Shot Template System (STS) for Storyboarder

Shot Template System (STS) for Storyboarder

The objective of STS is to easily create shots by describing a shot, much like a director would. For example, if a director said to a cinematographer, "I need a medium two shot, walking, from a low angle, backlit." The cinematographer would have the information they need to set up a shot. In Storyboarder, you can describe exactly that. Instead of waiting for the shot to be set up, or going into production, you can generate it instantly. In fact, you can generate infinite variations of that shot and find the exact one that fits your vision.

You can set up shots and board without knowing how to draw at all.

The goal of STS is to be able to direct a movie in your underwear.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15aC129ROFk

Shot Template System provides a simple way to create standard shot images for reference drawing in Storyboarder. You can have reference image choices from selecting from just a single dropdown. This is great for quickly rough boarding a scene. It's great for people that can't draw well, and it's great for the master draftsman.

Notebook images:

How to use it

1. Create a new shot.
2. Select the shot type in the left side panel.
3. It presents you with 9 randomized shots from that type.
4. Pick one image, and it puts the shot image into the reference layer.
   (The reference layer is a layer meant to be sketched on and drawn over.)
5. Customize the shot template further in the sidebar if you want.
6. Sketch over it, erase, and ink over it on the main layer.
7. Done!

How it works

Shots in video and movies can be simply described using quick short-hand. For example, you could say that you want a: "wide, high angle, two shot, back lit." This describes the composition of the shot, the vertical angle of the camera and position, that there are two people in the shot, and that the lighting is coming from behind.

Using 3D rendering, we are able to use "Maquette" models of human form in space to set up the shot, configure it, and provide images that can be used as reference.

We've intentionally made the view look like a sketch so you can make it your own.

Definition of a shot

The main configurations of a shot are: Shot Type, Content, Composition, Camera Angle Vertical, Camera Angle Horizontal, Lighting, Body Pose, Head direction, Expression (MAYBE?), Environment Size, Environment Lighting.

STS will generate a shot with varied configurations that deviate slightly from the norm given no specification. Therefore, if you ask for a "Medium Shot", you will always get slightly different results.

Shot Type

Describes the distance, lens type, target and framing of a shot.

Values:

• ECU, Extreme close up (Eyes)
• VCU, Very Close up (Face)
• CU, Close up (Neck up)
• MCU, Medium Close Up (Shoulders up)
• Bust (Elbows up)
• MS, Medium Shot (Waist up)
• MLS, Medium Long Shot (Thighs up)
• LS, Long Shot (Feet up)
• ELS, Extreme Long Shot (Wider than feet up)

Content

Describes the subject of the shot.

Values:

• S, Single (1 person in shot)
• 2S, 2 Shot (2 people in shot)
• 5050, 50-50 (Side shot of people face each other)
• 3S, 3 Shot (3 people)
• OTS[distance], Over The Shoulder (2 people talking to each other, camera over the shoulder) Additionally set Distance.
• GS[numberOfPeople], Group Shot, (More than 3 people)

Composition

Describes horizontal placement of subject in shot

Values:

• Left 1/3rd
• Center
• Right 1/3rd

Camera Angle Vertical

Describes vertical camera position and angle.

Values:

• WE, Worm's Eye (Camera on the floor, looking up at steep angle)
• Low, (Camera lower than eye level, looking up)
• EYE, Eye level (Camera at eye level, looking straight)
• High, (Camera above eye level, looking down)
• BE, Bird's Eye (Camera well above eye level, looking down at steep angle)

Camera Angle Horizontal

Describes horizontal orbital angle of camera position to subject.

Values:

• 0, 0 Degrees, dead on to subject
• 0-+180, Angle to the orbital right of the subject.
• 0--180, Angle to the orbital left of the subject.

Lighting

Describes position of the key light for the shot.

Values:

• Directional Front
• Directional Back
• Directional Above
• Point Low
• Point Medium
• Point High

Body Pose

Describes a predefined body pose for the maquette.

Values:

• Standing
• Slouching
• Running
• Arms
• Kneeling
• Sitting
• Laying
• TBD

Head direction

Describes head direction.

Values:

• [X, Y]

Expression (MAYBE?!?)

Ok. So theoretically I could past expressions on the maquettes and it would look good. The problem is that there are only about infinite number of expressions. So I prefer people just to draw the expression themselves. It's also not within the scope of the definition of a shot. So still thinking about it.

Environment Size

Describes how big the room is.

Values:

• Small (10x10*9ft)
• Medium (20x20*9ft)
• Large (40x40x20ft)
• EL (100x100x40ft)
• Outside

Environment Lighting

Describes how dark the environment is shaded.

Values:

• Light
• Medium
• Dark

What it doesn't/willn't do

This is designed to be simple. So...

• Can't pose maquettes
• Can't swap out models
• Can't manually rearrange the scene

** BUT ** I want to provide a more specialized way to do this!

The future

Currently STS will be used to create a drawing guide for shot types. However, in the future, the definition of the shot type can be used for preproduction to do a production breakdown. It can be used to define the unique shot setups in a scene and camera, lighting and subject placement diagrams for each unique setup. More to come in the future.