Prelimanary Planning-Research

In the Prelim Task we were asked to provide a script, storyboard, research and footage.

The research was just to look into storyboarding (which as my GCSE had shown wasn't really my strongpoint) and how/why it's used.
This is my research:


Research of Production Methods

This is a basic and easy to follow walk-through of how to storyboard. The article is written in a Q&A style with obvious questions being given useful answers. An example is given next to it. This article is opinionated, but that is not to say it shouldn’t be followed. There is no right way to storyboard; it’s more a case of what you’re comfortable with and if you find it easier to do it a certain way.

This is an article on Wikipedia, which is infamous for it’s easily editable information. But looking past that you can see where storyboards originated and how they are used in each part of media (films, theatre, cartoons etc.) It also mentions the Coen Brothers who use storyboarding extensively to paint a clear picture of their films.

This is a very helpful article showing all the different language associated with storyboards. This language helps you to draw out and then film your storyboards. There is a wide variety of filming techniques and this is just a selection of them. Also this article gives an alternative to doing storyboards the ‘old-fashioned’ way of drawing them out. A far more practical way is to take photos of your shots, which is a lot more visual and arguably more helpful.







Another bit of the research was to find, and explain, various storyboards. This would then improve our understanding of them making it easier for us to produce our own versions:


Example Of Storyboards

This example of storyboarding uses arrows really well. They are used to show the characters movement, the opening of the doors and the camera movement. Each arrow has words inside them to make it clear what they represent (e.g. the opening doors have ‘Doors’ written in them and the camera movement has ‘Camera’ written in it) except for the arrows showing character movement, which are left blank. This storyboard is also quite detailed but also pretty short, although I’m sure it’s just an extract.

This is a storyboard template, which is commonly used, to make storyboarding a lot easier. The circles in the top-left corner of each frame is used for numbering your storyboards, so it’s clear as to which order they go in. The lines underneath can be used for either writing in a camera angle/movement or perhaps a line of speech. Some people find it better to use these templates but, it can be said, the more experienced tend to use their own boxes, which invite transitions.

This storyboard looks like a quickly sketched, rough idea. But this is what most storyboards tend to look like. As long as the director/writer of the storyboard can understand it then they can explain it to their crew then it doesn’t matter. There are useful techniques, such as the arrows, included in this particular storyboard but also the use of sound effects and explosion drawings to show what the creator wants. Sound effects are difficult to show in storyboards, especially when it is written out, so some people tend to try and hear the sound as they write. Also notable is the length of this storyboard; it is far longer than the other two examples but, obviously, is less detailed.