Storyboards for Amelie and A Very long Engagement:The importance of Previz
I got my hands on the storyboards for two films of Jean-Pierre Jeunet who is one of my fav directors. Despite being in french, the annotated shooting script with boards is a valuable lesson in the fact that the more prepared a director is while going into the shoot, the more oppurtunities he has to experiment and improvise.
It’s one method of making films and other more freewheeling methods result in equally glorious films as in the case of WKW or Mike Leigh but it’s always better to know what the rules are before breaking them.
Storyboards are an enormous help in communicating to the entire crew what the director’s vision is and even when the final product differs significantly from the original boards as in this case its an invaluable tool.
JPJ did the storyboards himself but here in Hollywood there is an entire industry of highly skilled and paid artists who help the director put their vision on paper before they can transfer it to celluloid.
Enjoy !!!
Tags: Storyboard
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Thanks for these Mitch!
Mitch, these are really valuable. Thanks!
I did a scene analysis of the point where Amelie almost meets Nino for class a couple of years ago and would be willing to share it. In it, In it, I outlined all of the possible directorial choices and tried to asses which ones JPJ made in this scene. Mitch, I think you are able to see my contact info as an author.
AWESOMEEEEEE!!!!
Thanks for this Mitch. Wasn’t aware of such a concept of
putting your vision on paper to enable the actors to enact it out. For every scene.
For animated films, the artists observe the actors giving voiceovers and draw their expressions. These are then kind of superimposed on the respective animated characters.
Both are different yes, but seems like in one medium I go from A to B while the other asks me to go from B to A. To get the desired end result. A good film.
These are great, thanks so much for sharing. Previz in any form is crucial to communicate the director’s vision and test out ideas. What really struck me as I studied these storyboards was how much more impact and information you would get if they were digital storyboards. There’s a range of tools out there now that enable directors to create a 3D animated previz of their vision. Tools like Antics3D, iClone etc. Here’s an interesting article on the subject of digital previz:
http://blogs.digitalmediaonlineinc.com/digitalbasin/entry/200809211
@Evelyn
Sounds interesting. Why don’t you write a post on it since Amelie is such a beloved film.
@GaryC
I’ve always wanted to experiment with Antics ever since I read bout in American Cinematographer. Is there any place in LA where I can see a demo ?
Mitch, do you think more than one or two people will want to read about cinematic language?
@Evelyn
If we keep thinking bout what other people want we will never do what we want.
We can only hope that others like what we do.