Storyboard

A storyboard is a 'graphic representation of how your video will unfold, shot by shot' (www.vyond.com)  . Usually it is made up of squares with a picture of each shot and possibly a short explanation of the shot, as a picture alone may miss out important elements such as a camera motion you wish to include.

Part of the Storyboard for 'The Sound of Music', by artist Maurice Zuberano

This snippet from 'The Sound of Music' storyboard is very in depth as this was only a fraction of the film. However, the film was released in 1965 suggesting that now we go into even more depth as this storyboard isn't seamless.

Yet, in the industry, storyboards are not made as a perfect, in-depth copy straight away. Rather, it could even start as a mind map with small sketches, enabling you to see all of the shots you wish to include so that you can decide in which order they should be placed.

I think it is one of the most important elements for my music video as it would be the basis of my organisation, For example, if I plan on shooting a few of the scenes that are planned to be edited in the middle of the video, I can see what costumes I need to ensure there are no continuity issues. When making my storyboard I could cut all of the squares out because this way, I would be able to rearrange the order instead of having the plan set in stone.

However, there is a lot of work needed before I reach the final draft of my storyboard, so I firstly began by making a mind-map style, 'sporadic' plan with scattered images of what I want to be prominent within the music video. These will stand as the main shots yet there will be other less significant shots such as a simple long shot that I would need to include in the plan.


Initial Ideas 

Within my 'Initial Ideas' I drew up the shots that I thought vitally had to be included in my music video so that I could storyboard more shots around them. The drawings ach represent a different scene rather than a shot; for example, with the 'Tube' scene, there will be many different shots taken from previous research, such as a 'long shot', 'close-up's as well as 'dutch angle'. I will decide what type of shots would work best for each scene later on in the process of story boarding.

Doing this mind map has really helped me decide which scenes will feature in the music video, and has sparked more ideas, as from this I can develop each scene and the shots within each scene. Some of the scene may seem vague, such as the 'Projector' shot yet I have made it so that I can remember what it means and how the scene will pan out.

However, I may find that during the filming and editing stages, I wish not to include a certain scene or re film it because it did not turn out exactly how I wanted it to. For example, although I have planned a 'confetti' scene, I am not certain that there will be a confetti canon at Pride Festival, so I may need to improvise by purchasing confetti. This may not look as good, however, and I may chose to not include the scene.

Next, I decided to disassemble the scenes into shots to get the idea of roughly how many cuts will be included in the music video. I ordered roughly 50 individual shots on paper, as well as getting rid of some and rearranging the order. Down the margin of the plan, I marked where the shots would lie in accordance with the song. For example, during one of the choruses, I have planned for there to be about 10 shots. However, during editing this may equate to more cut aways because I may feel that the video is too slow-paced.

This process took a while because I found it difficult to order each individual shot. I felt that this could be done as a rough guide yet when it comes to editing, I may find that it would work in a slightly different order. This is because I found the video and how it would pan out hard to visualise in my head and it may not be until I see first drafts of my video that I decide it would look better in a slightly different order. Yet, completing this step has allowed me to vaguely decipher how many shots I need to film. I will most likely film about 10 x the amount of footage than this so that I have a lot of footage to choose from rather than not having enough.

From this I was able to start to create my final storyboard. I decided to do it scene-by-scene because I am not sure as of yet how each shot would be arranged in the final music video and decided to organise this after I have filmed so I have more of an idea of how it should look.

Below is a video of my storyboard:


Storyboard from Greg Clarke on Vimeo.


As well as stills of each scene so I can refer back for future use:

Peer Assessment 

'I really like the storyboard as it looks like the video will be very colourful. Also there are many different locations which means that the video is more interesting to watch as we are not watching the same scene for a long period of time' - Laura O'Reilly, 16

'The storyboard is very clear and aesthetically pleasing. However there isn't much on the actual storyline of the video. For example, there isn't a clear 'beginning', 'climax' and 'ending' - Lauren Agar Rea, 16

'Very cool concept with the coloured lighting and editorial look. I can imagine the video to be very modern and forward thinking because of this' - Laurence Clarke, 25

'I like how you have done the moodboard in scenes and then explained what kind of shots will be included in this scene because this is much more clear than having many separate boxes - Lewis Taylor, 12

'I like the idea but I think it would be better to have more of an in depth storyboard with lots of images because then you would know exactly what shots to film' - Zach Garvie, 16

From this feedback, I can see that my storyboard was liked however there was the overall feeling that the storyboard wasn't in enough depth. Zach Garvie stated how 'it would be better to have more of an in depth storyboard with lots of images' however I did not do this because I could not predict the exact placement of each, roughly 1 second shot, for 3 minutes. Theoretically I could make a visual storyboard version of the list I made however the order could change.

Creating my storyboard was very helpful through laying the foundations from which I can plan further details. Knowing that I have every scene thought out can help me figure out who, what and when I need different elements. Further in the future I will be making a shot list, where I will write every single shot which is technically a written and in much more depth storyboard. I'm glad that within my storyboard I analysed each scene such as whereabouts in the song it will play as well as how it will be edited and the safety precautions.

In the next post I will be creating a Location Report to help me analyse each location and point of the safety precautions and the benefits and disadvantages of each location.