The Importance of a storyboard

Now, I know that I've talked about how a storyboard is important, and how it can make life easier, but I want to show you how side by side with the storyboard that planning actually does help regardless of if it is with stick figures, better looking hand drawings, Celtx's storyboard add ons, or any other storyboarding program. Making a storyboard helps out so much when it comes to production.

I know this because I've worked on productions that didn't have a storyboard of what the director was looking for. It was all in their head, so everyone was sitting around waiting for the director to give his vision for the shot instead of being able to jump to the next shot or scene, while the director was working with the actors.

To give you some perspective, we shot the commercial below in about an hour and a half and that includes set up and tear down times. Because we went into Lucky Linda's with not only a plan of what we wanted to shoot, but also an actual shot list of what we needed to get proper coverage we were able to get in and get out in a good amount of time.

If you've never done a storyboard before I am encouraging you to do one now and if you have done them before I continue to encourage you to do them in the projects you are working on. I hope you enjoy the video below comparing the storyboard we made to how the commercial ended up.

And we shot in Shakopee. Thanks Lucky Linda's

So today we shot at Lucky Linda's Body Art tattoo parlor. A link to their facebook page is here

We shot using the Canon 7D with the standard stock lens.  I also got my friend Brian to come along and lend a hand and shoot a bunch of B-Roll for us that we are going to use. He was using the Canon T3i to shoot his footage and I'm planning on putting up some of that random B-Roll tomorrow at some point.

The shoot itself went pretty smooth, except that we didn't have lights and I had to run home quickly and get them. Also, the mouth on our muppet head didn't seem to work when we needed it to either, so I had to put a part of the extra shedding brown cloth over my hand and I had to operate the head manually.

On a plus note though our actress, Destiny, showed up on time and worked out perfectly for the part that we hoped her for. We hope that once we get this commercial finished and out to people that you can help Destiny out who was able to help us out on our shoot even though we couldn't really pay her.

As promised though here is the storyboard for the shoot. In a later post I will tell you how important a storyboard is to a shoot, especially a shoot on a timeline, and no budget.

A shot from Mankato

Here is some video I shot yesterday with Lucky and Rich in it explaining how they were going to try to take over the Mankato area with World Ventures and some of the hardships that they and current college students feel about finances. I'm probably going to be shooting a lot more videos with these two goons and other people as well.

I hope to keep you updated on not only this project but others as well, but for now I have to get back to putting the finishing touches on the Lucky Linda commercial. Hoping to have the storyboard done soon. Pictures will come out tomorrow of the storyboard after we shoot.

Head Update

I'm ending construction for the night of the muppet, but he is almost done. All that is needed is a nose and possibly some ears. I've uploaded an image of what he looks like at the moment as to not disappoint all of those that were hoping to see him for what he is. Let me know your thoughts if you have any good ideas as to making him better.

Again we based our head off of this Indy Mogul Episode, though I couldn't find a magnetic motor so I used some rope and a pull system. It seems to work well. If you have a chance, give them some love.

Tattoo Commercial

So, after my meeting yesterday and sending off three ideas with my business partners to our first client; he has decided on one of the commercials and it was mine. I'm pretty stoked, because it's always nice to get picked, but this means I'll have to come up with a muppet outfit for the commercial on the cheap and that's going to be the hardest part.

We're also going to have to come up with a storyboard, and get an actress to play one of the parts. So if anyone knows a good actress in the Twin Cities looking to expand a profile please comment below.

The hardest part about this commercial is that we are planning on using it as a springboard for a potential company and aren't charging the tattoo parlor anything for this. I hope in the end he might give us something to cover the costs otherwise I'll have to think through trying to get money elsewhere.