Evolution of a Shot

Here's a quick breakdown of how a shot evolves from thumbnail to final.

After months and months of thinking intensely about the particular camera design strategy and specific influences of the film, I sit down and scribble out as quickly as possible every shot in the movie. The end result is this:

These are just quick doodles of the basic character positions and expressions. After I get this raw expression of the film, I do my second draft.

Instead of creating refined 2-D storyboards, I load up the final 3-D environment. I then place my 3-D armatures and camera to fine tune the 2-D tumbnail. This includes camera movement and is cut together to form the "animatic."

Armed with both the tumbnails and animatic, shooting begins. Once I've got the actors in front of the camera I do some final tweaks. What you see here is more of the hybrid of the previous two versions than a straight copy of either.

 

Finally, the shot is composited together with the environment. Lighting and color adjustments are made to bring the movie in line with the intended final aesthetic.

There you have it! Multiply that 400+ times and you have a movie!