Group Storyboard - Miss Miller

The purpose of a group storyboard is to allow our group to discuss eachothers ideas and decide on the final sequence for filming. This will allow us to incorporate all the best ideas we have into one storyboard which should result in us improving our storyboard and making a better one. One thing I noticed about our group storyboard was how detailed it was, which can be seen below;

When comparing my individual storyboard with my groups, I noticed that both me and Ayesha has the same idea of including the parallel sound of the leaves crunching beneath the girls feet, to the non-diegetic suspense building soundtrack being played in the background. We therefore decided to keep this as it immediatly builds suspense from the moment the sequence starts.

I also noticed that we all had included POV shots, such as before the very first flashback, shown on this page (page 2) of our group story board). We therefore agreed that we should keep this shot as it allows the audience to feel closely connected with the little girl in our narrative, as they can see and feel exactly what the girl is seeing; they are put into the shoes of this character and this allows the audience to sympathise more easily with the girl, as well as feeling more nervous for her.

 

When telling my group my idea of keeping the entire opening in low-key lighting, but having the flashbacks in a brighter light, they agreed but also had some suggestions. They suggested that as the little girl is trying to remember these flashbacks they shouldn't be clear, and so we could blur them as well. I thought this was a good idea as it would confuse the audience and make it unclear as to what was going on in these flashbacks, making the audience curious as to what will happen next. 

When I explained the blackout frame, where I would have the soundscape of the water splash before the underwater scene, my group liked the idea, but thought we could extend on it. They came up with the idea of a crescendo starting with footsteps running, a scream and lastly a splash, which would lead into the underwater scene. This would manipulate the audiences senses as they wouldn't be able to see, but only hear what was happening. It would create the idea of the little girl being chased, then pushed into the river, before being killed, which would create the enigma of what happened in those few seconds before her death in the underwater scene. 

We also discussed every ones ideas on how the underwater scene should go. They had an idea of using blackouts but was not sure on how to use them. Having discussed this, we came up with the idea of having a blackout after every single image; The close up of the knife, blackout, the close up of her eyes, blackout etc. This would fasten the pace if the scene, which would build the tension and make the audience sit on edge. This fast paced scene would appeal to our target audience as teenagers like to watch heart stopping moments where their adrenaline builds up etc, and so this scene would have a bigger effect on them. 

Having created this group storyboard, it has allowed me and my group to gather all our ideas together, which we can now use as a visual aid to follow during filming so that we know what to film. The group storyboard has been more helpful than the individual ones as it has meant we each had to discuss our ideas, meaning we all got a different idea of how to present things. This meant that when creating the storyboard together, we could add in everything that made our thriller more effective and more conventional, benefiting us as the thriller will now have a bigger impact on our target audience.