story pad: a film-maker's sketch book

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StoryPad:

A Storyboard Sketchpad for Film-makers

So you’ve decided to shoot a video. You’ve got a basic idea, a bucket-load of enthusiasm and a

handful of friends champing at the bit to help out. But if you’re like most novice film-makers, you’ve

put a lot more thought into what you’re going to do with your masterpiece after it’s made than you

have into exactly how you’re going to film it. What camera angles are you going to shoot for Scene

5? Do you need to capture any background audio in your awesome train station scene? Which actor

friends do you have to assemble for the big reveal scene at the end?

These are the kinds of questions that are easy to answer, but just as easy to overlook and they can

cause all kinds of headaches and delays when you do.

This StoryPad is designed as a quick way to plan out your project without getting you bogged down

in a bunch of details. Use the parts you want, and disregard the stuff that doesn’t matter to you.

It’s also designed in a compact size so that you can carry it around with you, even when you’re not

working on a project. When an idea strikes you, or you suddengly find yourself cooling your jets with

time to kill, why not pull out your StoryPad and dash off a quick scene ideas or flesh out that idea

you’ve been toying with for months?

If I’ve done my job right, you’ll find your bad director-self better prepared, more effective and more

creatively energized. Just because you’ve got this book in your pocket.

Now, yell ”Action!” and let’s get down to business.

Jeff Smith

August 9, 2009

Assembly Instructions

1. Print Pages

This document is set up to print 4 pages of StoryPad on a single sheet of U.S. letter paper, using duplex

double-sided printing mode. When you print the entire document, you will end up with 25 sheets of

paper containing this page plus 99 scene sketch pages.

Note: The black cover page is provided primarily to give the PDF file a nice look, but you can print

it if you want to. If you do, you should probably print it on stiff card stock so it will be strong enough

to protect the inner pages. Duplex printing should begin with the first page of text — not with the

cover.

2. Chop Pages

Using a paper guillotine, cut all the printed pages in half, giving you 50 pages measuring 41

4”x5 1

2”. The

page you are reading now is page 1. Organize all the other pages so that the side with the little circles

is facing up and the circles are on the left edge of the page.

3. Hole-Punch Pages

Those circles are guide marks for a hole punch. With the small page size, we find that a hand-held,

single-hole punch works best. Just punch the holes where the circles are. Use one of the pages as a

guide for punching holes in your covers to ensure that the cover holes line up with all the others.

4. Bind Pages

With all your pages punched and stacked in order, place a cover on the front and back of the stack,

lining up all the punched holes. You can bind your book loosely by using loose binding rings, available

at any stationery store, or you can get a tight binding by looping a cable tie through each hole and

pulling snugly. And don’t forget to smooth off the ends of the cable ties if you cut them. They make

excellent skin slicers if you don’t.

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story pad: a film-maker's sketch book

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