Phillip Retuta's Blog

The Life and Times of a Filipino-American

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Storyboard: The Ringworm 2.

PREMISE: Paige’s friend watched this really creepy videotape, and throughout the week he experienced countless bizarre events all relating to dogs.

I shot the intro shots and voiceovers, so I’m not posting those storyboards here. Still, I’ll need a male actor for the following:

SCENE #1: Man walks up to the camera (as if approaching a television), holding the cursed tape in his hand.

SCENE #2: Closeup shot of man’s hand inserting the cursed tape into a VCR (movement is sloppy and amateurish, the VCR itself is made of cardboard and looks very DIY).

SCENE #3: 15-second clip of original Ringworm video, overlaid onto a TV (After Effects).

SCENE #4: Flashback montage, with Paige’s voiceover. Change Location — Scene with man doing something in the kitchen, like cooking or washing dishes. A rawhide bone hits him in the head (this could be green-screened).

SCENE #5: Man crouches down to pick up whatever hit him on the head.

SCENE #6: Tight, close shot. Man picks up the rawhide.

SCENE #7: Change Location — Outdoor scene. Medium or wide shot. Man is walking on the street.

SCENE #8: Closeup side shot of his shoe stepping onto a piece of poop (fake).

SCENE #9: SFX of “Squish.” Man has initial look of disgust as he inspects his shoe, but as he looks up his facial expression is of horror (due to Scene #10).

SCENE #10: Camera pans out, revealing that the entire sidewalk is dotted with dog poop.

SCENE #11: Change Location — Bathroom. Man walks towards medicine cabinet on wall.

SCENE #12: Same angle as scene #11. Man opens cabinet and dog food kibbles immediate spill out (practical effects).

SCENE #13: Different angle. Closeup shot of hand. Man picks up kibble in front of medicine cabinet.

SCENE #14: Different angle (make sure camera isn’t seen in mirror). Man closes mirrored medicine cabinet, revealing he is wearing a spiked dog collar around his neck. He looks shocked, holds the collar with both hands, and wonders how it got there.

SCENE #15:Change Location — Living Room. Man is reading a book in front of the TV. Suddenly, he hears the TV turn on. He is surprised.

SCENE #16: Nico comes out of the television! All visual FX!

SCENE #17: Zoom into man’s face. His expression is of fear and horror, as if Nico rushes him!

SCENE #18: Flashforward back to office. Paige is holding a cursed tape, wearing the spiked collar.

 

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Storyboard: “Sonic Bark.”

PREMISE: Although she’s confined to a cone, Nico Doggerton quickly learns she can amplify her bark into a destructive — but beneficial — force!

SCENE #1: Closeup shot. Nico on the floor, looking bummed in her cone. She gets up.

SCENE #2: Wide shot. Nico walks up to a person.

SCENE #3: Tighter shot. Nico sits down in front of person. Person crouches down to Nico’s eye-level to talk to her.

SCENE #4: From Nico’s perspective. Person asks Nico, “I wonder if that cone makes your bark louder?”

SCENE #5: Closeup shot of Nico, smiling with a dumb expression on her face.

SCENE #6: Wide shot, VFX heavy. Nico barks and a blast of sound waves pushes the person back and out of frame. Possible green screen of human stunt.

SCENE #7: Quick take; Nico’s sight catches a glimpse of treats (use treats to turn her head quickly). Pay attention to eyes.

SCENE #8: Zoom onto shelf containing a bag of treats.

SCENE #9: Closeup shot of Nico. AFX of a lightbulb to indicate she has an idea.

SCENE #10: Closeup front shot of Nico. Use VFX to have sound waves emanate from the cone. Get Nico to actually bark.

SCENE #11: Bag of treats explodes/falls off shelf. Use VFX for sound waves. Maybe toss ten or so treats. Maybe green screen.

SCENE #12: Nico eats treats off floor.

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Experimenting with Lighting.

It’s my goal to always strive for interesting and therefore better work, so I’m trying to teach myself basic lighting techniques. In other words, I decided to step up both my photography and videography skills by playing with light in ways I haven’t done before (you can thank the editors and cinematographers at Corridor). I figured that:

  1. It’d make me a better designer/artist/art director.
  2. I can create better content for both my personal Instagram and Nico’s account.

Naturally, none of this came cheap: I bought an LED panel mount to better light my videos, a reflector, and a barn door with a variety of colored gel filters to try out different cinematic effects in my photography. I even found a good tutorial online that demonstrates where lights should be placed in order to get a particular look. It helped that I Googled “edge light” and how light can bounce off parts of a face or object, though most of the tutorials were subsequently implemented on portraits of my pet.

All in all, I’m very satisfied with the results thus far, and it’s easier to light a subject than I first imagined (it beats editing lights and effects in Photoshop or post-production). If only set up and clean up of the equipment — lights, filters, backdrops, and stands — wasn’t so cumbersome, but that’s just me being goddamned lazy.

Ultimately, it’s my goal to start using these techniques on human portraiture rather than my fucking dog. I still have a hell of a lot to learn, but you can see what I did here:

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Pipilotti Rist Retrospective, “Pixel Forest,” at The New Museum.

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After work, I met up with Monica to attend Pipilotti Rist’s “Pixel Forest” at The New Museum. I’ve seen a few NYC-based articles on her retrospective, and I’d figure it’d be worth to check it out.

Also, I did not know Beyonce totally ripped off the video for “Hold Up” from Rist’s 1997 work of “Ever is Over All”. Check out the video below: