Cinemek completed development of Hitchcock, an iPhone/iPod Touch application. We caught up with Cinemek founder and CEO, Jonathan Houser at Cine Gear. He said, “I found myself continually encouraging my film students to storyboard their projects, knowing how critical it is to producing good work.”

Houser looked for a way to do storyboards without added costs, and loss of time. He said, “Most of the directors I work with find storyboarding too tedious, so they forgo it altogether. This makes it tough to shoot on a tight schedule, because so many shots are created on the fly. Working like this might seem more creative or spontaneous, but it really leads to a lot of headaches and miscommunication.”

Hitchcock’s structure is based on standard storyboarding techniques.

You begin by taking a picture on your iPhone, then pulling it into Panelview mode, where you can add common moves: dolly, track, zoom or pan.

You can also create direction inside the frame, such as movement of a character or object.

Hitchcock extends the benefits of mobility and ease of access to filmmakers.

“As a mobile application, Hitchcock allows you to grab comp shot ideas from anywhere,” says Houser. “It happens all too often where we miss grabbing a pickup of an exterior because we didn’t properly plan.”

In addition, the application offers a Live Playback feature, which allows users to define the duration of each shot in Board View mode. This allows for real-time feedback on pacing.

Once your completed storyboard is ready to be viewed, you can then upload a PDFversion and email a link to anyone.

“I hope this application encourages storytellers of any medium to storyboard their ideas so they can be more prepared when they are on set,” Houser said.

The Cinemek crew was doing demos of Hitchcock at Cine Gear along with their G35 35mm lens adapter. Hitchcock will be available through the Apple iTunes App store.

Contact: Jonathan Houser Cinemek inc.
206-349-4307
www.cinemek.com
4020 Leary Way NW
Seattle, Washington 98107.