I had a go at shape creation with acrylics and palette knives, inspired by the earlier paintings.I was already narrowing down a colour palette,

but not much in the way of form.

Initial Tests:

These further tests came out a little better, with more forms being explored.

I really like this little skyline isolated from the

picture above. It has a good range of shapes and heights

of buildings, and feels realistic.

I tried some similar techniques in Photoshop, but they did not yield good

results. I kept my colour palette, however, of greyscale, with varying blues and an

occasional red.

The pencil sketch below was much more successful for creating an interesting

range of shapes for a skyline.

For the team HQ, I wanted the interior environments to have a soft,

organic, natural feel, with a calm palette, and nice textures. I didn’t want the futuristic,

technology-heavy place to be completely disconnected from the

natural world, so was keen to include plant life. To incorporate this, I

started looking into hydroponics, an efficient agricultural system which has applications for space travel.I developed a couple of concepts for hydroponic pods or

rooms within the HQ – they were originally going to be part of the narrative, but were quickly removed as they

were unnecessary.

To further inspire my soft but still modern interiors, I looked to new Scandinavian architecture, because I knew

they had some similar stuff going on that I liked. The buildings are mostly large simple geometric shapes put

together, with few architectural flairs. They are simplistic and open,

with bold but restricted colours, and embrace natural sustainable

materials.

A sketch of a skyline. Inspired by comics artist Kenneth Rocafort I tried finelining the buildings and adding colour with

watercolours. This extract on the left was the most

successful part of the image.

Below are brief colour sketches of the team’s HQ

Quick concepts for the HQ

My experimentation with ‘dawn-coloured’ clouds on the HQ sketch had given me an idea for the city’s colour scheme. At night I wanted high

contrast greyscale with glowing blue lights. In the day I wanted bright pale skies, and pink and gold

clouds. It would highlight the high-tech and ‘alien’ aspects of the setting particularly well.

Expanding on my idea of the nighttime colours, I wanted my

team to do their mission at night. This

make more sense genre-wise for being

covert. They would be

traveling by small jet, or similar stealth aircraft, so I planned

to use neon light trails – this would

convey spatial movement whilst

saving animating a passing city.

I took some photographs of harbour lights with my camera on aperture-priority,

whilst moving it around.

This created a range of light trails.The large one to the left is the most similar to the effect I was trying to

achieve.

The tests produced much better material

than I was expecting, and I am considering using a similar technique for

lighting ‘the evil lair’. It has a nice nod to sci-fi, with the gloss of a spy

film.

Narrative development:Team have been sent [by their superiors in the organisation] to

infiltrate this building and retrieve something. They get in, do the job, and get back to their ‘plane’. When

they are debriefed on their way to give the item to their superiors, however, they realise they took the wrong one.Without telling their superiors, they divert back to do the

mission over, and get it right, but it is nowhere near as easy as the first time.

This idea can work, if the setup is kept concise, and the audience connect to the characters. They need to be able to sympathise with them when everything starts going wrong, but these situations also

need to be humourous. I already foresee problems creating enough of a scenario for a whole team within the time frame we are allowed, and with animating so

many characters well. Under advisement, I decided it would be better to have a lone agent only. I am keeping the scenario for now,

however, as I believe it has comedic potential.

Draft:

Establishing shot sweeps across sci-fi city. We see the plane - close up of parts of agent on plane – adjusts cuffs, straightens suit. Long to mid shot of

targeted tower – party is visible through the large windows. Agent drops from plane onto tower’s balcony – we do not see their face; plane does not

hesitate in its continued motion. Agent enters stealthily. Focus on agent descending stairs into party. Steals pass card from security guard, takes some champagne, carefully heads off without being noticed. Enters corridor via pass key – sound cuts out completely, then changes to something more foreboding. Camera switches to low Dutch angle; colours

change from warm oranges and golds to dark cold greys and blues. Disables laser system with wrist computer, avoids alarmed tripwires, etc.

enters ‘vault’. Takes ‘box’. Slips out while systems are still down. Is picked up by spyplane. In holographic debrief it is shown the wrong item was

taken, but the agent hides it and confirms the mission was a success. After signing off, the agent sags in frustration, and from a long shot we see the

plane make a u-turn.

This first section should be heavy on dramatic camera angles and slick editing. The second section should be filmed flatter for a more comedic

visualisation.

I was considering various other things that could go wrong, but I find the more I try to list or board them the weaker and less

interesting they sound. I will continue with visual development and hope to be inspired.

Agent does plane drop again – falls onto wrong balcony? Has to climb over to right one? Falls into a fountain on the correct balcony?

Slips inside and descends stairs again, taking another glass of champagne. The pass card does not work as they suspended the

alarm system, so they pour the champagne over the lock instead. It shorts out and they dart inside before they can be noticed. They

locate and take the right item, but as they are leaving the security system boots up again. They trip the lasers and the alarm goes off.

A sketchy first concept of the party – I want the colours to be rich and

golden, to contrast with the colder minimalism of ‘the

vault’ area.

Designs for the other party guests

would be a wonderful way to reinforce the sci-fi

elements of the film. I researched into high fashion

and concept designs, and had

many ideas.

Their designs would be

luxurious and extravagant,

leaning towards avant garde.

The red dress below inspired my designs for

my agent’s disguise

I looked at tactical gear, both real-

world and imagined, as well

as haute couture to find inspiration for

my agent’s clothing.

Initial suit sketches:

Ideas for wrist computer:

I tried a few helmet designs, but they were rather too bulky.

Instead I played with the idea of a small visor with a

holographically projected visor, which would be able to relay

visuals or scan areas without the need of the wrist computer.

Unfortunately it did not stay for the final designs, as I had

nowhere in the narrative to utilise it.

This image below gave me an idea for transforming clothes

– perhaps the agent’s suit could project disguises?

Further inspiration for her disguise:

It must enable her to fit in at the party, but as it is a

projected image, should conform slightly to her suit’s design. Her signature colours will be red and gold, to help

her stand out in the scene, so easy for the audience to

locate.

Final design tested in read and blue. Will stick with red.

In line with industry practices, I have started

using more obvious directional arrows in my

storyboards. I have noticed other people can read them more clearly

now.

More attempts at framing the plane drop. I wanted

this scene to be a dramatic mysterious opener, but I

can’t get it to do anything I want it to.

As I was struggling so much with my

angles and storyboarding, I

decided to retroboard a scene from Guy Ritchie’s

2015 ‘The Man From UNCLE’.

It was useful to see how a professional filmmaker constructed shots, and

the most useful part was finding a good example

of a close-up to motivate a camera angle change. I was a little overwhelmed

by the amount of camera movement, though, and this is something I must

research further and learn to use if I wish to pursue storyboarding.

Quick pose studies

Breakdown of the action involved in stealing the security pass

Body types – I will aim for a cross between the gymnastic red and the well-built green to show the athleticism of the agent – well-trained and

in good condition.

Pose Sheet 01:

Following these I took some reference photos of actions specific to the scenes to draw from, and also filmed some of the motions for full motion

studies.

Tower interior:

Concepts for the exterior of the tower, and one I really like of the final corridor, with the guards

outside the door.

Items from the interior –

I particularly like the pink pouffe and the orange

chair.

Pose tests and partial floor plan for advancing narrative:

Storyboard Planning:

There were many errors in this board, including some bad cinematographic choices which I would improve in the next version. The

main issue was the narrative. The cat idea didn’t really work – it changed the tone of the overall piece too much, and slowed the whole

story down.

Revised storyboard plans:

Final storyboard:

I am fairly pleased with this storyboard. It contains industry standard features, such as extended panels for camera pans,

and directional arrows.I still have a way to go in terms of storyboarding art, though. My frames do not always read clearly, and I am still unsure of how to convey certain camera movements. This is something I

will research further.

Preproduction is a phenomenally important part of the industry. Sorting design choices like characters, costumes, and environments reduce cost and confusion, and ferry the creative process forward. Storyboards are now widely used

in film as well as animation. They allow directors and cinematographers to understand their camera angles and

directional choices before spending large amounts of money setting up a film set. Storyboards are particularly useful in productions with large amounts of visual effects, as these are very costly to produce, and need to be well planned to

avoid unnecessary expenditure.

Preproduction allows the majority of creative decisions to be almost finalised before the more expensive procedure of making the media begins. It informs production schedules so time and

money can be best allocated, and helps to form a cohesive production, as all departments are more informed as to their

proposed end product, and their contribution towards it.Industry’s main concerns are conserving time, effort and money, as film making takes large amounts of all. Preproduction helps

them minimise all these costs.