MY PROCESS

Each Project is unique in terms of its vision, needs and budget. Though the process below is my general workflow for preproduction, Not every facet of my process may be relevant to your needs. I can customize and speed up the process to ensure the goals and vision of your project are met within budget, deadlines, and full satisfaction.

SCRIPT BREAKDOWN: Upon the delivery of the script or brief of the project and after clear communication with the Client's intent, the materials are reviewed for key moments for the project (such as story beats), while making quick visual notes as an initial first pass to immediately visualize the project before discussion and moving to the next stages.

THUMBNAILS / ROUGH PASS: Once a general idea has been established for how a scene will play out in relation to the story, a shotlist or thumbnail pass (a set of small drawings) are done to roughly visualize the look and flow of the sequence as if it were seen from the camera. This is the precursor to the refined set of storyboards. Any necessary revisions can be easily done in this stage because of the fast and loose nature of these small sketches. Each page usually contains anywhere from 9-12 small sketched frames per page.

STORYBOARDS: The blueprint of the scene before moving into production. These are cleaned up from the Thumbnail stage in various ways, from loose line drawings to refined black and white toned drawings. This can be enhanced with 3D Camera moves and assets within the storyboards. The level of drawing refinement during this stage will depend on the budget and deadline. Directors and other crew members use storyboards for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to, the planning of shots, visualizing the action to see works and what doesn't work in the flow of the scene, to determine if a shot or sequence will be within a production budget, and to use as a visual reference during production. Depending on the Client's preference, storyboards are delivered in single-frame pages, multiple-frame pages, or video format.

ANIMATIC: The storyboard panels can be edited and timed into a video playback sequence to see how the actual scene will play out. This is usually enhanced by producing more panels to draw for poses and animated camera moves during the Storyboard stage. Temporary sound and music may also accompany the animatic. Revisions may follow after completing the animatic on a first pass to further refine the sequence before it further goes in Editorial. You can check out some of my animatic samples HERE.

CINEMATIC: A Cinematic sequence can be created using real-time game engines (such as Unreal Engine) and other relevant 3D software in order to see the entire sequence play out in real-time. This gives us the advantage to collaborate and make changes in real-time. This also gives us more accurate layouts and lens choices when visualizing a scene. This process can be very helpful when previsualizing a project for both live action and virtual production.

Please Contact Me to inquire more information regarding this process and how it may be beneficial for your upcoming project.

**Communication is very important during any stage of the process, so it is assured that all stages are thoroughly discussed and approved by the Client before moving further along. If you have any further questions about my process and would like to discuss how I can help visualize your vision, please contact me at erwinosias@gmail.com