Planning Dios

[ender098]

Here's a question for those of youe who do dio stories......how do you plan them out? Do you sketch? MAke Storyboards? Doodles? Or is it all in your heads?

Heres how I usually do mine;

1.) Formulate the story. Picture the scenes in my head!

2.) Do a rough...and I mean ROUGH storyboard. If you saw it you wouldn't be able to tell what it was trying to explain!

3.) Make the sets.

4.) Take the pics.

5.) Usings CBC put together the scene. If all is good, I tear down the set and move on...If I need to retake a shot, I have the set still there.


I wanna hear what you go through in the creative process......maybe I can find a new trick to use!

[Stormer]

I'm very not the best person to contribute but I tohught I'd throw out my experience...

I've had an Epic Dio-Saga in the "planning" stages for ages, like a year and a half at least. I've got notes written, mainly to get the framework of the story down -- if I don't know the begginning, middle and end of the plotline(s) it's only going to stall or abort things down the line if I don't know where it's going. From the framework of the "what happens" I then have additional notes written of "where it happens" and "who it happens with." The Where mostly means location scouting to me since I don't have the space to build sets.

As far as I've got with it, I then take the relevant figures to where I want to shoot and basically flesh out the story as I go by setting them up at the "key moments" that will show the story progression and taking a ton of photos from different angles to see what gives the best view of the setup (rather than advance-planning the composition of each story panel). Afterwards, I'll pick the shots that tell the story with the best pacing and most interesting visuals, and write the actual script to fit them (like the Marvel Method of comics-scripting).

For the only "published" example of doing this for my Epic Dio-Saga, follow the link in my signature then go to the 3rd page of pics; there's a series of 11 photos that would have been the start of the Saga but I have to redo it due to character problems...

However, the only dio-story I've actually put up here on JoeDios basically came from me so liking the group of Joes I'd set up for a couple of standard pics, I went back out and basically played with them, making up the sequence of events as I went along. Similar things were happening when I was out shooting for the Saga above -- actually having the figures out got my imagination going more and beyond thinking of the basic mission scenario and where I wanted to end up I pretty much went with the characters and scenery to let the story happen, plus came up with more ideas for continued or supplemental storylines. I WISH I'd had a notepad with me because I was thinking of cool lines of dialogue as I went along but by the time I'd sorted through the photos and fiddled around ready to add captions I could only half-remember what I'd been thinking when "playing" with them. See my mini-story, "Skirmish," in the dioramas section/my pics history to see the result. I'd like to follow up on it one day but the area I was shooting in became overgrown REALLY quickly as spring came on. Maybe in a couple of months...!

In future I'll probably take this more "freehand" approach to story progression, but I'll definitely be taking notes as I go so that I basically end up with a scripted story-board to work to when it comes to sorting/editing the photos into actual story panels.

[ToneGunsRevisited]

I think my sequence is almost same as yours Frank, but a little more simple.

1.) Formulate the story. Picture the scenes in my head!

2.) Make the sets.

3.) Take the pics.

4.) Usings CBC put together the scene.

[General Scarlett]

Flint and I don't use Photoshop or CBC or any of the other 'tools' that some of you do......we just do it all the old fashioned way.

We will get together/email-or both thoughts for storylines. If we're sitting together, I'll have the notepad and write the storyline out. We incorporate the characters, settings and general plot of the storyline.
But you have to remember, in our case, we've been together for over 30 years-and spent the last 25 years of these figures developing our current roster/setup/Joeverse as it is today. Of course that's not to say that we don't switch things up that we've had in place for years-we do!!! That's the beauty of us having each other......double the imagination potential!!!

We know that I have a yard that is amazing for just about any scenario of shots, so we'll scout the yard and visualize the set up for the pics. Then we grab the stuff and 'get down in the dirt'!! If we're at his place, we'll usually set up for some inside shots-but we have gone outside to take pics (as showcased recently in the 'TBP' series)

We're currently in the midst of a big storyline that involves G.I. Jane-the first pic of the story is my recent 'You worry too much...' shot-so stay tuned for that one!!

;) :cool: :D

[Urban Saboteur]

I form the idea in my mind and brainstorm potential characters involved. Then I Usually go through the base of the story with bulletin marks on a notepad. Highlighting the key area's of interest.. if there are to be any twists or highlight certain close up or distance/different angles/shots.

Once i've got that sorted I pick out the cast and put them in the dio box (I always have a box for each dio i'm doing) I then begin taking pictures. Usually 6-10 of the same scene. Then work my way through them and label them on cpu in correspondence to the scenes on the notepad.

At this stage i can then see the story begin to transform from notepad to actual cpu pictures. The thoughts or dialogue has already been sketched out so my main focus is on how cool the pictures will look.
Once i am happy with each picture I've done for the scenes i then copy it all together into the same folder on my cpu and use photoplus to put in the dialogue onto the pictures and once done publish it to the net. :cool:
Rich

[lehsreh]

[COLOR=Red]myself i start with a detailed idea in my head. this has the characters, both good, bad and whatever. i have the idea of the plot and how i want it to end and any big moments or just lil sayings that i think are cool. then i set down and write the whole story, this is what happens in each pic and what each character says or thinks. i do this because i did my own comics for years and this is how it is done. i have 5 written so far, almost finished with my first. also, if it matters to anyone i asked general hawk and he also does the entire script, he is in my opinion the one who sat the bar for dios. i take 6 to 10 pics of each scene, then like urban saboteur i pic which pic i will use and which i can delete. i was using a trial version of CBC but because i couldnt publish it i had to go and take pics of my pics on CBC, they became blurry so then i had to do the whole pic over on photoshop. gotta give a thanx to self modifier for the how to do balloons on photoshop. i have like 75% done so i should be able to complete it in a week or 2.[/COLOR]

[Self-Modifier]

I can't do scripts... I've tried it before, and it just doesn't work for me. I need to use a more freeform approach, so this is what I do:

First, I start with a basic idea for the story. Often, I come up with what I think will be a really cool scene, then build the story to lead up to it. (this is the case for the upcoming third segment of my Joe/TF trilogy). I write down an outline sketching a very broad description of what happens in each scene, then it's time to start taking pictures.

I'll gather the characters and vehicles I need, and if I really have to, I'll create a set (but I prefer to use existing ones like Joe HQ or other playsets I can find). I take the pictures of the characters in multiple poses from multiple angles.

Next I put it all into Photoshop, and this is where I actually come up with the script. I write the dialogue for each panel as I go along, then go back and re-read it all together to make sure it flows smoothly, and to make sure that whenever someone's saying something, I can hear their cartoon voice in my head.

Finally, I put all the panels together onto one page and save the file, then it's ready to upload onto Joedios!