/Our Application
Monday, 11 February 2019
On Monday, and in order to get the visuals (and the ensuing research) settled quickly, we both decided to get a first draft of a joint storyboard done by the end of this week, and to even possibly lock it down if it did not lack anything important. For this, we decided that every one of us would draw their envisioned panels or frames each on a single piece of paper, give them a number and order them. Then, we would sit down and compare all the images to pick the best depiction, piling them into one major folder.
For reasons of retraceability, we furthermore decided that Lynley would draw her panels on bigger sheets of white paper, whilst I settled on the colours yellow (and later on also red) with smaller, sticky post-it notes.
Wednesday, 13 February 2019
On Wednesday then, we respectively sat down and started creating the visuals that each of us envisioned. Since I was using ‘sticky’ post-its which sadly turned out not to stick very well, I used a binding sketchbook that I had lying around at home to stick all the panels in and secure them. I furthermore used the lettering tricks for my sequences by numbering the frames on the back, because I feared that if the frames fell out, I would not be able to successfully recreate the order I initially imagined.
This way, we would at least have a visual notebook of the storyboard in which we could alter the order of shots and recombine all of them as we would see fit AND have the order secured in at least one way. You can see examples of this work below:
Thursday, 14 February 2019
However, we both ended up underestimating the amount of work as we collectively had only 9/20 pages down on Thursday morning. We then decided that we would see to lock down the first three scenes that we have created so far and divide the rest of the script between us to half the workload and still keep our personal deadline of Friday. For this, I was then set to finish the part between page 9 and 14, while Lynley took it then from page 14 to 20.
Friday, 15 February 2019
By Friday morning then, apart from the intended two bravura shots, the action scene and the shape-shifting shot (which will all require more previous research before implementing them) we were finally finished. With the first draft! Hooray!
Friday, 22 February 2019
As I mentioned above, since the remaining four sequences were a bit more of a challenge for student filmmakers, they required a lot of research on my part as cinematographer of this project, which is why it took us a solid week until we were able to complement the storyboard by these four missing shots.
Furthermore, as you can read in my other blog entry ‘The Delicate Art of Bravura Shots’ and after a lot of research, both Lynley and I realised that incorporating bravura shots in this project would not only overcomplicate an already very demanding project, it would also be less feasible and sensible to pull off regarding the very limited amount of time we had for practice and the rather limited access to the location.
I realised that one bravura shot would already require us at least one week of rehearsals and blocking, in addition to one additional day on set. And since we already had roughly 140 shots but only four days of access to that particular location, we collectively decided to take this up for another project in LVL6.
While the two bravura shots were divided into one tracking shot and one montage, the action scene and the shape-shifting shot could be easily implemented once the research into the relevant camera and editing technique was done. And with that, on Friday 22 February, all the missing shots were incorporated in what would now be our second draft of the storyboard.
Monday, 25 February 2019
Since both Lynley and I had been working on the storyboard for more than 1,5 weeks by now, we realised that we had both become blind for possible issues and faults within it. In order to avoid us overlooking eventual jump cuts or missing coverage, we thus both decided to take a sensible break from storyboarding and planned returning to it on Monday with two fresher sets of eyes looking at it again.
So on this Monday, we went through the second draft of our storyboard and added images of which we felt that were missing in order to complete the story visually. Within this, we not only incorporated cutaways, but also alternative angles and shots throughout the storyboard, while at the same time trying to reduce the number of shots elsewhere that were rather redundant or could be morphed together. After this task, we felt that we finally had our third and final draft of the storyboard done and locked down. At this rate, we looked at about 157 different shots for the entire short film:
Aaaand, this:
(38 pages in total; white panels done by Lynley, yellow and red by Svea)
Friday, 1 March 2019
After an additional introduction into B-roll and cutaways by our lecturer, we again decided to have another look at our storyboard just to double-check whether we got ample coverage throughout our script. Whilst this task would seem somewhat futile to my reader, regarding the fact that we just had a slight re-haul of our storyboard done on Monday and incorporated cutaways, we both realised that we only added them whenever we felt that they were absolutely necessary to the story and could stand symbolically. We had, however, not gone through the storyboard with the eye of possibility yet. Which led us to the decision of doing another check.
This however, posed to be rather difficult. As we do not have artificially created sets available at our disposal in which we could completely define the style and objects displayed down to the singlest item, we quickly got to a point where we realised that we could not pinpoint every single cutaway due to the fact that – even after location recces – we would not know fully what we would be able to cover to the tiniest detail.
Thus, we incorporated a reminder in our storyboard (and in our individual documentation), that we would actively seek to find cutaways once on location and with the location fully dressed to our requirements. Thus, in my downtimes – such as e.g. delays in the makeup department – when everything was lit and done, I would then try to capture what I could find to make the edit easier.
However, in the end, we managed to find a couple more cutaways of which we knew that we would be able to get them regardless, and which – on top of it all – would enhance the story symbolically. Thus, we had our fourth draft of the storyboard done with a total of 175 different shots (including cutaways).
Tuesday, 5 March 2019
After Chloe’s revelation that we might have issues with getting through the entire amount of shots within the time restrictions given by both location and actors (I have already blogged about this in my blog entry Poppie’s Café: Of Props and Shooting Schedules), Lynley and I once again set down to have yet another check on whether we would be able to sensibly shorten the storyboard.
However, after so many checks and additions to the storyboard, we realised that we could not sensibly take anything more away. If we had to make any changes to the storyboard, we would have had to add more cutaways to the story. And since we could not sensibly cut the plot without making it seem unbalanced, we resorted to the plan of negotiating with the actors and their relevant productions, which turned out to work just fine.
Phew.
Friday, 8 March 2019
Yesterday then, after we had the dates of our principal photography, the actors, the location, and even the equipment secured, both Lynley and I finally, and for the last time, locked down the storyboard at the fourth draft. Since we felt that we could not add anything more to it already since last Friday, Lynley had already started the shotlist, which now averaged at 175 shots that would be divided across six days of principal photography. As of the fourth and final draft, the storyboard now looks like this:
PLACEHOLDER - PLEASE BEAR WITH ME, UPLOAD COMING
My Learning
During the course of conceiving this storyboard, I realised how much work really goes into conceptualising a cinematic world, and how truly vital a storyboard is for the (successful) conception of a film. Whilst it was obvious that no one would create a storyboad just for the sheer fun of it, I still underestimated HOW valuable this would be in getting the vision across and in pinpointing not only the visuality of a film, but subsequently also all its required elements such as props, set requirements, camera equipment, etc.
And while it seemed like a tedious task at times that did not seem to improve much over the course of its four drafts, each draft is nonetheless a step forward to truly understanding and representing a cinematic world. I once more realised how utterly difficult it is to create a believable cinematic world that not only caters to our conventions of what good visual storytelling should entail, but that is also able to fool the audience into thinking, even only briefly, that it might be true after all.
And even if I don’t know yet whether I was completely successful and will be able to visually recreate a rounded cinematic world, I nonetheless felt that I learned a lot and took a massive step forwards already.
As in regard to the Storyboarder software, I will have to wait for a good opportunity to test it as I hitherto neither have the means, nor the access to a graphics board in order to test it for my purposes. Furthermore, I thought about taking up a summer skill’s class on drawing as I feel that this money would be a much better investment into a permanent skill than into a single piece of equipment.
References:
Cinematography Database (2017) Storyboarder - Best Free Storyboard Program 2017 [online] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAeCEpG0KX4&list=PLRG4t0YYtkIzejIqbZ-qKOLjQchEri9ev&index=113&t=137s [Accessed on 10 February 2019]
Cristobal Olguin (2016) How to Storyboard a Film - Basic Tips [online] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPEdpsVwIIA&list=PLRG4t0YYtkIzejIqbZ-qKOLjQchEri9ev&index=112&t=0s [Accessed on 10 February 2019]
Game of Thrones (2011-) USA and UK. 17 April 2011. [HBO]
House of Cards (2013-) USA. 10 November 2013. [Netflix]
Indy Mogul (2013) Storyboarding For People Who Can't Draw (Like Me!): FRIDAY 101 [online] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux_Em1lVsjI&list=PLRG4t0YYtkIzejIqbZ-qKOLjQchEri9ev&index=114&t=0s [Accessed on 10 February 2019]
RocketJump Film School (2016) Intro to Storyboarding [online] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQsvhq28sOI&list=PLRG4t0YYtkIzejIqbZ-qKOLjQchEri9ev&index=115&t=0s [Accessed on 10 February 2019]
Russian Doll [Matrjoschka] (2019) USA. 1 February 2019. [Netflix]
Steinmetz, R. et al. (2005) Die entfesselte Kamera [The Unleashed Camera] in Steinmetz, R. et al. (2005) Filme sehen lernen: Grundlagen der Filmästhetik mit Originalsequenzen von Lumière bis Kubrick und Tykwer [Learning to See Films: Basics of Film Aesthetics with Original Scenes from Lumière to Kubrick and Tykwer] Tenth Edition. Leipzig: Zweitausendeins
Suits (2011-) USA. 23 June 2011. [Netflix]