Block Before You Storyboard

When people think of a director's process for pre-visualizing a film, they tend to think of a series of pictures, like a comic book, called storyboards. If a director has taken the time to think up how a scene will look, then it's going to be quicker and easier to shoot.

While that's certainly true, storyboards aren't where I like to start. Storyboarding is a lot like making a wish list of shots, and I'd rather dive right into the scene and see which shots are actually available and achievable before I start deciding what the most important parts of the scene are, visually. That way I can build my camera placement, and therefore my shot list, around how the scene actually flows, rather than what I think might be cool.

Rather than drawing pictures, I like to begin with a series of charts, one per scene, that look a lot like football diagrams. When I plot out the movement of the actors and the camera, I can see patterns emerge, opportunities to simplify the shoot, and camera angles I might not have otherwise considered - long before I make up my mind over what the scene really looks like.

Here's an example:

In this scene near the end of the second act, Sam, Max and Sophia enter Minor Stockman's home to confront him about the Resurrection of Antelao and his interest in Sam.

If you note the arrows, you'll see that the three characters I mentioned meet Minor Stockman at his door, and he lets them in. Max takes a seat while Mr. Stockman leaves the room to get tea. Max and Sophia refuse to sit, and Minor Stockman takes the other chair himself. When he and Sam engage one another at the end of the scene, Stockman stands, walks to the bookshelf and hands something to Sam before letting everyone out.

To understand the camera positions, all you really need to know is that those "V's" with the circles are cameras, and give a rough idea of the peripheral vision of the lens. An arrow indicates a camera moving from one position to another. Likewise, gray cameras are cameras that reposition during the scene. With that in mind, there's a total of six camera set-ups in this scene.

As I go into storyboarding, it becomes more like editing. I've got a good idea of what those six cameras can see, and I "cut" between them as I compile the shots in my boards. If I decide I need another camera or a different position, it's a lot less expensive to do it on paper than it is to leave the editing room and shoot more footage.

At least, that's how it works for me. For more information on how to block cameras, I highly recommend a series of videos called Hollywood Camera Work, at www.hollywoodcamerawork.us.

The Korean Sessions at Digital Hollywood

Two days ago I attended the Digital Hollywood Korean Sessions – and I found them among the most challenging, exciting, fundamentally useful seminars I’ve ever attended! If Digital Hollywood has made the commitment to continue with these kinds of programs, then I have no doubt they’ve made this event a relevant, definitive force in entrepreneurial Hollywood!

In the past, panels like last winter’s “Transmedia Storytelling” struck me as dreadfully predictable. Everyone – including most of the panelists – seemed focused exclusively on getting business cards into the hands of one or two star guests, and the focus of the discussion was on impressing the audience with studio and network efforts to embrace digital technology. All I took away from those panels was how little competition the serious Hollywood 2.0 entrepreneur actually has.

I’m sorry to say, this struck me as the bread and butter of Digital Hollywood. When my friend Jeremy Ross asked me to attend his Korean Panel, I was dreading the experience – despite all his enthusiasm. Then, due exclusively to luck, I wound up catching most of the first panel and all of the other two. Thank goodness I did!

Here as a series of panels headed by the real innovators of their respective fields. Ideas were being shared that haven’t broken through to the mainstream, either because of the cultural differences involved or because big business isn’t ready. Entrepreneurs were excited and challenged by one another’s tools and perspectives, and the panelists and the audience were directly engaging one another.

Following that series of events, I’m already working to finance projects for one of the panelists – and another of the panelists is helping me with projects of my own. One of the presentations – Dr. Wi’s G-Learning show – impressed and excited me so much that I’ve been reaching out to everyone I know in education and marketing in support of his revolutionary efforts. I’ve offered my services to the moderators to help organize a similar panel centered around Russian media, where my own contacts are stronger. Just in my own life, co-mentorship relationships are evolving less than 48 hours after those panels took place.

Most importantly, my experience at the Korean Sessions was not even a little bit unique. One woman left the panel uplifted because she saw professionals creating a global media that represented her demographic as a black woman in a Vietnamese family. Financial inroads were built. Companies exchanged proprietary information freely, in the spirit of cooperation.

This is exactly what these summits are supposed to be about, and I had a fantastic time! Bravo to everyone involved!

To Jeremy in particular, thank you for opening me up to this magnificent event.

Wishful Thinking and the Fantastic Four

As Fox lets another year slip past them without putting a Fantastic Four movie in theaters, it’s hard not to fantasize about what that movie might look like in the hands of Marvel and Disney. Well… fantasize I have! I’m generally not the type to write fan fiction, and when I do it’s thinly veiled enough to be saleable in it’s own right – the homage, as it were.

Today, I’m just going to describe the Fantastic Four movie I want to see. If you like what I have to say, be sure to let Marvel know they need me writing something fun for them. Restoration, perhaps? Cross-Dimensional? Maybe I could work up an original hero or science-fiction book.

Anyway, I digress:

ACT ONE

In Eastern Europe, the small but financially potent country of Latveria suffers from a power crisis. As one of the world’s most esteemed scientific and intellectual minds, Latveria’s ruler – VICTOR VON DOOM – has approached the United Nations with a solution. Long-range telescopes have detected a storm of cosmic energy hurtling towards Earth, and Doom has designed a space station capable of harnessing that energy. By beaming the power of the storm to a massive generator in the heart of Latveria, Von Doom hopes to spark a new source of energy… one which will reinvigorate the Latverian economy and create clean power across all of Europe.

Leading Doom’s proposed team of astronauts are a group friends he’s known since college at Miskatonic Institute of Technology in Boston: REED RICHARDS, reknowned physicist, his pilot BEN GRIMM, hot-shot co-pilot JOHNNY STORM, and Reed’s flame and fellow engineer SUE STORM.

With the storm approaching, the space construction project will tax every resource the world has to offer, from the stability of the global economy to the safety and very lives of the astronauts themselves. Despite the hardship, Doom’s trust in Richards and his team is well-placed and construction is finished on schedule. Days before the cosmic storm is set to arrive at Earth, the space station is fully operational – and in geosynchronous orbit over Latveria.

When the storm finally hits, Reed finds himself hunched over experiments and computer readouts. Ben and Johnny are sitting in the command shuttle, prepared for an emergency escape if needed. Sue looks down upon the night side of planet Earth, awaiting the dawn of a new era of prosperity.

FWAAM! The cosmic storm hits –

Hot red power scorches through the reaches of near space, down through the Earth’s atmosphere, right into the generator’s massive dish. From space, Sue watches as lights spring to life in a twinkling grid, all across Eastern Europe…

…and then die. All of Europe is in blackout.

Sue asks Reed if that’s normal – and it’s not. Either there was an explosion at the generator, which would certainly have been visible from space…

Or the power is going somewhere else. All the power in Eastern Europe is being diverted. But where?!?

At mission control, communications reports a total loss of telecom contact with the entire nation of Latveria! Planes are being diverted! Internet connections are cut! Nobody knows what’s happening!

Reed redirects all the telescopes away from the cosmic storm and towards the darkened nation. Electromagnet readings indicate…

All that power is being channeled into what appear to be secret subterranean military bases spread all throughout Europe. Deep underneath the planet’s crust, all that power is being used to fuel:

AN ARMY. A ROBOT ARMY.

Latveria wasn’t having a power crisis at all! The whole thing was a trick to power a giant robot army!!!

Stunned, Reed reports his results. Washington is baffled. Reed himself can’t imagine how or why someone would ever perpetuate such a hoax – and the only person with an immediate answer at hand is Ben Grimm.

It’s up to the Four to stop it. Reed agrees, and adds that shutting off the energy beam in the middle of the storm will overload the mass capacitors and create a chain reaction leading to a massive detonation. The station will be torn asunder – first by the explosion, and then by the cosmic radiation as it penetrates the station’s shield.

There’s no time to discuss, Reed claims - everyone but him needs to escape via the shuttle. Ben makes the same argument, and Johnny refuses to be outdone in the hero department. Seeing that there’s no time left for discussion, Sue simply shuts down the beam…

BOOM.

First, there’s a massive wave of red cosmic energy. Then, there comes the explosion.

Back on Earth, deep in Latveria, the beam flickers – and dies. Backing up, Doom’s generator overloads and EXPLODES. As workers and technicians run from the flames, Doom’s face is horribly, horribly scarred.

Back on the space station…

Running from the blast, the four rush for the escape shuttle as the station disintegrates and radiation pulses through them. Somehow stronger than usual, Ben holds the door of the shuttle open against the storm of flame and radiation as his friends pile in – taking the brunt of the blast himself!

As the four pile into the cockpit, they see that the station is still mostly intact! The big explosion is still coming…

NOW. As the massive shockwave reaches towards the frail shuttlecraft, Sue Storm raises her hands in reaction – a force field appears!

For a crucial moment, the shuttlecraft is protected from the blast. Then, the bubble drops and the blast from the station tosses the shuttle tumbling into space.

ACT TWO

Rescue. From the safety of a space shuttle, spacemen cut their way into the emergency craft with torches. Inside, the astronauts are alive but unconscious… and something doesn’t look right. In the shadowy interior of the emergency shuttle, the rescuers appear stunned:

“What is that thing?"

“Oh my God, it’s them!”

Waking up in a quarantine hospital, the four find themselves in the center of an international incident. Europe is on the brink of war, and Latveria has left the United Nations. Half the world’s superpowers have hailed Richards, Grimm, and the Storms as heroes – calling them the Fantastic Four – while the rest of the world is calling them terrorists for sabotaging the efforts of Latveria to provide Europe with power.

To make matters much, much worse, the cosmic storm has had profound effects on the four themselves. Sue can turn invisible at will, and is developing a strange command over force fields – although not to the extent she exhibited in the shuttle. Not yet. Reed is able to stretch his body to an unbelievable and staggering degree. Johnny Storm can ignite his body - and even fly!

By far, the worst of the cosmic effects have manifested in Ben Grimm. As impossible as it seems, Ben Grimm is made of strange, orange rock. Indestructible and unfathomably strong, he comes to be known as the Thing. Sue, of course, is the Invisible Woman. Johnny is The Human Torch, and Reed Richards is Mr. Fantastic.

As the head of the Latverian Coalition, Doom demands that the nations of the west turn over the Fantastic Four. While grateful, the American Government is also understandably tense as they await news from the Four as to what their plans are for the future.

Sensibly, Reed decides that there’s simply not enough known about their new powers to make an educated decision. With a handsome research grant provided by the government, the Fantastic Four move into a state-of-the-art laboratory on the roof of Reed’s family property – the Baxter Building in downtown Manhattan.

While Reed battles Johnny’s impulsiveness, Ben’s rage towards Doom, and his own relationship with Sue in his quest for answers, Doom threatens to destroy a major population center for every day the Fantastic Four remains outside the grasp of Latverian law.

When a giant robot is unleashed on the city of New York, the Fantastic four realize Doom’s not kidding around. In his lust for revenge, Ben throws himself into fighting the robot headlong. Reed holds back in his support while he gathers data and second-guesses the situation. Johnny just wants to show Ben up – and Sue spends all her energy shouting instructions. When the robot is finally destroyed, it’s left several city blocks of New York utterly demolished. Refugees are offered a home in the Baxter Building, but the entire city responds with a public outcry demanding that the Fantastic Four get handed over to Latveria.

Ben actually wants to do it – just to get close to Doom. Anything’s better than waiting around.

For his part, Reed passionately disagrees. Half the world is convinced that robot army doesn’t exist- and Latveria’s extensive space program has Reed convinced that there’s even more to this threat than meets the eye. Naturally, the key to Doom’s plan is the space station, so Reed wants Ben’s help staging a salvage mission. If Reed can deduce how Doom’s technology is powered.

Johnny just wants to explore his new powers. While Ben leaves the family to deal with the Latverian situation and Reed retires to the Baxter building to build a spaceship, Johnny makes a name for himself saving citizens on the streets of New York. Sue is left to put a public face on the Fantastic Four’s “heroics”.

Having built a space-borne “Fantasticar”, Reed explores the orbital ruin… and assembles clues about Doom’s plan. Brought before Latverian justice, Ben Grimm tries to clobber Doom and is found guilty of crimes against humanity. Johnny Storm saves some grateful citizens, but causes just as much damage as his powers get the better of him. Sue is assaulted in politics and the media – suddenly the most visible woman in the world. She begs the United Nations to intervene on Ben’s behalf, to no avail. When Ben Grimm is sentenced to death, Reed is close to unraveling Doom’s secrets… Sue struggles to avoid a conflict in Eastern Europe…

That’s when Johnny sees his chance to establish himself as a bona-fide hero. Against Reed’s advice and Sue’s protests, Johnny stages a prison break… which was Doom’s plan all along!

ACT THREE

Ben Grimm’s prison is actually a rebuilt cosmic generator. While Doom wasn’t able to harness the energy of the storm, it did indeed come down to Earth – in the Fantastic Four!

When Johnny arrives on the scene to break Ben free, Doom seals the doors. Once Johnny has freed Ben from his restraints, Ben finds himself unable to clobber his way out of the massive chamber. When Johnny tries to melt his way out, the generator absorbs his energy. As Johnny burns hotter and hotter (Ben, of course, is immune to heat), the generator hums to life! The robots are powered! Doom’s evil plan has sprung to life!

Can Sue and Reed spring Ben and Johnny from Doom’s Latverian prison? Will Reed’s research reveal a way to defeat an army of Doom-bots large enough to conquer the world? Can the Fantastic Four work as a team, and combine their powers to stop Doom and restore world peace?

You know they can! They’re the Fantastic Four!!!

Come on! Who wouldn’t watch this movie?!?