khupp_REWRITE1paraStory

REWRITE--One paragraph outline story:

Moose, a moose, and Algebra, an outdoor cat, meet on a residential deck of an urban apartment the morning after a party.  Algebra resides mostly on the deck, but travels on rooftops and empty spaces along the alley.  She lives off the food of an indoor cat who lives in one of the apartments.  Moose takes to cat food and he decides crash with Algebra for a while.  Algebra encourages this development as she has been lonely for company since the mysterious disappearance of her companion, an older outdoor cat.  Algebra and the other city animals, such as raccoon and rats, give Moose various advice about how to survive in an urban environment.  Algebra's best advice is that she and the Moose try to make it into the basement of the building, which she imagines to be a fantastic Utopia.  Algebra makes various hare-brained schemes for the two of them to achieve this goal.  Eventually, Moose realizes his place is back with his herd in Canada and Algebra learns to socialize with some people in the building and becomes an indoor cat.

Khupp_1para_11to35

Storyboards in Preproduction:

The process of production follows what, why, who, when, where. Storyboards go by the names editorial storyboards, key frames, production illustrations, and commercial boards.  Editorial storyboarding is the main focus of the book.  Xeroxs are made of these storyboards and given to the crew, and they are used to plan every shot in the film.  Key frames showcase an important moment and are more highly rendered. They are used to sell the story idea.  Production illustration is a wide angle view of a set that is meant to give a technical idea of the space. Comps are made by ad agencies to pitch their ad ideas, therefore they do not include camera movement as they are made for lay people (the client) and before the director is hired.  Depending on the use of the board, they can be made from black and white pencil to full color sets. 

If resources are limited, you must prioritize:

1.  special effects,
   
2.  stunts and pyrotechnics, 
   
3.  crowd scenes, 
   
4.  action sequences, 
   
5.  complex camera movement, 
   
6.  montage sequences
   
7.  opening and closing sequences.

The rest should be decided on a case by case basis.  The storyboard artist needs to be flexible with the needs of the director and be aware of editing, composition and elements of movement like blocking cameras and actors to be able to do his or her job.  Research materials, locations and sets should be used as reference early on, ideally. On location, a digital camera, scale drawings and sketch artists are useful to record rehearsals and develop frames.

Free/open source software for filmmakers and animators

More free software to check out:

Celtx: Free, great screenwriting software.  Includes preproduction integration including storyboarding feature

Blender: open source 3-D animation program

Sketch-up: quickly sketch 3-D objects

VectorWorks:  free for students for 1 year.  This is an architecture software originally geared at Mac users (formerly known as MiniCad).  It now works on both platforms.  Still used more by set designers for TV and stage, interior decorators, landscape architects than other designers who more typically use (the much more expensive) AutoCad.

khupp_1para_outlinestory

A. Overhead shot of (cartoon) CU cat, Algebra. Pull out to reveal cat sleeping on the back of a Moose, who is sleeping standing up. The Moose is dressed in Christmas decorations and appears to be on the back deck of a ramshackle apartment. The deck is littered with plastic party cups, cigarette butts and various alcohol bottles as well as pieces of costumes.

Suddenly, the Moose begins shaking from his antlers and to his tail, yelling "hot! hot! hot!",
throwing the cat sky high. The cat lands more or less on her feet, although clatterring into some empties and promptly runs off.

The door to the deck opens and a human bathrobed arm appears, as a striped cat pops out. The arm pours a bag of dry cat food approximately into a metal bowl, which makes a loud sound. Algebra reappears from her hiding place in the shed (perhaps she is revealed in the shadows first, through a simulated exposure change of something similar). She is compelled to head to the bowl.
The formerly disinterested striped cat scampers to block Algebra from eating by eating herself, quickly tires of this and posts underneath a bench to get in some staring.

Algebra begins eating in earnest.

khupp_1para_Ch1

Chapter 1 Introduction Summary:

Hitchcock: VIsualization is an important ability in film making. It isn't studied enough.

This book is to help anyone in art and design multimedia fields expand their communications skills. This book is to help communicate the visual aspects of your work through previsualization. It is important to storyboard for film and video as preplanning is  more efficient and cost effective than trying to develop an idea on set.  Also, as the film and video is collaborative work, this "visual script" works to communicate more universally to all who work on a project. The approach to story boarding use 3 parts: text, overhead diagrams and images from a variety of sources creating a language that "is broad enough for everyone to understand."  The five areas covered in this book are Assessment of the visual elements of a script that can be shown to tell a story, Ability to duplicate the imagined image onto paper,  Attention to the composition elements of the frame, Awareness of the movement of elements in the frame as well as the camera movement creating new framing, Agreement between the shot list and drawn shot.  The book is organized from general to specific but don't be afraid to revisit earlier topics or be afraid to make mistakes,. 

khupp_3sentence_summary

A rat, Ralph, makes an expedition to a nearby trash can in a dirty city alley.  While he climbs inside to get more treats, a homeless person steals the trash can with him inside.  The homeless person wheels the can under a bridge where the rat must fight tough foreign rats and try to find his way back home. 

The desperate Rat

A city rat, Ralph, sits on an alley curb.  His nose wiggles as he smells some delicious trash from the other side if the street.  He darts down the alley, staying close to the curb,  The rat loves garbage night.  He makes a break to cross the street.  Just then, a car rolls up.  He dashes to safety just through the two pair of wheels.  He has singed a bit of his fur on the hot belly of the car, but he doesn't care.  He has made it to the treasure:  3 old corn cobs and part of an old donut and part of a donut laying on the sidewalk.  He chews every morsel of the corn cob and drags the donut off beneath the rolling trash can.  A rival rat from another den appears, having sniffed out the donut on his own.  There is a brief skirmish of squealing rat.  The larger rat overwhelms him. Ralph hisses and retreats from under the can.  He skurries up the side of the can and dives into the bounty below.  Deep into his feasting, he hears a rumbling noise of clanking cans.  The light is blocked from overhead.  Outside, a vagrant has absconded with the can and she wheels the garbage to her squat beneath an overpass.  The squat is made up of shopping carts and blue plastic tarps assembled together  to form a tent.  A small boombox is tied to the child's seat area.  Dirty foam core is scattered under the tent.  As the vagrant searches through  the can, terrified Ralph climbs up and out of the tumultuous can over the back of the vagrants coat interupting her incoherent mantra. She lets out a scream and drops the pair of pants she was considering.  Ralph dashes out in the shadows to deeper in the overpass only to find the dens of a large warren of unknown rats.