Wednesday, July 15, 2009

The Film Bible

Today, I decided to talk a bit about the Film Bible.

A film bible is indispensable as you would be constantly referring to it time and time again. It is basically your blue print to your film and will hold information to your film such as:

Your Script
Your Characters
Your Actors
Your Storyboards
Your Exposure sheets
etc, etc, etc

All information on the film, in one place. And yes, it will get big. This is just another tool to keep you organized while you work. A good program I found that would help supplement this is Celtx .
It's a very easy to use program with video tutorials on how to use it. Best part, it's free.

In essence, it's a script writing program to help you create professional format scripts that can be converted into other script formats available, even for comics.

I used Celtx to help me finalize my storyboard as well and print out the results after. Thus I had a nice miniature version of my storyboard for my Film Bible.

Celtx also allows for character creation and bios that are easy to print out as well. I also attached JPGs of each character which shows up on the upper right corner in the print out. So that in my bible I had a section of Character pictures, and their bios on the next page.

I didn't require voice actors but Celtx helps you keep records of your actors including contact information. Prop information is also included.

As for Exposure sheets go, I actually used a Word document to place 50 rows of grids for 8.5x11. Due to the type of film I had, I had three seperate exposure sheet sections as the second part was the only fixed set.

What's also important is to print out a whole calendar for the book. It's important to set your own deadlines and keep track of mandatory deadlines. Whether you type up your schedual first or just print it out doesn't matter as long as you have them in there.

Also important, though optional, yet recommended, is to have scrap paper. You might need it to figure things out. As long as you write what you need to write, it'll stay with the book and you won't lose it.

The book is yours. Do as you like to it and add what you like. It's their to help you keep on task. :3