Making The Visit - Storyboards

In these shots, Oksana watches her father disappear down the road. We fade to black and then see her prying the shack's door open to look inside.

By the way, a few days ago I found an example of a blog that's maintained by someone who loves to write about good movies. She does it with seriousness and perception. I like people who watch movies and think about them the way she does. I think we need more people like that writing about film in blogs. Newspaper film critics long ago gave up the ghost and lost any true interest in film they might ever have had. Best advice: stop reading the newspapers for film criticism. Start reading some good blogs. Way more energy and life in the online writing. So anyway, this woman's blog is called 'The Lone Review.' Go check it out. We need more people like her here in Los Angeles. In fact, I've already promised her a cup of coffee (maybe tea) if she ever gets here.





Click the button below to see these shots added to the storyboard movie.

Making The Visit - Storyboards

Slow going lately. The drawings are tough for me. Each one is a little discovery unto itself. Incredible as it may seem, I am still working out the style of my movie. Sometimes I think I've got it nailed, and then I do another drawing and get a slightly different idea. I think I might make the characters look sort of like painted cutouts. This approach to the animation would save a lot of time and drastically reduce the amount of drawing required. The characters would work a little like movable dolls. In fact, the walk cycle test animation that is in an earlier post was done with each part of Oksana's body as a separate piece. Then I animated the pieces together just as one would animate paper cutouts by making them move slightly for each frame of a movie. Some of my favorite animated films are made this way. Unless one is ready to do thousands of drawings, animations done with all movement drawn by hand tend to result in jumpy cartoonish films that are best suited to comedy. In a movie like this one, it is important that movement be subtle and smooth. Frankly, I'm sick and tired of funny animation. One out of perhaps a thousand are funny. Most are a complete waste of effort. Animations should try to tell serious stories. I went to a film festival and listened to a very famous animator tell other animators that in order to get into film festivals they should make their films funny. I thought that was probably some of the worst advice I'd ever heard. Simply beyond idiotic.

In these shots, Oksana's father pushes her away, telling her to go live in the little broken shack. Then he leaves her there in the forest.







Click the button below to see these shots added to the storyboard movie.

Making The Visit - Storyboards

More shots for the storyboard have been completed. Oksana wakes up and is taken on a journey through the forest by her father. As they approach a broken old shack, Oksana is at first delighted, but almost immediately her father's true purpose becomes clear.












Click the button below to see these shots added to the storyboard movie.