# 2 of ~ “ The 10 things I learned making a short film that took 10 years to make that I finished 10 years ago.”
to read part one go here
~ Wayback machine warming up ~ woop woop woop whoosh ~~~10 years ago ~ 2009
2) Have a plan
I can’t stress this enough. You have to have a plan for your film. A blueprint. It seems kind of ridiculous to me to think people wouldn’t but they don’t. Sometimes they think they do and then it goes out the window when the first difficulty or new idea comes along. Plan the project from preliminary drawings to storyboarding to storyreel. Have your camera moves, staging, acting as thought out as possible before you begin animation. It will save you so much time, money and headache down the line. It provides you with a piece of film to show potential help and even investors. You should even use it to solicit feed back. This is very important and you shouldn’t be afraid at this stage to get some critique. Show people who you respect their opinion and even show some strangers. Show your mom but she doesn’t count. Be careful though, too much input can take the wind out of your sails. If someone doesn’t like something always ask them for a reason. You want constructive criticism. Don’t get upset, just take it in. Let the notes percolate for a few days, don’t react instantly negatively or positively. Things you initially didn’t agree with you might like after a few days stewing on them and ideas you initially loved you’ll find don’t work. Remember, you are the filmmaker. Take strength in that you have the final say. I showed the short to a couple of the big shot directors at work. They had a few notes ( they can’t help themselves) but their ideas were just different. You have to watch out for the make it an elephant not a pachyderm suggestions. They didn’t make the short better and I was struck by an empowering feeling: where normally I would have to execute their note this was my film and I did not have to. It was my choice.
After planning in terms of the storyreel (blueprint) then plan the rest of the film. Organize it like a real production. It actually is and think of it in that way. I made model packets for the animators, reference reels and exposer sheets. I even made maquettes for them. The film was broken up into 60 scenes (shots) and those were grouped into 13 sequences based on location and story point. Each scene was made into a packet with exposer sheet, character layout drawings, a rough BG (if there was one). I calculated how much animation paper we would need and bought it all at once ( I am on the last box now). Files on the computer are organized by sequence and scenes. There are a lot of little things and organization and planning are paramount to keeping your sanity, saving money and actually getting the thing done.
10 YEARS LATER :
Planning something out may seem like spinning your wheels, wasted effort, but I do have to say it does help and relieve stress later on when things heat up. If possible play the devil’s advocate. Think of all the ways things could go wrong and have a contingency plan. You inevitably won’t think of everything but by thinking of some catastrophes you’ll be better prepared for the ones that do show up. Also, and I can’t stress this enough, avoid — single points of failure (SPF’s) — try to not rely on one person to do a very important job.
…avoid — single points of failure (SPF’s) — try to not rely on one person to do a very important job.
Make sure this key person in your pipeline has backup, perhaps an assistant or someone familiar with the task. Especially if the flow of production has to filter through this one person. If something bogs down with them, they get sick, have to take their kid to the doctor, inexplicably are abducted by aliens, your whole production will be delayed or come to a halt. Like the Apollo Moon Missions you should build in redundencies. This may even include you, the creator / the auteur! Just incase the aliens come for you, have someone you can lean on to make decisions or move things along if you intend to stay on budget and deadline. There usually is something that can be moved along that does not need to have “the visionary’s” eye on. Of course this goes out the window if you are that sole artist toiling away in your garret and intend to be done when you are done or die getting there. But again a little planning can go a long way.
Now with all that said about planning I have to say as I have aged another decade I do find the value in the spontaneous. Animation is the least spontaneous filmmaking art form. You can begin a shot with drawing the first frame and then proceed until the end of the action, blasting to the end. That is good sometimes for quick movements, retaining all that energy. It is called striaight ahead animation but it isn’t often used. Mostly an animator animates pose to pose, working out the key moments in an action until they get them right and then “inbetweening”, placing drawings between the poses to make the animation move more fluidly. It’s planned movement. In animation, nothing is given to you, everything has to be created and thought through. There are no givens like in live-action. You can’t stumble on something like an amazing setting, that only needs some set dressing. You don’t have the benifit of an actor’s own unique readily available charisma. In animation nothing exists that doesn’t come from the mind of someone, that is transimtted down their arm, to their hand and then translated through their tools and skills into drawings, or a puppet, or pixels. It is kind of amazing and magical but because this is done for each frame, and every prop and every every thing in the film often times things are planned to death. Over analyzed and scrutinized, each frame noodled and overly thought out, that initial inspiration is killed, ideas thought through round and round into mush. So, I have been facinated by how to capture the oxymoronic planned spontaneity. Because, there is value and freshness in going with that moment of first light. For sometime now, I’ve been developing a stop-motion feature around the old fellow, Leonardo, called The Inventor and I have found the act of moving physical puppets probably the closest to planned spontaneity as you can get. Of course you plan a lot in stop-motion. The animators often animate a blocking pass of the action, also called a pop through, or a pose test, to get the directors buy off on the acting. However once the animator is on stage with their puppet it is like an actor on stage at the theater no two performances is ever the same. You are going to get what you get. Depending on your budget you may not be able to go back even for a retake, since the shot took upwards to a week or more to finish. We shot a teaser trailer for the The Inventor with very little money, and even though I planned out one of the shots with the animator and we went over it quite extensively, acting it out, going over the storyboards, etc. when it came time for me to see the finished shot, I noticed the animator missed a key moment. I couldn’t afford him reanimating the shot. So I had to think on my feet of how to restructure the rest of the shots. All the previous planning went out the window and frankly, in the end, it turned out even better. I loved it and I have found by providing artists with perimeters, as much information as I can, but not how to do their jobs I am more often then not excited by what they create. So perhaps build into your plans room for the unexpected, the spontaneous.
Tomorrow:
3) Goals Goals Goals.
Without deadlines you will make the film forever.
