Week 3

In week three's lecture we went over storyboard techniques and composition. We had a look at some very educational slides on the subject, created by director Brad Bird (yay!). Although I had seen these slides before, seeing them again refreshed my memory somewhat, as I'm quite rusty on composition and the like. No, rusty is the wrong word.... more like, completely inexperienced and having no clue hahaha. I found the way Brad Bird sets out and explains things to be really clear and concise. Helpful hints such as remembering to check for a nice silhouette and not allowing lines in your shot to be directly parallel to the edge of the frame too often, really stood out to me. It was interesting how by just lowering the angle of a shot can make the whole composition feel a lot more balanced and stronger. Bird put emphasis on making the composition as dynamic as possible and being aware of what you want the eye to be drawn to.

The storyboard slides were just as informative. The refresh on camera angles was fantastic for me as I had forgotten a lot about them. Some things I hadn't even heard of, like the 'drift in', where the cut to the next shot comes before the camera stops - you simply draw arrows pointing in the direction of the move (there's no box to represent the frame). Other important points included the importance of creating smooth transitions between scenes, focusing on what is really critical in the scene, steering away from jump cuts and continuity of moving directions.
We also discussed how the 'rule of three' can help balance a scene.

In our tute this week, Mark demonstrated how to thumbnail out shots from a script into a storyboard-like structure. It was interesting to see how he interpreted the script in his own way - all of our own ones should turn out different. Our homework for this week is to read the script ourselves and do a rough storyboard-type sequence. I will post mine next week!

Bye bye!