"It's Alive" Leica Reel



This is the second version of the Leica reel for the film. After I had initially done the original boards, the film was picked at here and there. I did layouts for all the scenes and animated the middle section where Igor runs up the stairs and lets out the kite.

After restarting the film, I did a leica reel of the original boards and found it to be very dull. I added in a bunch of new panels and scenes to fill out the action more.

What you see here are those boards matched to the final sound track. I made several changes to the timing and sequencing of the boards in the next version which became the final production reel.
Click on the controls to view the leica reel
Revisions Made

Other changes made to the film were the opening shot where the camera moves through the forest and ends up at the castle. This was removed for two reasons: first the shot took too long to get to the castle and second, the amount of modelling involved was just too much for me at the time. There were a couple of alternative openings that were also discarded and I ended up with the upshot/truck in on the castle instead.

The first shot of the interior of the lab was also changed. By itself, it was a very impressive shot, starting up in the rafters and then panning down to the floor to show Fritz walking over to the alcove. I had done 3 different variations of the move but then realized that the previous shots were all low angle, moving into the castle. Changing the point of view to an extreme downshot seemed out of place. I decided to lower the camera down to the floor for the entire shot but it looked very boring just watching Fritz walk through. I added the table with all the bunson burners, beakers and test tubes as a strong forground element. This also gave the environment much more of a "Mad Scientist' look.

This scene took the longest to render in the end. There were 360 frames and they each took 45 minutes to render out. I was going to add lots of specularity reflections to the glass but it doubled the render time. It looked amazing but we decided not to do it to save some time.

There were a additional couple of gags added just after Fritz tells Igor to "get up to the roof." It lacked a transition from the lab to the stairs, so I added a scene of Igor hitting the wall and slumping to the ground and then extended the scene where he runs up the stairs, having him trip and fall.

The stair scene was completely remodelled because it looked boring in a confined turret. I thought to myself, "I can use the computer to turn this into a really nice shot if I just change the design of the stairs." I remodelled the stairs to be more open and added a couple of camera moves to follow Igor as he runs up.

The remainder of the changes were sequencing of scenes and two new shots added of Fritz throwing the switch and a close up of Fritz as he watches Igor lower the table.
Rough Rendered Leica Reel

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