Deanna Hopps's AS Media Blog 2014: JARLINC'S Storyboard and research

The last time I posted anything my group was researching Props, Costumes and Location and posting about what locations etc we will be using in our films. Well this time we have been working hard on our storyboards; drawing and annotating images for each cut of our film so that the story of our film is portrayed and displays what the film will look like, even before its been filmed. We have come to a total of 40+, let's hope everything goes to plan :)

Storyboard research

It was originally developed at the famous Walt Disney Studio after similar processes were being used at Walt Disney & other animation studios.

The idea of a storyboard is to form a sequence of still images for the purpose of a film or animation of some kind. It's a long time-consuming process; most films having hundreds or thousand film cut images to represent each cut in a full film. It is used to help film directors, cinematographers etc visualize the scenes and find potential problems which could occur before they film actually gets shot.

A storyboard provides people with a visual layout of the scenes/events as they would occur through the camera lens. Later they would be put into an animatic which I will be moving onto next in my course.

An example of a storyboard layout

What Storyboards consist of (Conventions of a storyboard)

Convention 1: Shot numbers: The shot number is vital to stop any later confusion at the time when the aninatic is created using the storyboard. In a film theres loads of shots used - so numbering them is important.

Convention 2: Shot selection: The type of shot being used is mainly displayed through the image portrayed in the scene box but sometime is put in the boxes/lines below. (Close ups, establing shot, POV shot)

Convention 3: Sketches of the scenes: Seeing the images on paper allows the producer to see the film in action - it makes your ideas come alive and with it a film is either `born` or new ideas are formed - depending on whether the scenes you have drawn work well or not. Basically; they are a still version of the finished film.

Convention 4: Scene numbers: A scene number is again used to prevent any confusion from occuring; such as scenes or shots may end up being mixed up - resulting in an `ever-so-slightly` messed up storyboard, and if not noticed, a rubbish film.

Convention 5: Dialogue: Any dialoge used in the shots is written underneath the imaage so you have a rough idea of the length of the shot and as to how long the shot must last.

Convention 6: Camera Movement: Camera movements are shown on the storyboard through arrows and the positioning of the images on the storyboard.

Convention 7: SFX: Such things as lightnings, explosions, gun shots are all special effects - these need to be added into the storyboard.

Convention 8: The Location: Where ever the location of a scene is - it must be included into the storyboard in some way and whether or not the film is indoors (INT) or outside (EXT).