Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1542693
WSQK "The Squawk" 94.5 FM In the mid-to-late '80s, college, private and fringe radio were lifelines for kids on the margins. New bands were discovered and alternative ideas were shared across the airwaves long before the internet. Since Hawkins is under strict military control, Robin and Steve, Nancy and Jonathan, Dustin and the others set up shop to provide critical—and covert— information. Tower Climb For the scene, the radio tower needs to be repaired. Both Steve and Jonathan know they're the "man for the job." The subtext is, of course, to grab the attention of Nancy. Again, while the sequence had a lot of VFX shots to illustrate, the entire scene was boarded so the Brothers could make sure the competitiveness between Steve and Jonathan was clearly coming through. PD Chris Trujillo built a practical lower third of the tower on location. The middle and top sections were on a green screen stage, so the handoff needed to be clearly storyboarded. Each gut-dropping angle was motivated by the characters' ascent, with constant cutaways of reaction shots. The Tower Climb model changed my initial drawings considerably as it became clear where lapses in my coverage laid. This is another benefit of having a 3D set to lay everything out. After thumbnailing the scene and building the model set, I'll screengrab the shots in SketchUp, bring them into Photoshop and lay the images into frames. Roughs After the frames have been laid out, I'll quickly rough in the poses and arrows. For the tower climb, the Brothers wanted to see the roughs to make sure what they'd written could be achieved with the set they were designing. Storyboarding Once all this is laid out, roughed in and approved, it's time to ink. I use ProCreate on a 15-inch iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil and a handful of anime, manga, comic and custom brushes to bring everything to life. SKETCHUP SCENE RADIO TOWER ESTABLISHING SHOT ROUGH LAYOUT FINAL STORYBOARD WSQK SKETCHUP MODEL