Storyboarding: The Final Cut

Today my friend and I finished working on the storyboard as she didn't have time to finish on her own over the weekend. She said she'll scan the pages she has so she can edit them on her computer and print out a copy of the final storyboard for me to turn in Wednesday. Let me tell you, it looks fan-freaking-tastic!

My only concern is that because there are so many frames (I believe about 75 to 100 frames total) I'll have a stack of papers larger than my script and organizing them is going to be a pain in terms of figuring out what to shoot each day of filming, which I've yet to decide since I don't have all my actors yet. She mentioned being able to fit only four to six frames per page, and of course she has to scan all of these into her computer to edit them and organize them. I hope she remembers to number them.

I don't know if it will be worth it to post the entire storyboard here, so maybe I'll only post the first few pages or link to a Flickr gallery with everything posted there.

Depending on how I turn this production journal in, I may just wait to export this blog, print everything out, and then turn in a additional copy of the storyboard as a standalone post.

Storyboarding: Take 2

I finally heard back from my artist friend today and we met up to discuss the storyboard. It turns out her storyboarding class is a lot more thorough than I am and she didn't need any help from me at all with terminology or templates. She got straight to work on designing the template herself, no word from me to include a directional box below each frame.

I went over what happened in the script, told her what I envisioned, and with the skills I only wish I had, she sketched Rubik's cubes, people, desks, bookshelves, and so much more with the ease of a trained artist.

We made it about a third of the way through the script before I only had to read her the scene from the script and she knew me well enough to draw the shots I envisioned without me saying a word as to what I wanted drawn. At two-thirds of the way through the script, I had to leave and I gave her the script to keep to finish up on her own.

We'll meet up Monday after class to go over her rough draft of the storyboard and make any adjustments that need to be made for the Wednesday deadline. She's an amazing artist and I'll hopefully remember to upload all the storyboard pages to a picture account (Flickr, PhotoBucket, etc.) and link them in a separate post.

She said she would do this for free, which I'm very grateful for as I'm a poor college student with no budget for this movie. Though she has a slight obsession with Mountain Dew (being the gamer that she is), so I think I can afford to indulge her there.

Assignment #6: Storyboard

Our storyboards are due next week Wednesday and I haven't heard back from my artist friend yet. If I have to resort to stick figure drawings, then so be it. I was kind of hoping I would be able to get some friends together for a few hours and head to the library to do a photoshoot so I could make a photo storyboard. I think that would be a ton of fun, but I'll give my friend until tomorrow to get back to me before I start offering up an afternoon of dressing up, photos, and free food.

Singling Them Out

So I just listened to several albums by the local band No Time to Think, who I mentioned before. I found a few songs I like, and two songs I really think could work. They're called "Fantasy" and "Closing Time" (http://notimetothink.bandcamp.com/album/the-mediator-between-head-and-hand-is-the-heart-2). There are a few songs which have great introductions that I could cut to loop, but I feel a bit bad for getting rid of lyrics. My only supporting factor in that sense is that the lyrics would interfere with the words being spoken by my actors and actresses. I'll take another listen and find some of the release forms I'll need in order to use their music. Here's hoping I can find just one or two more songs that will fit.

Storyboarding: A Tale of No Artists

As in, I officially have no artists to draw my storyboard for me. I asked my friend who is an art major to storyboard since she's taking an advertising class in which storyboarding is something they're learning at the moment. However, she's a busy person and I'd have to sit down with her and go over what I want drawn, give her a list of specific examples of shots and camera angles, and possibly provide a link to a more extensive list of film terminology.

And this is all assuming I make no further changes to my script, which has yet to be graded and has only received feedback from one person.

My friend is difficult to find, even though she lives on campus, so I'm hoping to snag her on a weekend and entice her with a homecooked meal in exchange for her services. Not to mention the fact that she can keep a copy of the storyboard as a part of her list of experiences (and get her name in the credits list, which I think is way cooler).

Musical Potential

For me, music plays a large role in the quality of a movie. When the perfect song is timed just right, it can make a significant moment just click for the audience and leave them with a different feeling than they would have if there was no music playing. I'm a huge fan of the indie genre and therefore many songs I like have a catchy yet unique sound, which translates very well onto the screen, especially when timed correctly.

Therefore, it's understandable that this semester is going to be difficult for me because I can't use any of the songs I like. I either have to find someone to play a different version of what music I'm listening to or find someone who has a band and have them play the score/soundtrack for my movie.

Luckily enough, there is a peer in my screenwriting class who has a band. Now, I have yet to listen to his music but I did check out the band's website (http://notimetothink.bandcamp.com/) and the lyrics are pretty interesting. I also have my classmate, John, helping me with piano music. He's played one song already for me which I'll probably upload later.

Unfortunately, I'll have to wait until I have footage cut together before I can accurately use the music or not. I might use it for credits, but the scene I envisioned it to while I was writing has been edited so much that the music no longer fits the situation. I might consider going to the music department on campus and seeing if I can find anybody who is willing to provide samples or compose music for me based on a compilation of notes from several other songs.

Assignment #5: Script, Draft One

This assignment is fairly self-explanatory. I'd already had my finished script before the semester started but I had a friend go through my first draft and edit it just this past Thursday. Nothing major changed. He just got rid of a lot of excess direction and awkward wording so now the script will hopefully read more smoothly.

I think it's quite amusing that it's going to be twelve pages long no matter what I do to it. It was twelve pages long when I first wrote it, then when I added more stuff it was twelve pages long, and now that it's edited it's still twelve pages long. Hopefully it won't be twelve minutes long because that's way too long for this movie and since I have a montage that's two pages long, it should probably only be about nine to ten minutes long. Or so I'm hoping.

And I just found a new song that I'm crazy about, and I can't use it because it's copyrighted. Let's hope I can find something similar I can alter later on, 'cause it's a damn good song.

Assignment #4: Budget Plan

I've been working on this budget plan for a few days now and I'm having tremendous difficulty with it. Sure, it seems easy, just finding out how much things will cost, but I have to look up wages for specific occupations and positions that I won't even be using. I'm not getting an actual budget for this project. If I need items, the money is coming out of my own pocket. I understand the importance of doing a budget plan, but there are so many factors that don't apply to this particular production.

Of course, I've run into some problems. For example, sites that make DVDs and DVD cases aren't any help when it comes to needing a quote on burning copies of DVDs, and though this one site I found says they'll burn the DVDs for me, they don't list an option to send them the DVD information I need burned. So how do they expect to burn the DVDs when they don't have the information to burn on to them? I have no idea.

And we needed to look up the wages for producers, directors, and SAG actors, but naturally I couldn't find specific information, even searching the SAG and WGA websites directly. I had to Google questions about how much producers and directors make, but only found salaries per year and not wages per hour or per movie.

This budget business is very frustrating. I fear that I'm doing this wrong and that I won't have the correct information when I turn the assignment in. Good thing this isn't a real budget plan because some of the numbers I've discovered in the researching process are insanely high, and I can't imagine ever being able to afford the production costs of my video if it were a legit thing (and not some silly zero-budget student project).

Did you know there are programs out there that use money from students' tuitions to create an actual budget for film students that they can access and legitimately fund their movies with? Yeah. Guess where I'm going for graduate school.

Puzzle to My Heart, Described

So I mentioned yesterday that I would probably do a post that described the script's scenes in a general fashion. Well this would be the post for that. Be warned, it might be long, and there is a spoiler.

"Puzzle to My Heart" -- After the opening credits roll over a montage of Rubik's cubes and other such fun puzzles, we meet our hero and heroine, Simon and Cassandra, respectively (whose names are subject to change). After Simon sends Cassandra off to fulfill a patron request, we meet Nick, Simon's closest male friend who lays down the first clue to solving the code creator's identity (not that it will be terribly difficult to figure out anyway). Later on, Simon discovers the first book with the first code written inside and presents it to Cassandra to solve. This leads Cassandra on the hunt to discover the next clues in the next series of books which leads her to the  final book which can't be found as it has been taken out. Cassandra talks to a coworker about finding the person but due to library policy the name cannot be revealed. So Cassandra waits for the opportune moment to discover the person's name who took the book out and this leads her to find that the identity of (SPOILER) the creator of the code is actually Simon (I did mention it wouldn't be terribly difficult to figure out, didn't I?). After a short fight between the two, Cassandra quits her job. The next day, Nick gives Simon a letter from Cassandra and leaves before Cassandra appears and apologizes. She explains the reason why she quit and he forgives her (the ending is hopefully as funny out loud as it sounds in my head). The end. Ending credits have yet to be decided, but will likely mimic the opening credits.

Script Complete

Although the finished script isn't due until next week, I finished all the editing I had to do to it and am now ready to print off copies to be read in class so I can work on draft two. Hopefully my classmates won't ask me to write any more clues in because I think the four that I have are too much as it is, and although they reveal just enough, I don't want to go overboard and have a whole bunch of silly clues that really don't do anything.

I also finished going through all the books and finding the words to make the coded messages. I cheated a bit and used Google's search engine with the title of the book to find some of the words I needed. Thank you, Google, for shaving off days of skimming I would have spent holed up in my room with a stack of books, swearing profusely at a page containing words similar to what I was looking for. Which actually happened in The Shining. I couldn't find all the words I needed through Google so I'll either cheat again and, with the camera, focus on the "know" part of "knowing" or find "know" in another book and hope the audience can't tell the difference between the fonts. Of course you'll know because I revealed it, but that's beside the point.

I also won't be posting the script here for safety purposes and for the consideration of length. I can give general descriptions of the scenes and then explain how I altered them later, but we'll see. It's a bit of a tricky subject.

Assignment #3: Checklist

For this assignment, we have to create a checklist of things we will need to do or provide for our production. Here is my checklist:

___ Release Forms

___ Crew/Cast List with Phone Numbers and E-mail addresses

___ Shooting Schedule

___ Prop List/Props

___ Food/Drink for Cast/Crew

___ Location Permits

___ Location Stills

___ Wardrobe

___ Equipment

___ Tapes

___ Copies of Script for Cast and Director with Contact Information

___ Storyboard

___ Call/E-mail All Participants to Confirm Times/Places

___ Notify Talent What to Wear

___ Credits List

I still have to create a credits list, prop list, and crew/cast list, among many other things, but all will be posted over the next several weeks, including a estimated budget plan.

After Some Consideration

I've spent the last few days speaking with friends and acquaintances about my movie idea. I asked males to put themselves in the position of one of "Puzzle to My Heart"s heroes, Simon. Simon is a geeky gamer sort of guy with a secret love of urban fantasy and popular literature. And for our heroine, Cassandra.

I figured out what clues I'm going to use (topics include: Charles de Lint, swings, flowers, and unknown knowledge of the code creator's identity) and what books I own that fit each clue. I'm tempted to use a graphic novel but I think that would be a bit more difficult considering it's read right side of the page to left side of the page but the words are read left to right, which may cause considerable confusion.

All I'll need to do is write and print up some convincing labels and put the books on the shelves. Although I checked some of the titles I owned and saw that the campus library, where we'll be filming, has some of the books in their stacks department so I can write in my copies and do less printing of the labels since I'll need fewer than I thought originally.

I have some editing to do as far as the opening, montage, and closing of the script. The opening needs more clues about the heroine's likes so she can relate more to the revealed messages the codes disguise, less dialogue between the hero and his friend, and a smoother segue into the first code. The montage needs to include more falsified flashbacks and clues leading to the identity of the code's creator. And finally, the closing needs to be happy, as I had originally written a sad ending but my classmates voted for a happy one, saying that if the characters are going to go through all this effort, they might as well end up together. Otherwise the audience will feel unsatisfied.

Assignment #2: Logline

I've decided that, after some discussions with more friends about the complexity of my story idea and the suggestions from classmates during my pitch this past Monday, I am going to stick with "Puzzle to My Heart" as the script I produce this semester. The logline is as follows (and of course is subject to change):

A series of codes leads a puzzle-obsessed librarian on a hunt to find her one true love.