Month: June 2021

These are some of the boards I drew for one of the many action sequences in Godzilla – King of the Monsters. Again, these were all designed with 3-D in mind.

I learned an enormous amount in regards to visual storytelling and editing during this time when I went through the end of Star Wars, frame by frame, making a thumbnail sketch of every single shot in that film’s final action sequence. The many things I discovered as a result of the exercise helped me immensely in the creation of my Godzilla storyboards as well as later as an overall film maker.

As promised yesterday, here are some of key panels that Dave Stevens drew as storyboards for Godzilla – King of the Monsters. I did the layouts, Dave took care of the finishes. Remember, these were all designed to be shot in 3-D.

A few more of my own Godzilla boards tomorrow.

Before I get to my next movie, I thought you might like to see some of the Godzilla – King of The Monsters storyboards. All of the drawings in this first batch are by me.

Tomorrow, I’ll put up a batch of Dave Stevens storyboards for Godzilla.

After a long, long pause in this series (last Untold Tales posting: April 8, 2020), I’m back.

So what happened with the Steve Miner/Fred Dekker Godzilla movie? We had a truly great script, a smart producer-director and a killer art department, perhaps the best art department of any film since Alien.

Godzilla turned out to be the Right Project/Wrong Time. With special effects in nearly every scene, it was obviously going to be an expensive film. At that time in Hollywood, four big-budget films had just bombed Big Time, Heaven’s Gate being the most publicly prominent of the batch. Studios were suddenly (although temporarily) treating big-budget projects like they were Kryptonite. We eventually dropped the idea of shooting the movie in 3-D, knowing that would significantly reduce the budget. It didn’t seem to matter. Steve would laboriously work his way all the way up the studio food chain to the guy at each studio who could say “Yes” and greenlight the film –– but that last guy always ended up saying “No.”

Then there was the Steve Miner issue. Sure, he had directed a couple of high-grossing Friday the 13th movies — but did he have the directing chops to bring out the best of Fred Dekker’s incredible screenplay? The studios weren’t convinced he did. Subsequently in his career, Steve showed he had directing chops galore with his fine, sensitive work on The Wonder Years and dozens of other fine film and television gigs.

I’d still love to make this picture. For me, Godzilla – King of the Monsters sadly remains The One That Got Away.