SKETCHBOOK

On this page we will explore topics having to do with the creation of our films such as this comparison of storyboard images, which I drew in preparation for “Agnes Day,” with the actual images as they were captured for the movie.

“Agnes Day” is a music video set to a composition by Samual Barber, a choral arrangement of his Addagio for Strings Opus 11 entitled “Agnes Dei,” I use a segment of the Mass because Catholicism is the culture that surrounds the characters in this story.  It depicts a young beekeeper in coming to terms with the recent loss of his twin sister.

I love to storyboard a film before I shoot it because it is almost like writing the story all over again but with strictly visual language. This image was realized beautifully by cinematographer David Schweitzer. This is the turning point of the movie. The editor Justin Geoffroy placed it in the mid-point of the story. I designed it to convey the bodily felt sense of loss that the young boy Neil was experiencing about his twin sister’s recent death. The two were together since their conception–hence an “egg” of light surrounds them in bed where they appear to almost to grow out of each others’ bodies (in the actual movie the screen image is brighter and more obvious).

Being all of seven years old, the boy doesn’t understand adult explanations about death, eternity and the afterlife. All he knows is he feels like she’s still there, wherever he goes, similar to the way an amputee will feel the presence of a lost limb long after it has been severed from their body. This strong sense of her presence assists him in making the adjustment that we witness in the second half of the story.