'Nailing' Thumbnailing

I cant wait to nail the final story. Things are bad at the moment. After continuing with the flash timing test this week it became clear the story wasnt working. It lacked pace, rythm and appeal, and so unfortunately we had to cease production and go back to the thumbnailing stage.

Alec, Grigsby and myself have spent a tremendous amount of time the last few days downstairs in the old BA area reworking the story. On the whole it was ok, but the beginning didnt allow the audience to breathe and absorb the calmness of the room. It started with fast cutting and too much action - this was not good. To resolve this, we added a couple more establishing shots, and extended the duration of exisiting frames. The beginning now has a much more subtle, calm before the storm feel - perfect.

The Jed reveal shot was lovely, it really was. A nice big pan up the character, from polisher to face. HOWEVER - it had zero personality! There was no build up, anitcipation, excitment, funky freshness. It was a camera on a pivot, revealing him immediately - Nah mate. We reworked that whole section and have settled upon something alot more creative. I must hand it to Grigs because the new version was his idea, and he had been saying we needed it from the beginning. Jed is now introduced using a clever arrangment of cuts, to show hands clicking, feet tapping, polisher revving, headphones beating, bum shaking - all of which will be timed to a beat. Alec suggested I take a look at the Madagascar 2 trailer, in which they reveal the characters in this very same way....





The two following gags - the mirror and bed scoot were actually working quite well, so we left well alone tweaking only timing.

After the aerial shot however, things went pear shaped - bigtime. We had no idea where to go next - how does Jed get to his final pose? How do we build pace? do we slap in a moonwalk? do we slap in a monatge? does he scream more? or does he die more? whats Jed doing? Arghhhh! The questions were endless, and could only be answered through hard work and choreographing. We stayed to late thrsday and friday, working into the night, trying our hardest to solve the issue. We knew how the story ended, with the machine coming back to life, Jed leaving, and Ed reviving, yet we still hadnt even thumbnailed it.

To coclude, we still havent progressed much further than the aerial shot. We left on friday having thumbed out a really nice scream section - Ed inhales, screams, the camera zooms out to reveal Jed doing soemthing stupid, zooms back, repeat twice. After the 3rd scream we attempted a fast montage but it just didnt feel the right time for it. We alos thumbed out some of the ending, after Ed dies which wasnt difficult thankfully!

Considering Pixar took 3 of the 5 years it took to make UP just getting story right, I think we're right to be spending this long.