I’ve spent the past few weeks playing with storyboards, trying out various demos of software as well as drawing them by hand (might as well put that A-level in art to some good use) and discovered that, on the whole, storyboards are completely not what I thought they were. (For that matter they aren’t what the manufacturers of the software think they are for either).

I’ve tried about six or seven different pieces of sofware, ranging from the idiotic to the rocket scientific.

The more complex 3D modelling ones are great if you have three years to learn them, know exactly what your sets are going to be and don’t mind pissing off your actors with some outrageous ‘result directing’. For effective low budget filmmaking, a complete waste of time.

However some of the simpler ones, (the 2D ones like Storyboard Quick), have a band of gold running through them, which with a little bit of effort provides rich pickings.

My handdrawn storyboards are more than adequate, but way too easy to churn out (and not terribly good either). I could save myself a heap load of money just sticking to these, but for $300, I think getting hold of a copy of something like Storyboard Quick could more than pay for itself in no time.

Agreed, the learning curve is a little irritating and it does take a little while sometimes to set up new scenes and the lack of clipart seems a curse. But these are also blessings, if you’re prepared to dig a little deeper into your reserves and hunt for the gold.

These restrictions, I’ve found, have forced me to get creative, and repeating this process has taught me how to think around problems – the very same problems that will occur on set when I can’t get a wide enough angle on the camera and the gun keeps disappearing out of shot because I hired an actor with eight foot arms.

The three important lessons I’ve learnt from the exercise is that, firstly, the scene you have in your mind will never be the scene that appears on the big screen (most oftentimes, if you get it right it will be infinitely better). Secondly, the scene you create on a story board will not be the scene you shoot on film, if you want to allow you actors the freedom to come up with their best performances.

But the most important lesson I’ve taken from this exercise is that storyboards, rather than being important planning documents, are a seriously good proving ground for the script. You end up with a set of images that show up inconsistencies in the plot, problems with timing and dodgy dialogue.

They also allow you to play about with ideas of how to handle the shoot in terms basic blocking and cinematography without wasting peoples’ time and money on the set. But these ideas should not be locked down and taken as gospel, just kept in the back of your mind to try if the location and time allow.

I’m glad I’ve put the effort into this, as it’s been a real eye opener. It’s boosted my confidence that when I’m on set, I’ll be able to make the right decisions (or at least know what some of the wrong ones are).

Got some seriously positive feedback on the script from a friend of mine in the States, which has given me a serious boost. Just what I needed as I was starting to get a bit down about it all.

Have also made my first purchases – a set of three workman’s lights from Aldi’s (budget superstore which often have good deals on computer and DIY equipment).

They’re 500W halogen and tests prove that they are quite neutral and provide very good fill light, especially if you bounce it off a wall. Not bad for £6 each.

I’m working on the theory of using as much natural light as possible, and only artificial light for fill or night shoots.

I’ve been busy storyboarding SToA and have learnt loads, which I’ll save for another post as I really should crack on with it for now…

I’ve spent hours bashing my head against the wall that is “what is the best way to shoot DV?”

The answer, it seems, depends on what you want to do with the finished product.

If you are shooting, as I am, DV on a camcorder that has the option of recording PAL in Progressive or Interlace mode, and you simply want to edit and distribute on DV then shoot Movie (Progressive) mode if you can and stick at 25fps. The Movie mode with the shutter speed set at 1/50 will give you a ‘film’ look. This look can be enhanced by your choices of shot, good lighting and some tweaking of colour and tone in post.

Alternatively, if you are shooting with the intention of transferring to film to distribute, then you should shoot in Normal (Interlace) mode and do nothing to the image to keep it as pristine as possible for the transfer to film.

Transferring to film seems to be slightly trickier for us PAL users than our American cousins. There are two main choices here: use Twixtor or Magic Bullet add ons for Adobe Premiere – quite a costly option, and tricksy insasmuch as the sound needs to be streteched independently of the images, or use DVFilm Maker software from DVFilm.com, though whether any UK houses will support this, I don’t know.

Of course, the purists claim that if your aiming to distribute on film you should shoot on film, which is fine if you’ve actually got a budget.

The question I’ve got to research now is, what do competitions and film festivals generally accept? Do they all accept DVDs? In which case sod the film option and make it look as nice as possible in PAL (after it’s only 1 frame a second extra!). Think I might put a call in to Screen South.

My head hurts.

After a week of getting the Linux system tippity toppity and testing, I found out that my friend has a copy of Avid Xpress Pro on a decent PC we can use. D’oh!

So last night it was back to Microsoft Windows land again – I desperately wanted to keep Fedora running as I really like it and it runs so much better on my PC. But it failed at the last hurdle when I got all my Windows software running neatly through the Wine interface, except Movie Magic Screenwriter which it didn’t like at all.

Ho hum…

I also saved myself a packet by buying a tape head cleaning kit for my Canon XM1 – hey presto, camera problems solved! (It was getting kinda fuzzy and I thought it was a hardware issue).

I stumbled across a most excellent web site – dvinfo.net – which is packed with great information. I like the way they force people to use their real names on the forum, it adds a great deal of kudos to the site.

Armed with information I gleaned from there, I’ve been able to create some very ‘film’ like images with the XM1 using the normal (interlaced) movie mode and tweaking some of the settings. Fabulous! And there’s quite a few more tricks in post that will enhance the effect even more.

We’ve gone for lock down on the screenplay now (more to save my sanity than anything else), and I’ve started drafting out some storyboard ideas. I’m gonna try to arrange a meeting with people next week to start the ball rolling properly.

Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite…

I think I’m going blind!

Still, the good news is that Secret Thoughts of Angels (Draft 2) is more or less done. Think I might send it round to a few trusted colleagues for review now.

Despite reading many mixed reviews about the stability and usefulness of Cinelerra, it seems to be holding together. I put experimentation back a few days when I feared that I might have rushed into things with Fedora Core 3 and decided to try Mandrake Linux 10.1, only to find that things were much more stable with Fedora. So I’m back to square one. Useful learning curve though, even though it meant some very late nights over the weekend.

I’ve also been looking at DV and HDV cameras in the prosumer range, trying to work out which is the most suitable. There seems to be three contenders, Sony HDV FX1, Canon XL2 and Panasonic DVX100, and I really can’t work out which one is the most suitable. At then end of the day, I’ve got an old Canon XM1 which should do the trick, but it would be nice to go with a new one, perhaps hire one for a few weeks if the budget allows (budget?).

I think Cinelerra will handle HD OK, I’ve haven’t really checked, but for the ‘film look’, whatever that is, the Panasonic one seems to get the thumbs up.

And then what ratio – 4:3 (and mask the widescreen) or 16:9? Decisions, decisions. As I recall from some guys I met last year, shooting 4:3 and masking gives better results as you aren’t streching or compressing the image in any way, and you get a bit of leeway with the vertical framing in post production as well.

Now I’ve got the editing side sorted and the screenplay into a decent shape, I’m starting to get quite excited about this filmmaking lark.

Now all I need to do is find two more actors, secure some locations, some lights and we’re off!

Oh and a DVD writer would probably be useful before long as well…