I completed the story board for “The ZOOM Bomber”. I have started to ask for feed back on the story. Based on what I hear back, I will decide where to go with the story.
I got quite energetic a couple weeks ago and finished off the story board in just a couple of days. Since then I’ve been asking people for their opinions before I decide on my next move.
I posted a video of the story board on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jePgb298O_k
If you have the time and inclination, I would like to hear what you think of it.
Production
I used WonderUnit’s Storyboarder 2.01 for most of the story board. For the most part I found it easy to use but struggled when I tried to create custom body positions. I think if I used it for longer, I would eventually develop amore skill at it. I got feedback that the characters lacked facial expression. Storyboarder does have a sketch tool that would allow you to add facial features, but I lack the artistic skills to do that.
I found it took me a long time to create the background in Storyboarder, so I used other tools to do the backgrounds.
I took some photographs and then used https://www.cartoonize.net/ to create more abstract images for the backgrounds. I used ArcSoft PhotoStudio 5 to modify some of the images as well – both before and after cartoonizing. I used Blender 2.79 to create the escape across the roof top.
I used Microsoft PowerPoint to combine the various image elements into each story board image. I also used it to add the character labels.
I used Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 to compile the individual images into a video story board. I overlay the images on a blank ZOOM page in Premiere Pro.
I added some dialogue and sound effects to finish off the storyboard.
I used some text to speech voices, David, Zira, and Hazel, which were available in Windows 10, for the dialogue. These voices do lack some character, so I would likely want to have actors do the voices if I were to do a revised version.
I used some free sound effects from SoundEffectsPlus.com and SoundBible.com. I also created some of my own sound effects. I used Audacity 2.3.2 to modify some sound effects.
Thoughts about making the Movie
The video turned out to be much more violent and brutal than I feel comfortable with. That said, I am not ready to abandon the project. Part of the reason I want feedback is to gauge if I am too squeamish.
I have given some though about how to shoot the movie.
First off, I think that for most of the characters I should look for people with martial arts training. I worry a lot about safety issues and would feel better if I worked with people who did this kind of thing on a regular basis. Also, when I think about safety, I would like to use sets with padded floors.
For the escape scenes, where you don’t see the characters, but rather their point of view, I think I could use a small camera drone. My sense is that would also be cheaper. I would certainly want to do this with the roof top scene. I am not so sure about how to do the crash through the window. For some of the other escape scenes I think a camera mounted on a stunt person would be safe enough.
I want the movie to come across as if it happened in real time, but I would like to shoot most of it in short segments. This make sense for the scenes with Scarlet, and Hunter. I would shoot those in probably 6 or 7 separate segments. I would combine those and then shoot Mother’s piece as she reacted to the pre-recorded video.
Feedback Request
Again, I want to get a sense of how people react to the video before I decide my next move. If you have the time and inclination, I would like to hear what you think of it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jePgb298O_k
Thank you.