| First, a script is necessary. In general, it's mostly an ad-libbed
thing, but I like to have an idea of what is going to happen. This is
the second most difficult part. Winged Nuts might not be
side-splitting comedy, but I try to be humorous. For me, that isn't
something that just happens, so I plan far in advance. |
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| Next, story boarding. Basically, an opportunity to see what pictures
to take, angle used, etc. It helps to be able to draw, which I can't do.
Pictures are the most difficult part. I started with a nice Rico RDC-7
camera which has a variable-speed shutter for longer exposures. This
helps greatly for making the lighting work right, but gives fuzzy
pictures if I can't hold the camera still while the shutter is open.
That camera went kapootie, so I had to use my older Kodak DC-10, which
does not have that feature. The result here was darker pictures. On
top of that, the focus feature doesn't work quite as I expect it to,
giving me out-of-focus pics that I don't realize until I view them
in Paint Shop Pro. |
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| Naturally, the cast of Winged Nuts have their own lives
to pursue, so stand-ins are generally used. |
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| Occasionally accidents occur while filming. |
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| While stand-ins are great for setting up the shots and getting actors
in the right places, they don't help the cast in memorzing their lines. |
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| After pictures are taken, they're resized and touched-up in post
production to brighten them as needed. Callouts (the dialogue
balloons) are added and text entered. Originally I drew my own
callouts, but discovered much to my chagrin that PSP has a built-in
callout object that I can just plunk down as needed. |
| The pictures are reviewed one more time, then uploaded to the
web server. A skeleton HTML file is tailored for that specific
episode, and reviewed. Once it passes, the main page is updated. |