Guitar Lessons for Kids, Guitar Lessons, Learn to Play Guitar

World of Bruno

Hey gang! I thought that it might be fun to show you some stuff about how “Professor Bruno Noteworthy’s Guitar Course For Kids (and other humans)” came about.

It takes a lot of steps to make an animated feature. Lots and lots of planning and testing are involved – and things do not always come out the way you expect them to during this process. Things are tried. Some things are tossed out. A tweak here, a complete re-do there. But!!! There is a method to the madness. First they had to decide on how I should look – at least for now – and then they worked on various poses and facial expressions. That’s when I was born! Then they worked on the “set”, which is where the action takes place. Once that is somewhat settled, they storyboarded out the screenplay to get an idea of how the movie would flow. All of this stuff is lumped into something called “pre-production”. This is where you HOPE that all of the planning and all of the groundwork is laid before the “camera” starts rolling. As part of this, I had to have the beginnings of my lip-syncing worked out. Then they actually started “shooting” the film. In our films there is also live-action footage to shoot and a soundtrack for me has to be created. Then the animator takes over and puts it alllllllllll together. What frequently happens is that the final product bears little resemblance visually to what was originally dreamed up.

During the course of producing an animated video, often times the character or characters “evolve” – that is – in simple English, change. At first, I was 2-dimensional looking, then they tried a computer generated approach (what’s called “CG”). Look through the storyboards, and videos below and you will see these two styles. See if you can spot all of the differences.

What is a Storyboard?

Once a concept or script is written for a film or animation, the next step is to make a storyboard. A storyboard visually tells the story of an animation panel by panel, kind of like a comic book.

Your storyboard should convey some of the following information:

1. What characters are in the frame, and how are they moving?
2. What are the characters saying to each other, if anything?
3. How much time has passed between the last frame of the storyboard and the current one?
4. Where the "camera" is in the scene? Close or far away? Is the camera moving?

Why Make a Storyboard?

Creating a storyboard will help you plan your animation out shot by shot. You can make changes to your storyboards before you start animating, instead of changing your mind later. You will also be able to talk about your animation and show your storyboard to other people to get feedback on your ideas.

Storyboard Language

CLOSE-UP SHOT: A close range of distance between the camera and the subject.
DISSOLVE: A transition between two shots, where one shot fades away and simultaneously another shot fades in.
FADE: A transition from a shot to black where the image gradually becomes darker is a Fade Out; or from black where the image gradually becomes brighter is a Fade In.
HIGH CAMERA ANGLE: A camera angle which looks down on its subject making it look small, weak or unimportant.
JUMP CUT: A rapid, jerky transition from one frame to the next, either disrupting the flow of time or movement within a scene or making an abrupt transition from one scene to another.
LEVEL CAMERA ANGLE: A camera angle which is even with the subject; it may be used as a neutral shot.
LONG SHOT: A long range of distance between the camera and the subject, often providing a broader range of the setting.
LOW CAMERA ANGLE: A camera angle which looks up at its subject; it makes the subject seem important and powerful.
PAN: A steady, sweeping movement from one point in a scene to another.
POV (Point of View Shot): A shot which is understood to be seen from the point of view of a character within the scene.
REACTION SHOT: 1. A shot of someone looking off screen. 2. A reaction shot can also be a shot of someone in a conversation where they are not given a line of dialogue but are just listening to the other person speak.
TILT: Using a camera on a tripod, the camera moves up or down to follow the action.
ZOOM: Use of the camera lens to move closely towards the subject.

And now……the new me!

Stay tuned for more stuff here as the video rolls along toward completion. Thanks!!!