Individual Storyboard - Miss Miller

Individual Storyboard

The purpose of a storyboard is to ensure organisation, structure and order. Having a storyboard makes each stage of the film a lot more clearer with knowledge of how each scene progresses to the next. Storyboards are used in film planning so that everyone involved in the making of the film can see clearly what their film is going to be like and how it is going to be set out and what is the content of each frame. Filming time is then extended as, there is no time wasted on trying to organise what needs to be filmed and how from the way a storyboard would have already been previously created.

We have created individual storyboard's before creating a group one to allow each individual the opportunity to express their own ideas. Then, we can incorporate these different ideas together to make sure that every group member's ideas are inputted and a best possible sequence can be make as a result. The combination of all group members' ideas merged together makes the thriller a lot more stronger conventionally, for example, one individual could suggest a good idea the others hadn't thought of, and so can share this idea which can be inputted into the sequence. I hope that my individual post will help when planning my group one as I believe some of my ideas are worthy of sharing likewise with my other group members' ideas. I hope I can serve a good contribution to our final group storyboard combined with my other group members' ideas to create a more successful and effective thriller sequence.

This is my individual storyboard:

My storyboard consists of 36 frames. It shows how a girl is walking home with two friends and they have to go their separate ways (the two friends together and the girl left on her own). The girl finds herself walking through the forest and begins to hear many strange noises - voices to be specific. She continues her journey, however, still is frequently hearing these noises as she carries on. She calls her mum in panic who doesn't pick up and a shot of the girl and a masked man is shown on screen, however, the girl is not aware of his presence. She carries on walking and hears the noise again to turn around to a masked man blocking her path. She runs away and finds him out of sight only to see him once again. This time she runs but he catches her arm with a knife. She carries on running but her knife wound begins to bleed quite heavily and as she notices this, she slows down. The antagonist is no longer in sight and the girl is left staring at her arm. She becomes drowsy and lost at the sights of her wound and faints. The screen then blacks out and this is the end of the sequence. Low-key lighting is an element shown throughout to create this unknowing atmosphere and suspense from the lack of view in which the audience have. This will leave them feeling on edge and tense as they are unable to view the scene as it really is with everything distinctively in sight. There will be extreme close up shots included for example in frames 10 and 25. This allows the audience to relate to the character a lot more as they are able to see their emotions in much more close up detail. Because of the screen covered by the extreme close up of the character, it restricts the view of the rest of the scene and so creates suspicion within the audience. Furthermore, violent iconography is included and introduced in frame 29. Audiences will feel on edge as they will clearly be able to see the use of iconography used, a knife. It is also not revealed until near the end of the sequence, so, there is a whole build up of tension throughout the sequence until finally when the knife is revealed. This creates a climax and more of an impact on the audience making them feel worried for the victim. The audience are expected to be surprised, shocked and feel suspense towards the sequence from the sudden appearance of the antagonist for example. They are expected to feel what a thriller intends to make them feel which is those 3 elements as stated because it is what they expect and want to feel. I have taken inspirations from films for example Se7en. Throughout the opening sequence of Se7en, the antagonist's identity is not revealed and I think this is very effective and is what I have taken into account when creating my storyboard. 

Each of our individual ideas will need to be taken on and this will be done by each reviewing and analysing each other's work, finding which parts in each individual sequence is most effective. I hope that my ideas are taken onboard such as the shot where the antagonist is stood behind the victim - visible to the audience but invisible to the victim. I think this shot is really effective because once the shot changes to another one then back to that same shot the antagonist is then gone, creating suspense from the fact that the audience were able to witness him there and then gone unknowing as to where he has disappeared to. 

Overall, I believe that my storyboard is fairly good. There are elements that work well and elements that don't. For example, the reaction/medium shots work well as their specific positioning compliment the scene well in order to create suspense. However, at the beginning my storyboard shows a slight drag of the shots which was intended to build up tension, however, when actually coming to film could be difficult to do so. The final group storyboard will probably have many more frames than my individual one as. I left part of our narrative out as, I found it was difficult to create a variation in shots for some parts, particularly the beginning. This will be resolved however, by complying all of our ideas together to ensure that lack of variation doesn't occur.

I have found this post helpful with regards to filming our sequence because it has allowed me to express my own individual ideas before discussing with my group. This then allows my ideas as well as my group members' to be taken into account in order to create the most successful thriller possible.