It was a fun and painless way to think about shot composition and lighting. The technique is fountain pen, watercolor pencils, and brushpens.
(Thanks for the recommendation, Mike M.)
Monday, August 17, 2009
Reverse Storyboarding
I recently watched the DVDs of HBO's Rome on my laptop. I stopped the action every once in a while to make super-quick storyboards of the screen compositions.
It was a fun and painless way to think about shot composition and lighting. The technique is fountain pen, watercolor pencils, and brushpens.
(Thanks for the recommendation, Mike M.)
It was a fun and painless way to think about shot composition and lighting. The technique is fountain pen, watercolor pencils, and brushpens.
(Thanks for the recommendation, Mike M.)
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13 comments:
really cool idea -- thanks for sharing it.
That's the assignment I give my storyboarding class early on in the semester and a great way to study how film is structured from shot flow/eye path to composition, rythm, etc.
By the way I really enjoy your blog.
Mike M
I sometimes make screenshots of videos on the web.
Typically a boring scene of a journalist in front of some background, but with a very beautiful lighting.
I keep these as colorkeys and I have already used them to create certain moods.
You know, I kind of do this in my head while I'm watching anything. I've always thought I ought to do exactly what you've described but never have. Now, I've gotta!
I always thought it'd be great to learn to make comics, the way the vantage points are always changing in film.
I've done this from the impetus of an amazing movie shot that really struck me. In other words, casually watching a movie, but a shot hits me enough that I pause and get my sketchbook.
Three times I can remember it: the ending tunnel silhouette in "The Third Man," falling rubble jarringly breaking up a scene (by splicing the foreground and midground) in of all things "Duck Soup," and noticing a borrowed composition from "La Dolce Vida" (namely, a long shot where multiple people were running and the camera followed them) showing up in "Little Miss Sunshine."
Crazy how that kind of thing can stick with you.
I did this with the Jet Li film Hero, literally drawing every shot in the film. It took all summer! In the future, I'll just focus on a single sequence and truly study it.
very inspiring Jim!
makes me want to get drawing!
You know...if James Gurney watches "Rome" on his laptop (how comfortable is that ?) and even pauses the darn thing every odd minute...
Then there was this trip around North Africa...
Astronomers call big galactical dust clouds or nebulae, "star nurceries". I guess artists also have their 'nurceries' for ideas.
I wonder what all these Nebulae in James Gurney's head will lead to.
What a great exorcise! Did you perceive anything unexpected about the way the shots are composed?
This is something I've thought about but haven't tried. Next time, I'll break out the sketchpad.
a very good exercise and an exeptionaly great serie! i liked it so much! a great work on clothes, costumes, architecture recontitution... astonishing!
It is really very cool idea thanks for posting..........
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Good practice.
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