Topic: How would a collaborative brick project shape up over the net?
I'd like to get into collaborativ projects some time - where I'm not doing the producing, directing, scripting, voicing, animiating, sound engineering, special effects and fetching the coffee.
I think working with one or two others can not only produce a speedier result but we can cross-skill off each other, bounce ideas, critique and keep enthusiasm up. I'm putting the finishing touches on my 6 week project and I'm looking back and going "well - that was a lonely affair - me in my dark room night after night, constantly doubting the quality of my work". How to fix?
Sure - you can say brick filming is a solo sport and like most hobbies, chiefly done by one person - but if you push the envelope, I wonder what might be. "Real" movies can't be done by one person and I think moving from a solo artist to a small team to a larger team etc is a natural progression.
I was thinking how an internet project might work:
- You would need an animator of course and this person needs to be the team lead. They'll be doing most of the work and they are limited by their own collection of blocks and they'll know the limits of their skill set. They would have the final say on the animation but not necessarily on other parts of the production.
- Script writers write ... scripts. Some people are good at this and enjoy it.
- Storyboarders. They take scripts and do storyboards. They show the storyboards to the team for input and critique and adjust accordingly.
- You could have a sound engineer for dialogue, music and special effects. They source the required sounds, time them right and get sound levels correct. Can remove hiss and add audio effects as appropriate (like adjusting a normal voice to a radio voice).
- Special effects. This person as AE or GIMP or PhotoShop or whatever and they're good at getting explosions and smoke and adjusting lighting and contrast and camera shake. They would take raw footage and apply magic.
- Voice actors/actresses of course. This would be as it is now.
Some people can do more than one role of course. The script writer might also do the storyboard for example.
I'm going to give something like this a bit more thought. A project can collaborate through email (timezones would prevent much instant messaging) and shared file repositories (drop box etc). My demo reel has only one film, so I don't feel right asking others to join me just yet, but I'll be releasing another film soon and that will let others decide if my two films demonstrate qualities people would like to associate themselves with.
I'm sure I'm not the first to think of this or try something like this. Let me know how your experiences went.