Study Directing by Doodling Your Favorite Film

It’s almost the reverse form of storyboarding – take a film you like and storyboard it out shot by shot. It doesn’t matter if you can draw or not – the important thing is to  break apart films shot by shot to study how they work.

Drawing from films

Drawing from films is a ridiculously useful exercise. It’s not enough to watch films; it’s not enough to look at someone else’s drawings from films. If you want to be in story, there’s no excuse for not doing this.

The way this works: you draw tons of tiny little panels, tiny enough that you won’t be tempted to fuss about drawing details. You put on a movie – I recommend Raiders, E.T., or Jaws… but honestly if there’s some other movie you love enough to freeze frame the shit out of, do what works for you. It’s good to do this with a movie you already know by heart.

Hit play. Every time there’s a cut, you hit pause, draw the frame, and hit play til it cuts again. If there’s a pan or camera move, draw the first and last frames.

Story Shots | Read the Full Article