Journal entries with ILY in the titles are about the short screen musical
I LOVE YOU, I'M SORRY, AND I'LL NEVER DO IT AGAIN,
currently in pre-production.

I've always liked the challenge and imagination of storyboarding, but I hate the awkwardness of the actual paper and ink. Chaotic brainstorming is how you get to linear cohesion (or, at least, how I do), so several-on-a-page storyboard templates are always awkward for me. Lots of crossing things out, scribbling over stuff when I get a better idea, and so on. They look better when they're blank.

For each project, I try to come up with a New Improved Better Storyboard Template. Should it be three frames per 8.5"x11" page, with notes underneath each frame? Should it be five frames per page, with notes to the right? Should there be two mirror-image page layouts, so they'll open up as double-page spreads in a 3-ring binder?

After half a dozen short films and a lot of storyboarding on CUPID & PSYCHE (the feature I wrote), yesterday I finally got it right. I found the solution I'll never do without again, the Ultimate Template:

Index cards. One shot per card.

Just like a writer. Imagine that.

One great thing about index cards is if you scratch out a frame, it doesn't make a big ugly blotch on your 10-frame double-page spread. You can just crumple it up and throw it away.

But even better than that--the thing that makes it The One True Solution from which I will never stray, all hail the index card--is that when you get that flash of how you can collapse three shots into one, no problem. No crumpling the entire page and redrawing an entire sequence on a fresh sheet; just draw the new frame on one index card, throw out the three it replaces, and you haven't even momentarily disturbed the shot flow, since all the cards are laid out on the table next to your Iced Venti Soy Chai. Pack 'em up, stick 'em in your pocket until next time.

Here is my current pack of index cards for I LOVE YOU, I'M SORRY, AND I'LL NEVER DO IT AGAIN. If you're on a dialup connection, give it a minute.

You'll notice the storyboard stops right when the musical number gets going. This is because I don't want to go any farther without the choreographer--both because it'll be better with his collaboration and because it's less fun for him if I'm one of those directors who thinks the choreographer's just there to do my bidding. I'm not interested in just telling someone to "Do Fosse here." A big part of my fun comes from the moments when you both realize you've come up with something neither of you would have thought of on his own--that chemical reaction, ZZZZZZZIP--BLAM!--I LOVE IT!

You'll also notice the location's been changed from a garage to a factory. The initial motivation for that had to do with the techniques we're going to use for recording sound. I need to play a click track on the set to keep the performers on tempo, and a factory will give me lots of visual justification for rhythmic noises.

And you'll notice I'm not bothering to indicate look and feel. I'm indicating who's where, which way they're looking, important sounds and actions, and a general idea of lighting and framing. This is only partially because I'm not an illustrator (I'm at best a very loose cartoonist); it's also because I don't want that information in there. I want to come up with it in collaboration with the Director of Photography--the person in charge of actually rolling film or videotape through a camera and making it look good.

(And yes, apparently a lot of directors do think the choreographer and DP are just hired help. I don't. More on choreography when I've got somebody lined up; I have very specific intentions for that position, but I won't have anything concrete to tell you for at least a couple of weeks.)

When the storyboard seems finished, I'm thinking of scanning each card into Filemaker and adding notes. That way, I can sort by chronological order, camera setup number, location, characters in the scene, interior vs. exterior shots, or whatever. If you've done this, how'd it work?

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