The Importance of Previsualization To Creating The Best Cinematic Sequences

Beauty In The Eye Of The Beholder

While storyboards are still alive and well, the role of previsualization shots seems to be growing in importance as advances in rapid visualization tools have become available. In this cases images age rendered in nearly real time and this has become a great advantage in helping to produce some of the stunning sequences that we see in movies from science fiction to action films that are produced by the big studios.

These images help to establish best the opportunity to capture dramatic and impactful shots. Because of the speed that they can be rendered it allows for almost instant comparisons for things like the angle of the sun, the cloud coverage, or even the silhouettes of the scenes themselves.

Material Difference

Sometimes a model in a digital set will have a material that looks great from one angle but when looked at from another side of the building proves out to be sorely lacking. Perhaps not enough reflection in the glass of a building or even too much. These things help to make a scene more believable and without this process we can be instantly taken out our immersive experience of a production because something looks out of place or very fake.

Cost Efficiency

I am currently working on production of two very different scenes for the same production company. Using pre visualization helps prevent costly rework before tons of details are put into a scene. Not only does it take a long time to detail a scene it can take even longer to move all of them around should the director suddenly get an inspiration to move the building 3 feet to the left.

Major Changes

Originally the script called just for a rundown military keep. So I set about building a set that matched the description given to me by the art director. Two days later he called to say that now there was going to be a whole village that surrounds the castle. And that instead of a rocky coast they now want docks put in and structural seawalls in the scene. This is a pretty major change that I am still working on but just to make sure that I was getting the look of the marina the way that they were looking for I used my quick rendering abilities to send progress shots.

Frankly, I like the image with the rocky coastline better but that part is not up to me. At least I did not have to spend hours of rendering time only to find out that I had to revise it so aggressively. So hopefully by now you can see that having the ability to quickly make changes and see what they look like can have a major impact on the final results that we see on our TV or in the theater.