Hollywood Squares Zoom Background

[Tina Popielarczyk]

Itcan be difficult to pay attention to everything going on in a zoom meeting. A co-host can be assigned to listen for distracting background noises and mute the offender. Also they can be watching for people who are trying to speak and need to be UNmuted. They can also kick people out of the meeting if necessary.

If you have more than 20 people, consider having multiple co-hosts, one co-host who listens as mentioned above, and one who watches the chat and makes sure that everyone who posts a question in chat, gets a response.

There's an awful lot of information regarding storyboarding that needs to be understood if you want to become a storyboard artist on any type of production, whether it's just for yourself, a school project, a freelance job, a short film, a television show, commercial, music video, or a feature film. My intention here is not to try to put everything onto one page. I'm going to spread it out a bit and try to cover as much as I can. This may also sound like a "cop-out statement", but the best way to learn how to storyboard is to actually do a storyboard... lots of them. This is not to say that I'm not going to show you examples... I will. Along the way, I'll show you a few techniques that will help you get motivated to actually get some done. I had a course when I went to college called "Visual Language". It wasn't about storyboarding but rather how we interpret visual input through our eyes in everything we look at. This visual input is a language all it's own. Like any other way of learning a language we need to start with the basic building blocks. Storyboards present the visual image of what the viewer will be looking at on screen, whether it's a television set, a movie theater screen or a computer monitor. These are shown in a format called a "storyboard panel". A storyboard panel is a rectangular shaped box on a piece of paper. The dimensions of this box are usually around 4" wide x 3" high for television. There are usually 3 panels to an 8 1/2" x 11" page. The size and shape of the panel can vary depending on what is called the "aspect ratio". This is the size of the width to the height. The television aspect ratio is 1:1.33 - 1 units high by 1.33 units wide (also known as 3:4). Standard Widescreen is 1:1.85, 70mm film is 1:2.2, and Anamorphic Wide screen in 35mm Panavision is 1:2.35. A storyboard artist usually works with a set of pre-printed storyboard pages such as the ones shown here The storyboard artist draws the image in the box and then fills in the appropriate information in the other boxes on the page. Each image area represents what will eventually be shown on the screen. Therefore the storyboard artist needs to keep the information clear and understandable to the viewer at all times. Shots/Scenes

The storyboard artist illustrates the point of view that the audience will be looking at throughout the entire movie. They do this through a series of "shots" or "scenes". Think of a shot this way: through your eyes you are looking at something. At this very moment it's these words on this internet page on your computer. If you pause for just a moment as you keep reading this, notice what is within your "field of vision". That's all the stuff you can see right now through your eyes, without moving your head around. Now turn your head and look behind you. What do you see now? As you turned your head, I'll bet you closed your eyes for a moment, maybe just a blink as you physically moved your head. When you opened your eyes again, you were looking at a different area than you were when you were looking at the comuter screen. In storyboarding and filmmaking in general, this would be considered a new "shot" or "scene". The moment that you closed your eyes would be called a "cut". In real life, when we close our eyes to blink we see black. In film, they take out the black and have one scene instantaneously move to the next one. I'm sure you've seen "the making of..." on a DVD where they show the director at the beginning of the scene call out "...and ACTION!", then when the scene is done, the director will call out "...and CUT!" The statement "action" means 'begin', and "cut" means 'end'. Later when the film is processed, the editor will cut out the unnecessary film at the beginning where the director says, "action" and then cut the end off where the director says, "cut". They will then splice this scene to the end of the previous scene and then splice on the next scene. The moment when one scene ends and the next one begins is called a cut. Any time you are looking at something from a new point of view, you have a new scene. It's up to the storyboard artist to choose the shots that will be used from the beginning to the end of the film. The type of shot used will dictate where you, the viewer are within the movie, and how you perceive what is going on. Good shot selection can make a movie very interesting or it can make it very boring. It all depends on what you want the viewer to see and feel. Let's go through some of the basic shot selections that you have available to you. Types of Shots

Here's a listing of some of the different types of shots that you have available in your "storyboarding tool kit":

Camera Angles

A "camera angle" usually refers to the placement of the camera relative to the subject that it is photographing. If you think of yourself as physically holding the camera, ask yourself where you are... are you near the subject or far away from them? Are you standing at their height or are you up high looking down on them? Or are you below them looking up?

Extreme long shot

The camera is positioned a good distance away from the subject. This shot is used more for the purpose of showing the environment that the character is in and their relationship to it. Usually used as an "establishing shot" as well to introduce the audience to a new location and the character's relationship or placement within it.

Long shot

This is closer to the character and shows the entire character with some space both above their head and below their feet. Sometimes called a "full body shot" as well.

Medium shot

This shot cuts the character off between their knees and waist. Sometimes also called a "waist shot", it doesn't actually have to show the character from the waist up, it could show the character from the waist down if necessary, but is not limited to just showing half of a character. It simply means that you are closer to the subject than you would be in the long shot. I should also mention here that there are shots half way between each of these as well. Between the medium shot and long shot is a "medium long shot" which would cut the characters off around their knees as in the two examples below.

This second example is sort of a weird combination of a "long shot", "medium shot" and a "medium long shot" in that Sherluck Homes is shown full body which is the definition of a long shot, while the character holding him is shown from the knees up which is a medium long shot and the character on the left, Professor Morethanartie, is shown from the waist up, which is a medium shot. You could just pick one and call it a medium long shot.

Close up

There's the famous line, "I'm ready for my close up Mr. Demille". This shot is usually of a character from their shoulders up. Again it's not limited to just the head as in the example below, showing the character's hand.

This would be called a "close-up head shot":

Extreme close up

The extreme close up moves in on the subject even tighter, usually highlighting something specific, like in this case, the character's eyes.

Up shot

This is where you tilt the camera so that it is looking up. It can also be used in combination with any of the above shots.

This would be a "Medium up-shot".

Down shot

The exact opposite of the Up shot. The camera is tilted down towards the subject.

Low angle

A low angle shot means that the camera is still pointed towards the horizon line but is positioned lower in relation to the subject. It's like an up shot but the camera is not tilted up.

In the example shown here, the horizon line is just below the feet of the character on the right and so the camera is directed at the horizon line but from our point of view, we appear to be looking up at the stairs towards screen left.

Again, this can be combined with the other shots above.

High angle

The opposite of the Low angle shot.

Tilt (Dutch)

In this type of shot, the camera is tilted to one side or the other and held on that angle. It creates a slightly unsettling feeling that things aren't quite right. It makes you feel off balance as though you're going to fall over. This shot was used extensively in the 1960's television series, "Batman" any time we were in the villian's lair.

Pan Shots

A Pan shot is when the camera physically moves within an environment to either show that a character or subject is moving, or the audience's point of view is changing without the cut.

In the first example on the left, the camera begins looking up at the top of the chamber and follows the energy beam down to the platform below. This would involve not only the vertical movement of the camera but also a camera tilt and an up-shot at the beginning and ending with a down-shot. This is also known as a "pivot pan".

In the second example, the character begins in the bottom panel and jumps up into the air. In the middle panel, the camera rotates to follow the character as he comes down for a landing. In your mind, pretend the character is standing in front of you and you watch them as they jump up and over your head, then land behind you. How would you move your head if you were to follow them through this action?

Diagonal Pan

The camera is moving diagonally, both up or down and from one side to another.

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