From Storyboard to Screen Part 1

My experimental short ‘Smile: It’s Only the End of the World’ is coming to the end of its festival circuit so I wanted to give some insight on how I approached a film made up entirely of still photos and what kind of work went into planning and creating the look of the film.

What you’re seeing here is the original storyboard drawing – yes, they are stick figures and yes they are complete crap. But, for me they were a necessary piece on relaying my vision to the rest of the team.

These next images are the concept art. Things are a bit flipped in terms of how I wanted the shots framed but at this point it didn’t really matter. It was more having that visual in place showing how the smoke would funnel and enter/exit the character’s body for our actor (Kaeley Jade Wiebe) and production team.

What you are seeing here are the production images with a colour grade applied to them. These are the images that were sent to the VFX Team at Alpacalypse Productions.

And here is the final VFX render that is seen in the film complete with smoke, debris, etc.

Prior to Smile, I never used storyboards. But after completing it, I don’t think I’ll ever not use them. They were a essential piece in making sure our entire team was on the same page.

If you are like me and you constantly question your own drawing skills, you don’t have to be Picasso to get your vision on paper. It will save you a ton of time throughout production and post production, especially when you’re dealing with VFX.

Have a great week and keep your eyes on the blog for more ‘Storyboard to Final Image’ posts.