There is more to putting together a film or short story than visuals and the . The layout and the details have a grand effect on how the entire production is able to function. Sometimes, when we get caught up in the creative pieces of the story, narrative, and visual aspects, we forget about the more logistical pieces that may not be as enjoyable or entertaining. It's important to plan out the plot and the job functions so there is an organized system for everyone in the group as well as fleshed out ideas that can be built on for production purposes.
For our group, we had previously focused on the creative sides of building characters and beat-boards, but this week we made it out priority to flesh out our acts and true norths for each of our stories. We also figured out who is going to do what for our story boards and divvying up the work. Our group made a general template for our storyboarding and I tested out the photoshop timeline feature, recommended by the professor.
I made sure to finish the beat-board that was assigned to me, that I had mentioned in my previous post, and went over the logistics and details with my team. I had debated about certain parts of the piece, but my team and I talked it over to solidify specifics and plot points that fit in with the image and the story.
After talking over and confirming the artistic details, my group and I used this piece in the procedural side of things, coming up with various options when it came to story and plot to factor in ideas sparked by the artwork I had finished.
Once the acts were finalized enough to move on to storyboards, with the flexibility to change if new ideas arose or the creative process went through iterations, we put together a spreadsheet so we could assign everyone roles on what to do. Although, it's not the most enjoyable part of the process, making organizational documentation to take care of functionality and accountability is crucial for working in a group. This has already helped in keeping track on whose doing what and stopping people from repeating work that's already been done, in order to focus on what still needs to be finished.
Pre-production is seen mostly as a creative process, but there is a lot of logistical details that need to be planned out in order for the story and process to run smoothly. Visuals are the main feature of visual story telling (obviously), but the backbone is the story, narrative, and plot which are needed in order to create meaning and depth in what's being shown in each of the creative pieces.