Well friends it’s time I come clean; I’ve found a new hobby. Kind of…
Recently I’ve gotten really into Directing and Editing cosplay videos! Honestly this isn’t very surprising to me; I’ve been editing video for literal decades and my passion has always laid in story telling, but, this is the first time I’ve wanted to bring stories to life through my own lens, rather than one of scene for scene recreation (like with my Tokyo Mew Mew Recreation).
It all started a few years ago when my passion for Twilight (yes, sparkly vampire Twilight) was rekindled by the release of Midnight Sun. I had always felt that the 2008 film series had done the books kinda dirty. The books are soft and romantic where as the movie felt a bit more like an action flick with a romance subplot. All that to say I felt like I needed to take things into my own hands and create my own Twilight movie. So I started storyboarding what I thought the prologue of Twilight would look like in my eyes. A few trips to Forks and MANY filming sessions later my Twilight was finished.
From there the directing itch only grew. I began story boarding videos for Project Constellation (like our 2021 Holiday release Party! Party! Pa Pa Pa Party!) and I co-directed NicoleBee and I’s 2022 CHCC entry!
Most recently though I directed and edited Project Constellation’s Gathering Stars music video. When I tell you I’ve never been prouder of something I’ve worked on I really mean it. This MV is everything I had hoped it would be! While I’ve found that a lot of growing my skills as a Director comes down to practice and learning what types of composition I like, I’ve also realized that most of it comes down to good planning. Thankfully I’m a pro with a spreadsheet!
So here’s a look into my directing workflow! Hopefully some of these methods work for you too! And hey while you’re reading this why don’t you pop on over to Spotify and stream Gathering Stars! (;
First, we worked together as a group to come up with a concept that fit our song and narrative purposes.
In Project Constellation our characters are the literal constellations come down to earth. We wanted this music video to show their life in the star palace and their decent to earth. This concept gave me a great jumping off point to start working on a Story Board!
As I mentioned I really really love spreadsheets, so I started by creating a spreadsheet that I could jot down ideas in. As I added more and more ideas I was able to organize them into some semblance of a Shot List. I like to start with a Shot List or at the very least an outline! This helps me articulate my ideas to the group and gives a great foundation for the storyboard! Plus when it comes time to film I can print out these shot lists and use them as a check sheet to know which shots have been filmed!
Next it’s time to story board! I begin by taking the concepts from my Shot list and expanding them into full on shots. I use my iPad to sketch out a rough idea of what each shot should look like then time them to the backtrack using Premier Pro. If I want there to be an effect (such as panning, zooming, spinning, etc) I also use those effects on my Story Board! Often times I’m also acting in videos as I direct them, so having a clear story board really helps ensure that myself and my videographer have the same visuals in mind!
Once the story board is finished it’s time to film! For Gathering Stars we filmed the entire video over 3 days. It’s hard to know for sure but I think we spent 10+ hours filming for this project! While we were on set I put on my director hat and helped our videographer line up shots and described each shot to both our cast and videographer! Directing a video while also staring in the same video is honestly really hard, it can feel overwhelming to jump from “camera ready” to “problem solving” and back again, but having these documents prepared ahead of time really helps to streamline the process!
Of course it’s important to know that even the most thoroughly of planned projects might have some last minute changes! While working on Gathering Stars we had LOTS of unexpected changes! Between weather being uncooperative and certain scenes taking longer to film than we anticipated we had to make some pretty major adjustments to the storyboard, but because we were all so familiar with the general feel and plan of the video we were able to think on our toes and adjust! Sometimes it’s hard to make the call to cut a scene but it’s important to recognize when something is “good enough” and to be flexible with your plan.
Putting together all the bits and pieces of footage was actually a pretty quick process thanks to our story board! I was able to look at the storyboard and immediately know what clip needed to go there, it was an absolute life saver! I had a similar experience editing my Howl’s Moving Castle Skit! We had it edited in less than an hour because we were able to use the story board as a guide!
Directing has really been so much fun! I can’t wait to show you the next few projects I’m working on! I have a strong feeling you’ll like them! (:
Thanks always for reading and be sure to go watch Gathering Stars!
-Eli
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