A story board is an planning technique that consists an array of drawings and or illustrations usually with direction and dialogue used to represent planned shots for film or television. It can include cinematography elements such as shot type, mise-en-scene, camera movement and sound.
A storyboard is very useful as it gives a sense of direction for our work. It isn’t a concrete document so when filming we used it as a basis to work from and we kept it flexible. When we were constructing our storyboard Jemma, Eleanor and I sat together to decide what to include in each cinematography element. As we decided that the majority of the trailer will have a soundtrack we kept dialogue to a minimal. We constructed the storyboard multiple times until we had a final copy where Jemma could draw the segments and Eleanor wrote in the boxes. I had input of what the drawings should include and the writing.
We had a twelve shot storyboard, these appeared in the storyboard. As Jemma is a graphics student and drawing was her strong pint it was only right for her to do the drawing.
From our preliminary task to our production we decided to go away from drawing stick figures as they did not look as professional as examples we have seen as research. Most were very detailed illustrations including key aspects of the characters.
These are examples, click to enlarge.
We decided to free draw rather than use a computer programme as it gave us more freedom of drawing and it saved time as we didn’t need to learn how to use any new technologies.
The picture above is our story board shots 1-3 where we have an establishing shot of the theatre, the group then enter the theatre and there is a shot of them walking up the stairs to go for the welcome chat with Pat the organiser of the charity event at the kings theatre.
This picture is of our storyboard shots 4-6 where Pat talks to the group and explains the day and the rules. The group go to do the work and they come across the mysterious box. Then the curse from opening the box comes into play and Olivia gets lost.
This picture shows out storyboard shots 7-9 where Olivia is lost and Rory/Romeo decides to poison himself over the death of his love Olivia then it goes to a shot of Rory drinking the poison.
This picture shows our storyboard shots 10-12 where posses Brian/Brutus tries to kill Beth/MacBeth, Brian then tries to get Beth after trapping her it then ends by revealing their doom and the doors then fling open.
Our storyboard now resembles a real life product as it is detailed with cinematographic techniques that show the plot of our trailer. It was useful for us to make this story board as it gave us a structure when we were filming.
Amos Mukombero 