Making 'The Visit' - Character Sketches

Here's Oksana in side view on a yellow pad. This was the second sketch of the character. Below her are first sketches of her father and stepmother. These are meant to be initial expressions of some main quality that I sense in each of the characters. I sort of like what's coming out in the sketch of the father. I'm not so fond of the stepmother. That one seems a little obvious. Too much the standard evil stepmother thing going on there I think.

I think these little doodles on yellow pads are some of the most important things a filmmaker of any kind ever does in preparation for a film. It all happens right here in these little daydreamy drawings that you do when you are hardly even aware you're actually making a drawing.