I'm not much into scripting or storyboards. I may sketch a little thumbnail of what I want, then go from there. The big thing is don't try to shoot a whole Dio in one day. I tried to shoot three chapters in one day once and they came out bad. A lot of out of focus shots, a lot of shots that didn't look as good on my PC as they did on the cam's viewfinder. You want a good dio story, take your time. Make your sets and don't tear apart your sets until you have all your shots on the PC and you're satisfied with them! I tore apart my sets because it was dark and I needed to get my stuff in,and when I looked at the pics, they sucked! take your time. I learned that from Luke Ellison. He said it took him a year to shoot "The Sanguius Legacy" and the results speak for themselves!

That happens to me all the time! That little viewfinder hides all the imperfections...

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is on indefinite hiatus...

Loving this thread...!

A follow-up question, from thinking about sets - do you guys build sets that you think will be cool to have (Joe/Cobra HQ, someone's office, Dreadnok compound, etc) and then work out a story that can then incorporate them, or do you have your dio-story idea then set about building/acquiring the sets you'll need?

The first chapter of my story is mostly jungle-based (i.e. back garden) with a bit of scene-setting flashback on base (Joe HQ set, probably), but the second chapter would probably be an urban setting, which would either mean building a whole city block to then put the figures in and see where it went (which admittedly sounds like fun...!) or working out the scenes/shots in advance so I know what sets I'll need to build.

So how do you guys sort out the set/scenery/props side?

I'll speak on this but this is ONLY me.

I prefer to have a certain look to my dios. I can't stand some of the Hasbro sets. As cool as they can be and great fun for kids, I find them lacking. You've seen Speir's backgrounds for his S6 portraits? He f'n repainted the interior of that big space shuttle bay (forgot what the whole set was called). That's tight. But you look at something like the ROCC or the MCC, there's just not enough color variation for me. It looks too plastic-y. So I build all my sets.

I've even built my own interior for the ROCC cuz I didn't like what Hasbro did at all. I was supposed to have done a RHINO interior but never did. Anyway, you've seen my sets. You know how my dios are. For me to go w/ the plastics that Hasbro did, it just don't work for me. ANd being the weirdo I am, I'd build my own GI Joe HQ to scale have it make more sense. I'd love to build THE ROCK.


However, in the S6 dio, I've been using a lot of cut n paste on fotos I've done. Like using the EMP/Sci-Fi Museum and cityscapes. When I do the 3.75" dio for next year, I'll be pasting a huge aerial battle over some tropical islands.

I've never been one for set building umtil I saw some of the work done here. So you guys have be a big inspiration.

I usually don't work in anything outside of short form, so I don't do a heck of a lot of pre-planning.

Generally, i start with a very loose idea in my head, then just sit and play with my figures. I turn them around in my hands, and make mental notes of camera angles and positions i want to try.

In terms of writing though, I'll usually start with dialogue . I love stuff thats dialogue and character driven, so i try to move the plot along with that.

My usual method is to have the main points and scenes already planned out in terms of writing, then just kind of flesh out the in-between bits though a process of improvisation and refinement.

Here's a story I did years ago. This is not Joe related, but is an example of me actually building something then writting a dio story for it. See if you can figure out what was built....

Check it out (the language is a little strong) http://s130.photobucket.com/albums/...2/Under%20Fire/

That was a cool story Blowtorch. Great shots and effects. Did you build the helicopter?