Personal View site logo
Previz - usually a good idea
  • shianshian

    There is no "pre visualization" category under the "skill" category. I think there should be. I believe its an essential part of the process. And to kickstart it. I wanted to show you this "playblast quality" still of a shot I was working on for a project.

    image

    Using Maya, I was able to determine what angles the light needed to be at to make this scene work, sit down in front of Maya with the sets, props, and people loaded up, and begin to block and shoot the scene with the director and production designer. Then have a discussion over lighting and production design, then go back and make those adjustments, and end up with this "sketch" quality render of one of the shots. [inserted further down]

    Doing so makes things so much easier - as I now know what lens I need, which lights, which camera angle, which gels, etc. And setting up and shooting should be a breeze. I have in essence already shot the scene, now I only need to recreate it. Which is faster and less stressful than trying to figure it all out on set.

    image

    I'll do some tutorials on this at some point. One using Maya, and another using some of my Storyboard Artist friends.

  • 3 Replies sorted by
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    There is no "pre visualization" category under the "skill" category.

    We have simple and effective policy - topics first, category is made if enough topics exist.

  • arnarfjodurarnarfjodur

    Please do some tutorials. I'd be very interested. This is something I've thought about a lot. My skepticism is that two things: 1) The time it takes to do this properly for each scene and 2) That conditions on the day are always different than what you had in mind, and you get stuck in a predetermined approach.

    Set dressing, natural light, actors movements, their costume etc are all things that are difficult to envision completely with a program. Still very curios to experiment with this - because I know how much freedom good preparation can give you.

  • shianshian

    I mapped out the entire 2 day shoot for a 9 minute short in 3 days.

    Yes, conditions are always different, but having walked around in the space both physically at the scout, and virtually, on a digital set built to scale, then moved the camera around in it, and compared it to the scout photos, I can very easily adjust to changes "day of" because it's already been explored. I am prepared.

    This was for a soundstage shoot, so not much chance of the lighting conditions changing. But you can really get a great sense for the space, and you can quietly and calmly examine the space, take your time to really think and experiment without the clock ticking.

    The great Phil Tippet encapsulates my philosophy when it comes to Pre-Production; and planning out your shoot. I'm paraphrasing here, but: You meticulously plan the shoot, you go out and shoot the plan, and then in the edit room the plan should come together... "as planned."

    The conversation about such planning takes place at about 8 minutes in, but there's tons of great insight about it throughout.

Add a Comment