Jordan Hansen’s Hugely Informative Advice on CASTING ACTORS:
At first, Jordan posted a description of the key roles on la.costing.com as well as a synopsis of his project’s plot, and almost immediately forty-seven female actresses applied for the eponymous role of Molly. Actors tend to submit voice reels to demonstrate their ranges.
He called them rather than relying on emails.
Click on “create a new project,” which will prompt you to fill out boxes regarding your thesis film.
Jordan requested permission from Mar to use the drawing room upstairs (SCB 202) for six hours to hold auditions.
Each audition was twenty minutes, and Jordan asked each actor to sign the release form during this time — it doubled as a contact sheet, too.
A copy of the SAG waiver is available on the SCA community site.
Jordan provided them with a copy of all of the .wav files that he recorded immediately so they could include it in their reels.
During the auditions, he recorded them with a Canon Rebel and had two helpers — one person to assist them with a line reading and one person to help organize notes and hand out release papers.
He sent out maps of how to access SCB and the building — in addition to posting printing signs (with production artwork) around the building.
Ahead of time, Jordan sent them sides — a snippet of the script — totaling four pages plucked from the script to give them a sample of the roles for which they’d be reading.
Even if the actor excelled in the role, Jordan gave him or her notes to see how the actor would respond in terms of directability.
Bethany ran the recording session, and Jordan ran a camera as reference footage for animation.
Tom Sito cautioned Jordan not to give actors line readings, which made the recordings progress much more smoothly.
Mike’s Colossally Charitable PREMIER TIPS:
Scan in an image that is black and white at 300 dpi
Bring it in to Photoshop to adjust the levels (accessed by pressing “Command+L” on a Mac or “Control+L” on a PC)
Save it as a .jpg (adjust the quality as needed depended on the size of the image)
Create screen-captures of each panel, which can be saved as individual frames (numbered sequentially, such as “frame_001”) to a folder on your computer.
Import these frames to your Premiere project — make sure that under Premiere’s “Preferences” tab, you’ve set it to import stills to a duration of two frames.
Create a bin (a folder) in which to place your panels (by hitting “Command+I” on a Mac or “Control+I” on a PC).
Create a new sequence — and if you’ve followed the step below, your newly customized “720 HD” setting should be listed — and place your storyboard panels inside.
Resize the panels to fill the frame (or reposition them in the frame) by unfurling the “motion” subtab in the “Effect Controls” panel to the left of the video editing monitor.
To make an editorial cut, press “C” on the keyboard, and press “V” to return to the default selection tool. You can also drag the edges of a panel to one side or the other to extend its duration.
Under the “effects” panel, search for “dissolve” or “dip to black” to experiment with cross-fades on your video tracks.
To create a rudimentary pan from left to right or a simple push-in, experiment with keyframing a motion under the “Video Effects” panel. Unfurl the motion arrow and keyframe position (for a pan) or scale (for a zoom).
If you’ve clicked the magnet icon under the yellow timecode (under where it specifies your sequence), it will snap to your editing points.
To export, click on “export,” “export media” and “match sequence settings.”
PREMIER SEQUENCE SETTINGS:
Editing Mode: Desktop
Frame Size: 1280 horizontal, 720 vertical (16:9)
Pixel Aspect Ratio: Square Pixels (1.0)
Select the Quicktime option
Click
“Save Preset…”
Save Settings
Name: 720 HD
FOR TECHNICAL ISSUES AT SCA:
If editing in SCA Post-Production (SCA B120) and a technical problem presents itself, simply approach a tech monitor at the help desk window at support. Failing that, though, email the following address.
animsupport@cinema.usc.edu
ctan 336 