Storyboard (interrupts) Shot-listing

3/24/14 - Shot-listing:

Last class I was sick and missed out on quite a  bit apparently. I found out that people in class got assignments to do by Monday and was confused as to what I was to do for a while. I had been doing work for other classes until Sunday when I asked Chris what I had to do. He was in the middle of posting in the group so I let him finish up and then clarify for me anything I was hazy on.

Since so many people are going to be directing this and I want this piece to be as cohesive as possible, I tried to take as similar scenes as possible to do. I took quite a bit of the interviews as well as short scenes that are flashbacks. So none of my scenes were realtime because I felt that if they get crossed over between directors, the different style will show and the story wont be believable enough.

While I know that some people work really well with storyboards, I do not. I find them to be a waste of time as I have much quicker and more efficient ways of getting my thoughts across. I am a fan of a combination of using a shot-list and a look book. Shot-lists should be easy enough for a Director of Photography to understand and try to interoperate it in their own way. If their idea is no where near what I like then adjustments will be made, but sometimes they make better decisions than what I had in my head. Also I use a shot lister application which can have storyboards integrated if need be. It also has a live view to where on shoot days I can check off shots we have done and it will let us know if we are in the green (ahead of schedule) or in the red (behind schedule) for the day. It also allows to put in storyboards from photos taken on your phone or wherever as well as drawn. A look book as I have used it is a book that a director makes with different looks in it to show his cast and crew. Among these images can be photos from magazines, TV shows, films, real life, anything really. It is really good at conveying thoughts about lighting, emotions, framing, and depth of field. It is a great tool for directors that are fans of visual explanation and it can give a solid reference for the cast and crew to abide by.

So that explains why I went about shot-listing as opposed to storyboarding.