Never Underestimate More Input

It is very important to get input on your movie from somebody that you trust. iSundae II was finally shown on a TV screen just this past week, to the get input on what we could do to improve it before the final release.

iSundae II in “Final Tweak” Stage!

First, before we get into this article, I have to tell you the exciting news that iSundae II is almost ready to be released! As I mentioned in my introduction, we had a prescreening earlier this week, which brought to light several little things that needed to be tweaked before release. Luckily, most of these were minor and got finished up on Monday. There are just a few things left to do, and we hope to be done in early March.

Okay, you most likely have had enough of my excited ramblings. All the pre-screening of iSundae II has me stuck thinking about getting other people to give input on my movie, so that’s what I’ll write about for this week.

Collaborate on the Script

I can’t stress this one enough. Find a friend who likes to write, maybe somebody who writes better than you, and then let them at least read your script. Even better, write the script together. You may have to compromise at times, but the final script will be better than anything you could have done by yourself.

Now, when we at Phantom Moose write a script, we have a lot of shortcuts and silliness that ends up into the descriptions of events. Because of this, our scripts generally don’t make sense to “outsiders.” So if you write like us, the best thing to do is…

Storyboard for Better Understanding

A storyboard is basically a comic strip of your script. I’m hoping that our staff storyboard person (that’d be Rebekah) has a post on storyboarding in the works, because I don’t really do storyboards very well.

Anyway, once you have a storyboard, show it to somebody whose opinion you trust. Ask for their input, write down what they say, and then make changes accordingly. This is quite crucial, as you can catch confusing parts of your story at this point.

Do a Pre-Screening

Once you have the movie edited to the point that you think it’s done, get a trusted opinion person or two (or more, if you like) to watch the movie with a pad of paper. Make sure they see it on a TV screen, not your computer screen. Tell them to write down what strikes them as confusing, what effects could be improved, what dialog was too quiet, etc. You should be watching with your own pad of paper, noting things that you see, and also watching your pre-screeners’ reactions to the film.

Take their list to your collaborator and discuss it. Make changes accordingly, and then you can either call it done, or have another pre-screening, just to be extra sure.

Once you’ve done all of these steps and the movie is declared done, it’s time to celebrate. When you finish dancing and shouting, pop some popcorn, invite some friends, and have fun watching them watch your movie.