The Importance of Previz

The Importance of Previz

introduction

Previsualization is to cinema as Camcorders are to Indie Filmmaking: the way you can realize your dreams and unleash your creativity in a better and powerful way.

As storyboarding became a vital tool for Hollywood producers previz has to be te vital tool for indies:

YOU ARE THE PRODUCER

that means you put the money, find the actors, plan the shots…you create your movie…

and you’ll always be out of bucks!

remember that wonderful scene at the funeral you imagined?

with all the people crying around the open coffin in that wonderful gothic church over the hills and the camera slowly moving in to find our hero suffering for the death of his best friend…

well, sure you can raise money for that shot, but maybe, a subtle dialogue, some touching words whispered by the hero while crouching near a wodden box in a tight and intimate closeup shot would do the same job at NO-COST!

or maybe you need thousands of people and an expensive dolly to tell the story, that’s your choice, but no matter the infinite power our imagination has, you can’t choose what is the best way unless YOU PREVIZ IT

and it’s not your wallet who’s telling you this (although i can imagine him smiling right now)… it’s how directors thinks!

maybe those two thousands bucks you don’t spend for the charming smooth dolly you imagined at first will be useful for that last scene with the final kiss and the happy ending filmed from a crane you thought you could never afford to use…

or maybe you can use them for film print, festival partecipations, promotion, post production and so on…

just by sitting in front of your laptop you gain the power of making a memorable film… WHY NOT?!?!

Part 1

Technique

Nowadays every big hollywood production is previsualised, and the state of the art society of this technique in the pixel liberation front, that has redefined the concept of storyboarding applying the modern techniques of 3d and gaming to previz.

(see http://www.xsibase.com/articles.php?detail=113 to see what i’m talking about)

but how can YOU storyboard your film just by sitting in your room with your computer?

you are getting scared, you’re unable to grab a pencil and draw a stickman on a piece of paper, so how can you storyboard your film?

There are almost three well known techniques that you can try:

Gaming Resources

Do you know Second Life? if you don’t is time for you to google a bit…

well second life is an enormous social network built in the form of a 3d game (like The Sims), it’s free, it’s easy to use, and you can ask some friends to join and act your scenes with you, while you’re grabbing the video of your monitor with a screencasting app, and the form of art you’ll be creating is called Machinima (if you google this you’re gonna find some wonderful examples, and it is really fun to experiment also with games like halo or world of warcraft, check it out).

But you want to have more control on the cameras and the acting, you want the actor to stop at a certain point and the camera to do that certain movement, so you’re looking for a machinima software, a program exspecially designed for machinima makers to control all the aspects of the film, from set dressing to expressions.Softwares like Reallusion iClone do the job if you have 200$ or more, but if you’re really indie, MOVIESTORM is the key : althought still in alpha period for me this is an amazing free software iclone alike for creating wonderful Previsualizations at absolutely no-cost, if you’re not familiar with pencils nor computer Moviestorm is the solution.

3d Graphics

This is the technique wich i reccomend over all because it really gives you total control over the scene you’re storyboarding and over the level of detail of the Previz (the car chase shot from an helicopter can easily be represented by dummy cars or cubes, but the closeup of the shells falling on the floor, that has to be detailed), with a 3d software you can also decide the cinematography of the scene and the light, things that will be a pain in the ass on the set.

Storyboarding with a 3d program could seem very hard at the beginning, but in time you’ll get results you could never imagine.

Back in the Technical part i reccomend Blender wich is an open source, free, wonderful software, great if you’ve never used a 3D App but you want to give it a try, you can find tutorials and resources online .

And for those of you who knows how 3d works or simply are not completely noobs, i reccomend Maxon Cinema 4D that you can get for 995$, this will be the only commercial application i reccomend, but believe me, in comparision to 3d StudioMAX (3,495 $), Autodesk Softimage (2,995$) and Maya 2009 (4,995$) it’s almost a freeware yet to me one of the most powerful tool to realize stunning graphics and Previsualizations; it’easy to end up with great renders and in a few clicks you can animate a character and build a set.

Computer-Aided Storyboarding

Depending on your Artistic needs you may prefer the hand-draw look of the storyboard to the hyperrealistic HDR illuminated 3D storyboard, but without knowing how to draw you have to ask your computer to draw for you:

- StoryBoard Quick is a useful commercial tool that you can buy for 299$, the pro version of this software wich cost 700$ has been used in some professional productions

- ToonBoom Storyboard Pro is a great professional software for two-dimensional storyboarding, used all around the world by a wide range af television channels like FOX or DYSNEY, but you’ll have to spend 899$ and that’s why i don’t reccomend it, at the same price i prefer a professional 3d software

- FrameForge Studio, another powerful software for professional cinematic previsualizations that comes with an optional “Director’s Pad”, a kind of joystick to control the movements of the camera, check it out if you have 399$ to spend

Ok, now the part for the DV Rebels:

-Google sketchup is a freeware 3d application that is being used also in the progessional industry for storyboarding, it’s easy to use, And with the latest version of SketchUp, you can choose to view, present and even print your models using visual Styles that make them appear hand-drawn. check it out!

(And Also Check out these document of the use of sketchup in poìrofessional previsualizations: http://sketchup.google.com/industries/digitalentertainment/previs.html )

(BTW the first title image is made with sketchup)

Conclusions

In conclusion it is easy to storyboard your project even if you don’t have money at all, but you must understand that is vital for your budget and for the quality and the timing of your Movie that you Previz. I’ve given you lots of software’s name, and i would like to close this article giving you an advice on what i believe are the most useful;

check out Moviestorm for a “The Sims” like previsualization but remember it still has lots of bugs, so save often your movie while working (believe me.), work with sketchup for powerful custom content creation (if you have an art departement or a set dresser, sketchup will help you bring their ideas too in the previz) and hand drawn experience, but if you have to previsualize a big movie with complex vfx scenes: choose cinema 4d.

The Presentation is available in pdf for offline view. Click Here to Download

and don’t forget to stay tuned for part 2