Chess Film: Greenlight!

Before beginning shooting for my groups chess film, we needed to get our pre-production proposal approved by our teacher. This proposal included the genre statement, cast list, script, call sheet, storyboard, shot list, editors log, recce report, risk assessment, and sound design statement. As cinematographer, I was responsible for the completion of the storyboard and shot list. When me and group initially read the packet with all information regarding the assignment, we felt a bit overwhelmed seeing all the work we had to do behind the scenes. But since the work was split up between 4 people in my group, we realized it wasn't as bad as we initially thought. Everyone in my group had everything ready the morning of pitching our proposal, except for my director. This is understandable since there is a lot of work for the director role, so we helped him complete the final documents before getting our production approved. As we did our proposal, my teacher gave me lot of valuable information regarding my shot list and story board. 

Camera Shot List

My Revised shot list, AFTER the proposal pitch

    Unfortunately I don't have a picture of my shot list prior to the pitch, but my teacher gave me tips on how to fix it. Prior, I had scenes and shots both filled out on the list. My instructor brought it to my attention that since the film is only around 1 minute long, it doesn't make much sense to have scenes since it will take up time we don't have. So, to revise I edited the list and deleted the scenes completed and only had shots. 

Storyboard 

My storyboard, PRIOR to the proposal pitch 

My story board, AFTER the proposal pitch

Prior to showing my storyboard to my instructor, I was very focused on including what I wanted into every shot and the action going on, that I completely disregarded the rule of thirds lines. By doing this, it made the story board shots look more unorganized and seemed like I randomly placed the people or objects in the shot. To fix this, I added the rule of thirds line with a pen and ruler over my previous penciled in drawings. Then, I used a red ink pen to go over my previous drawings and rearrange them to place characters onto the hot spots or lines that were appropriate for the shots. By doing this, my attention was immediately drawn more to the characters/objects. It made the drawings seem more intentionally placed. In productions in the future, I plan on adding the rule of thirds lines prior to drawing my story onto the board. After we presented our entire proposal, our instructor gave my group the "Greenlight" which allowed us to begin our production!