The ante got upped this morning as official news came through on the fate of my projection department. Still waiting on specifics, but we've got a rough overview of how it's going to go. I'm not going to go into detail, but basically it's not great news for me personally, but not nearly so bad for the cinema-going public as I'd feared.
I want to get back to writing. I've had a response about the first draft back from a couple of sources now, full of some really useful criticisms. There's a lot of stuff there to work with and I've had a few ideas of how to improve it already. Once I've finished the second draft, I'll write a much more comprehensive post about how and why I've changed things, specifics of the criticism and if I can find somewhere to host it, I'll put the first and second drafts up online for all to view.
I'm going to leave it a couple more days though, so I can get a few more opinions. In the meantime, it's research, research, research. Since I was working in the evening and still waiting on feedback I decided to take a break yesterday and catch up on some Skyrim. Today is going to be all about Storyboarding, with occasional breaks to watch more short films from the NUCA vimeo channel.
So, storyboards. At first glance, it seems like there's no industry standard format like there is with scripts. It also seems like having really bad drawing skills is not necessarily an issue. Let's face it, I'm never going to become a professional storyboard artist. I just want to be able to convey my ideas. Still, I haven't drawn anything beyond doodles in a long time, so I think buying two sketchbooks tomorrow might not be a bad idea. One for serious work to display at the interview, one just to just keep sketching stuff in. As well as continuing this research blog after the interview, if I'm offered a place on the course I should probably start drawing things more often. Perhaps take photographs when I'm out and about and try to draw from them when I'm home. If I'm not too embarrased by the practise sketches, I'll take them along too just as more evidence of work done.
Basic Techniques for Drawing Storyboards has some good advice, once I've bought the materials I'll need tomorrow, I might spend the afternoon sketching storyboards for some existing works. Like I really needed an excuse to watch Drive again.
On to the NUCA 2011 short films. Trying to get through "Alfred" (dir. Patricia Rodrigues) right now. 'Get through' sounds too harsh. It's internet connection problems that mean I haven't been able to watch the second half, not any issue with the short itself. Okay, done. That was nice. Barely any dialogue, touching music, a very gentle pace building up to a nice climax.
Also enjoyed "The World Collector" (dir. David Bain). Much more dialogue here, in a documentary style. Could have brought the missing boyfriend in earlier, to add a sense of danger or adventure to the story since documentaries can be a little dry, but it's easy for me to criticise when I wouldn't have a clue where to start making it myself. I'll be honest, I didn't really get Robert Wartke's "Shrines". A little too conceptual for me. I like my art spelled out easy, preferably in alphabetti-spaghetti.
"What Potions I Have Drunk of Siren Tears" (dir. Joshua Carver) is my favourite so far. Sound mixing or recording or editing or whichever term I'll have to learn is the correct one, is a bit off at times making the dialogue hard to hear at the start but the shots are set up wonderfully, the opening one particularly beautiful, capturing my attention right away.
So tomorrow: Sketching and storyboarding. Wednesday I've work in the morning, so I'll probably just watch video in the evening. Music videos, I think, to mix it up a little. Comedian, actor and all-round nice guy Adam Buxton hosts a show called BUG, exhibiting the best and most interesting work in that field. Time to raid the archives of that. I'll leave you with my favourite piece from the last BUG show I attended, Manchester Orchestra's Simple Math, directed by Daniel Scheinert and Dan Kwan.
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