Planning for the Film

Last week I spoke to the two other people I'll be working with [Deborah & Charlie] to discuss our film. The first and most significant decision we made was to keep our films separate; we all agreed that it felt a bit forced to try and combine our ideas into one piece - especially when our storylines were so different. Out titles and credits will be shown before and after each of our segments [the title of 'NULL' being used for mine]. I've asked everyone to put together a storyboard for their individual film, leaving us ready to start filming from Monday onwards.

Film Type, Synopsis & Storyboard for 'NULL'

Above: The Tool music video 'Sober' referenced in my first blog post.

Reflecting back on the first blog post I made [presenting the work of Adam Jones and his animation work for 'Tool'], I've decided to make my segment of the collaborative film a music video. More specifically, 'Die Eier Von Satan' by Tool [translating as 'the balls of Satan']. It lasts about 2 minutes and, to a non-German speaker, sounds extremely intimidating. A strong male voice dictating to a crowd who celebrate with cheers every few moments. Most of us would instantly assume that this was the recording of Hitler speaking out to his people to gain following... but the best thing about it, is that's it's just a reciting of a dessert recipe. There are numerous opinions out there on what this song means, but I'm more inclined to say that the writer just wanted to trick people into feeling fear solely based upon the likleness to Nazi dictatorship. This track is perfect for my narrative; it's industrial sounds and German voices will create an atmosphere of unease while also denoting the 'recipe' for the ultimate human experiment.

In preparation for the filming and editing, I've modified the original track to come to just under a minute - keeping the parts I think are most key to my film. I'll use this as a frame for creating the storyboard.

The main thing I want to focus on when it comes to filming my model and puppet, is the detail of the set, the movement of the puppet and how light will be cast to combine both. I don't really have a sequence of events in mind for the film, more a journey around the set with intense close-ups on the puppets movement. It's more about the visuals than a storyline.

Due to the narrowness of the set-design, my original concept designs of an inhumanely large man might have to be scaled down to accommodate the dimensions of the room. This will be finalised once the green-screen recorded is in the editing stage.

Below, you can see my storyboard combining my set model, puppet and the track I've chosen to use - this should all roughly last a minute.

Above: NULL storyboard.

I created the storyboard with the track open, constantly referring to the time signatures - making sure to keep the shot changes working coherently with the music. As you can see, the whole thing is mainly a documenation of the set and character; making the most of the detail created by hand.

There's a slight concern that the storyboard is a bit too complicated for this project in particular; it would be better accomplished with a puppet inside a large scale set. Nonetheless, I will try my best to create all of the shots and hopefully, through editing, I can make a decent short film.