Script, Storyboard & Block-Out
- Mikey Owen
- Dec 5, 2022
- 8 min read
To summarize my progress with this assignment so far; we have some wonderful research material, we have a narrative idea, we have my photogrammetry assets scene ready & a full suite of supplementary assets ready to fill out the scene. All that remains now is structuring the cinematic narrative itself, then we're ready to begin building the final environment!
In this post I'd like to write up a brief script/structure for the cinematic as an initial idea. From there I can build upon it and create a storyboard for the narrative, followed by a block-out of the scene which I can then create a previsualization from.
Script
While I have constructed a base narrative (a Sword in the Stone implication), I need to construct an actual written form of a script in order to build the storyboard from. I therefore took my ideas from how I could apply my photogrammetry assets from the previous post, and adapted it into the brief paragraph below for the opening shot:
The cinematic will open with an establishing shot with the cave entrance lidar scan asset front and center acting as the entrance to the temple. The face asset will be duplicated and placed on either side of the entrance to act as a religious symbol to mark the entrance-way. The cliff face asset will be placed adjacent to entrance, so a continuation of the same rock type will be visible across the shot. Additionally, the rock cluster assets will be placed within view, and the brick asset will also be along the path to the entrance. Additional assets from the temple ruins pack will be distributed around the scene, and the surrounding forest will be constructed from the Fantasy Forest pack. The campfire asset will be just off center with smoke slowly rising from it to indicate a human presence. A short pathway will also be placed leading to the entrance, but will mostly be covered by foliage and various rocks, both of my own creation and from the various packs, hiding the majority of it. Lastly in terms of VFX and camera effects, there will be depth of field in place to blur the forest at it's furthest visible point to keep the focus on the entrance, and a rolling fog/mist will be present throughout the scene. The camera itself will slowly zoom on the entrance to round off the opening shot.
This covers the opening shot to establish the scene and display the majority of my assets front and center. But I still require an interior shot which will display the sword in the stone asset. I've therefore written an additional paragraph below to expand on the narrative and complete the scene:
The camera will continue to move towards the entrance, eventually entering the temple itself in a continuous shot. It will follow along the cave wall asset, and will have an exposure shift during this to mimic the human eye adjusting to the darkness. I will place various rock cluster assets and foliage here to populate the scene as well, including the Cave Rock Cluster asset which the camera will pass over/through. Eventually the camera will pass through a waterfall which is cascading out of the mouth of a larger face asset that hangs above the entrance to the interior. Here the camera will blur and I will add water droplets in post production to add some dynamic value to the shot. Once in the interior, a chamber will be revealed with a small lake with an island in the center. Upon this island will be the cracked rock asset with the sword embedded within it, along with various other assets and foliage manipulated to populate the scene. There will be a few torches along the walls, as well as some clusters of fireflies, to add some dynamic lighting. But the majority of it will be from a hole in the ceiling where the sun shines through down onto the sword to frame it. The camera will move towards the sword, before circling fluidly around the chamber to show it from all angles, but maintaining the sword as the central focus. Motion blur will be added here to assist with the movement of the camera, but not so much that the assets dotted around the room will not be visible. Around the chamber will be the remainder of my photogrammetry assets, supplemented by meshes from the Temple Ruins and Ancient Temple packs, as well as foliage from the Fantasy Forest pack. The cinematic will then end with the camera moving towards the sword once again, stopping to frame it as the light reflects off it into the lens, where I will add a lens flare in post production before fading to black.
With that, the basic script for my cinematic is complete! I appreciate it's a bit wordy, but as I will be using it as a base for the construction of my storyboard and ultimately the environment itself, I wanted to ensure no details were missed.
Storyboard
It's now time to convert the written script above into a visual storyboard that I can begin to block out my scene and shots from. While my plan is to have the cinematic consist of a single flowing shot with no cuts, I appreciate that doesn't translate well into a storyboard format. I've therefore broken the script down into 4 main camera angles:
Establishing shot of the entrance.
Inside the tunnel looking through the waterfall into the chamber.
Camera facing back towards the entrance.
Final closeup shot of the sword.
From the above points; I've drawn the below storyboard panels, along with descriptions of the narrative, camera angles, movements and a general timing structure for each section:
Establishing Shot of the Entrance -
As you can see from the above panel, this gives a rough visual representation of what I envisioned when writing the initial paragraph of the script. The camera will fade in from black then slowly move towards the entrance to the temple. There will be a depth of field applied to the forest in the background to keep the viewer's attention focused on the assets. Additionally, a rolling volumetric fog/mist will be sweeping across the environment.
The yellow writing indicates asset name abbreviations. In this case we have - CE is cave entrance, F is face, RC is rock cluster, CF (bottom left) is campfire, CF (top right) is cliff face & B is brickwork. The trees at the top will be obtained from the fantasy forest pack, and the remaining structures and geometry will be from a mixture of megascan and temple ruin pack assets.
Inside the Tunnel Looking Towards the Inner Chamber -
The camera then moves into the entrance in a continuous shot and follows a winding passageway, before then slowing down as a waterfall cascades in front of it with the inner chamber of the temple visible beyond. As the camera moves through the waterfall, droplets will be added to the front of the lens in post to mimic a camera moving through 'real-life' water.
The yellow writing here indicates; CW as cave wall, CRC as cave rock cluster, RG as rocks with grass & CR as cracked rock.
Camera Facing Back Towards the Entrance -
The camera will move into the chamber following the previous panel, circling the room but maintaining the sword on the island as the center of the shot. Motion blur will be applied as the camera moves around the interior. Lighting here will be a mixture of torches around the room, fireflies and the sunlight shining through a gap in the ceiling.
The yellow writing indicates; CR as cracked rock, SR as simple rock, RC as rock cluster, P as pillar, F as face & GRH as god ray hole.
Final Closeup of the Sword -
To end the cinematic; the camera will settle and begin to slowly move towards the sword. The light reflecting off the metal of the sword will cause a lens flare to move across the camera as it fades to black to end the scene. The fireflies will also move across the view of the camera to create additional dynamic lighting.
The yellow writing in this panel indicates the following assets; SR is simple rock, CR is cracked rock, RC is rock cluster, RIC is rock in cave & P is pillar.
That brings me to the end of the storyboard phase of pre-production. I now have a clear idea of my narrative and the structure of the cinematic, so it's time to move onto the penultimate stage before building my final environment.
Scene Block-Out
I now only have one more step remaining before I can create my final environment and render the cinematic; blocking out the scene and creating a previsualization.
Using my storyboard as a foundation; I've created a new Unreal Engine 5 project and begun placing simple geometry in a fresh scene in place of my assets. With a mix of cubes, cylinders & spheres, I was able to block out a rough version of my final environment.
I've provided side-by-side comparisons of my storyboard panels and screenshots of the block-out respectively so you can see it's effectiveness:
As you can see, the most obvious change is the shift in aspect ratio. In my final cinematic, the camera shots wont appear as condensed as I originally anticipated they would be when creating my storyboard.
Additionally the wider viewer angle has left me with more empty space to fill as a result. I'll ensure that, when I swap out these simple blocks for the final assets, I'll use a variety of assets from the packs and megascans suite to fill out the scene.
For now though, I believe this block out is more than sufficient to check off the last boxes of preproduction before moving onto the final scene construction. So now I can move onto creating a previsualization.
Previsualization
With my scene accurately blocked out; I can now move onto creating a 'previz'. This will be essentially creating my final cinematic using the block out geometry in order to fully nail down the camera movements, angles and shot timings.
To accomplish this, I placed a cinematic camera actor within my blocked out unreal engine scene, and animated it to follow the path I originally envisioned when creating my storyboard. From there I took the resulting frame renders into an editing software to piece them together, and voila! I've included the previz below for your reference so we can break it down and discuss any necessary changes:
I think as a previsualization the above video has worked really well! I don't think the cinematic overstays it's welcome in terms of length, and all the camera angles and movements are exactly how I envisioned them.
Even the default lighting of Unreal Engine 5 has done a great job of framing the sword exactly how I wanted, so I'm really excited to see the final result!
It's worth noting here that of course this previz is missing the VFX I intend to add (water, torches, fireflies, mist etc), and camera effects such as depth of field. However I did select my final camera traits for this exercise: a standard 16:9 aspect ratio to accommodate the majority of displays, a 22mm focal length to ensure the cave feels cramped but it's not so restrictive that I can't still obtain wide shots and a 2.8 aperture setting (though again this will be adjusted later to assist with the depth of field and exposure changes as the camera enters the cave).
All in all, I'm feeling really confident about my final cinematic as I now move into the production phase! It's time to create a high quality sword model and replace the simple primitives of the previz with my final assets!
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