4Edit First, Shoot LaterLayout

DOI: 10.4324/9781003167945-5

I believe that filmmaking…is a game you should play with all your cards, and all your dice, and whatever else you’ve got.1

Francis Ford Coppola, Director (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, The Conversation)

Photo 4.1   Layout from Toy Story (1995).

© Pixar.

Layout is the first stop in the shot-production pipeline. It is where shots are born. As Pixar produced feature films, editors began to inhabit a role that did not previously exist for them—a role demanded by a new process, a new dimension.

Storyboards have always played a part in animated filmmaking—the drawings serve as both ...

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