Individual Storyboard - Miss Miller

Storyboards are used to help gather all the ideas a director may have into a chronological ordered structure. They are a way of seeing how you would expect your narrative to look like, but on paper. They are used to plan the filming to take place, to give the director an idea of what the finished film should look like, and so he will know what he has to film and how he has to film it, by telling those in charge; director of photography. 

When planning my group narrative, we each created our own storyboard to show how we each interpreted our idea. We did this so that afterwards we could share our ideas, so we could select and incorporate all of the best ideas into one last group storyboard, so we can make our thriller opening the absolute best that we can. I hope that by creating my own individual storyboard, it will allow me to gather all of my ideas together on a few sheets of paper, so that I can clearly see how I think our opening should go. I can then go back over it and add or change elements to make it more conventional, but I cannot do this without having a baseline. My storyboard is shown below and shows how I expect each frame to look;

      This first page shows the little sister to be walking away from the camera and further into the forest alone, where she ends up looking at a tree that will trigger her first flashback. I wanted to use a long shot in the first frame, which would change into a mid shot and panning and then into a POV shot when looking at the tree. The first 3 shots are to emphasise and convey the girl walking through the forest in different ways to keep the audience interested, and the POV shot is to help viewers connect to the girl by feeling like they are in her shoes, seeing what she sees. These frames will all be in a low key light and will have a non-diegetic, tension building soundtrack playing softly in the background. The one addition to sound is in the first frame where I want there to be parallel sounds with the non-diegetic soundtrack and the on screen sound of the  crunching of the leaves. This should build suspense immediately as the opening sequence begins and should make the audience want to continue to watch the rest of the opening etc.

      The second page shows the first flashback of the sequence, which shows the 2 sisters playing around a tree in the forest. Here I will use high key lighting to show the transition from normality into the flashback. This would then fade into a long shot showing the little sister continuing to walk into the forest. The lighting would change back to low-key lighting, for this frame and into the next frame showing another mid shot and panning of the girl walking past a tree with the scarf on, to show a variety of shots, which will trigger her next flashback. I decided to use the transition of a fade, as I thought this would be this quickest and most simplest of ways to make it clear to the audience the difference between normality and the flashback, without it taking away from the effect of the actual thriller.

      The inspiration for the scarf frame came from all thriller films in general, such as 'Halloween', where it shows how 'stupid' the victims can be. For example, in 'Halloween', the killer who is unknown in the opening, walks up to the stairs, at which point we see the boyfriend of the victim walk straight past the killer, without even noticing him. This makes the audience feel frustrated towards them as they don't seem to have the slightest bit of common sense. This is similar in my sequence; the little girl walks straight past the scarf to make the audience frustrated and intrigued as to the point of the scarf, the only difference being that the girl ends up noticing the scarf, as this is what continues the story. 

The third page begins with a close-up of the scarf on the tree which leads into the flashback of the 2 sisters walking in the forest, one with the scarf on. I wanted to use a zooming in shot into the close-up of the scarf to show its importance within the scene. This then fades into a POV long shot of the path in front of the girl, which is used as an establishing shot to give the audience a clearer idea of the girls surroundings, which allows them to guess what may happen in the frames to follow. 

     
      The fourth page of my storyboard elaborates on the establishing shot mentioned above, by zooming in from where the little girl is currently standing, through the path to the river at the end. I wanted the pace of these next frames to be fast so the audience do not lose the impact of the suspense etc, through asking questions of what they don't understand. The next frames involve the girl kneeling down by the river, looking at her reflection, noticing and then touching the cut on her forehead, which will trigger the next flashback. I thought the over the shoulder shots showing her reflection would be an interesting way to vary the shots used, but still being able to show the emotions on the girls face, that the audience can react to. Below is an example the sort of reflection shot I want to film;

     The fifth page in my storyboard starts with an extreme close-up showing the blood on the girls hand. I wanted to use this shot as it is conventional to thrillers and it helps to highlight the importance of the blood, which is conventional itself. This frame then fades into a blackout where we hear the sound effect of splashes of water to make the audience think the girl has been pulled into the river. The next 5 frames make up the underwater fight scene between the girl and her killer. The first frame is a mid shot showing the killers arm around the girls throat strangling her; I only wanted the killers arm in this image so we can keep creating the enigma of who the killer is. The next frame is a close up of the knife which helps to show the importance of it and tells the audience that this is likely to be the murder weapon. By showing the audience this frame, I hope it will make them sympathise for the girl and help them to feel nervous as to what will happen next as well as creating tension.

      The sixth page continues this underwater scene with a close up of the girls face to show her shock after seeing the knife. The next frame is another close up shot of the knife, which leads into an extreme close-up shot of the girls eyes. This should emphasise the shock on her face and by ending with the close up on her motionless eyes, makes the audience believe she is dead. It is here I want the audience to be asking questions such as 'how can she be dead if we are seeing the flashbacks in the first place'; it creates a sense of confusion, which heightens the emotions viewers are feeling. This then fades into an extreme close up of the girls eyes but this time in reality.


     The reason for having the same image of the girls eyes in both the flashback and in reality is to highlight the shock the girl is feeling from remembering the flashback; she experiences this shock at the same time the audience does and so I hope this will help the audience feel connected with the little girl. The next shot shows a full body shot of the girl, which is where we begin to see the emotion in her facial expressions as before it was unclear how she felt. I would then show a high angled over the shoulder shot, showing track marks on the ground, which should make the audience wonder how these track marks were made. This leads into a flashback of the older sister pulling the little sister out of the water. This shot would be shown very quickly so the audience don't have much time to think and question what they are witnessing. 

     The next page shows a zooming in shot to the rose which would be placed on the ground, supposedly where the sister had dragged the girls body to.  The next frame would show an over the shoulder shot of the little girl holding the rose which would then fade into the next flashback showing the older sister placing the rose down. The iconography of the white rose is to symbolise the sisters death, whilst conveying her innocence and purity. I hope this will confuse the audience but also make them feel sorry for the little girl.




     The next frame shows the same frame as before of the girl holding the rose. This over the shoulder shot then zooms into an extreme close-up of the rose to emphasise its importance for the next few frames in the narrative. The next frame shows a close up of the little girl, which should show her to be shocked, which I hope will be reflected onto the audience. The last frame on this page is an over the shoulder shot showing the little girl looking at her dead self on the ground. This should create an enigma as how can the little sister be looking at her dead self. It should create a confusing atmosphere which hopefully will make the audience question absolutely everything they have seen.


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      The last page of my storyboard shows a zooming out shot of the previous frame; this should create some distance between the audience and the scene, allowing them to reflect on what they have just seen.  The next part will show the everything rewind to the beginning and then into a blackout. This will be as though nothing has happened, allowing the events of the film (if it were to take place) to be about the events leading up to the girls death. This black out would be parallel to the music played and the sequence will end with the title of 'Nostalgia'. 



     Throughout this storyboard there were a few elements that I kept the same throughout. Firstly, the majority of the shots portraying the little girl were through high angled shots, as this is the stereotypical way to show a victim. I wanted it to be clear from the beginning that this little girl was in fact the victim, and the audience should sympathise with her. Secondly, all of the shots, except from the flashback scenes, were in low-key lighting as this is conventional to thrillers. I wanted to minimize the amount of detail that could be seen creating a mysterious atmosphere, that would help to build tension. In the flashback scenes, I wanted to clearly show the transition from normality into the flashback, and so decided that every flashback should be bright and possibly blurry, minimizing the audiences confusion. 

When evaluating my storyboard there were some issues that I came across that I was not sure how to solve. Firstly, when writing this storyboard I didn't have a variety of editing or sound planned; I had simply planned to use continuity of editing or straight cuts and non-diegetic music to build suspense. Another problem I came across when re-reading my storyboard was how I was to film an aerial shot showing the forest and the river.
This is something I will have to change, possibly into a very high angle, with the tripod extended as much as possible. 

When listening to my groups ideas, I hope they will inspire me to change elements from my storyboard into something better. I hope they will have better ideas on the editing and sound we should use, as well as any other ideas they may have. However, there are a few elements I want them to agree on and keep from my storyboard, such as the use of low-key lighting throughout and the bright lighting in the flashbacks. 

Having created my individual storyboard, I found it very helpful as it allowed me to gain a better understanding of what I hope my thriller clip will look like. It is also clear, enabling me to show it to my group members so they can understand my thoughts and ideas and I can understand theirs, which will mean we can make a group storyboard of all our ideas combined.
By making this storyboard I have realised the amount of detail that each frame and edits needs to contain in order for it to be effective. Also, you need to consider the previous frame and the frame after it to make sure that each frame: the sound, lighting and edits etc, are all appropriate and work together.