STORYTELLING: Storyboards & SOFT Trailer

Today with Simon we learnt the importance of storyboards. These can really help us when it comes to pre-production. This is the stage that story boards are most used, they enable the detailed planning of the entire production. They are also used in production, post-production and the editing stages. However, not all productions use storyboards - EastEnders is one. They simply use a script and shot list. We can go outside the storyboards, they are just a basic guide so we know where the story is going. Depending on director, storyboards can be very different.


There are 3 types of storyboards:
- Graphic
- Diagrammatical
- Plan view

Graphic ones are the most detailed versions:

https://www.pinterest.com/joycemeers/storyboards/

Diagrammatical are widely used, they are less 'artistic' but they still give detailed information about the design of the shot:

http://aftertheflood.co/projects/platform-technology-film

Plan view storyboards are ones looking from above:

http://pov.imv.au.dk/Issue_15/section_4/artc2A.html

I've never thought of myself as good at drawing but I will give a diagrammatical storyboard a good go. I am looking forward to planning out my 2 minutes as I have the idea in my head and am hoping it will look as good on paper.

We also touched upon shot descriptions. We have been through this with Louis but I found it helpful to refresh my memory. The different shots we spoke about were a birds eye view, extreme long shot (ELS), long shot (LS), wide shot (WS), medium shot (MS), close up (CU) and finally, extreme close up (ECU).

Camera movement was next. We had also touched upon this with Louis, there is a tilt shot, crane shot, pan shot, tracking shot and dolly shot. As well as movement, specific camera angles and positions can be employed in the description of a shot. These positions are a two shot, low angle, high angled shot and over the shoulder.

A steadicam is something I had never heard of before starting this course, the steadicam combines all of the types of shots described previously in one single, amazing shot. An example that we watched was from the first series of True Detective. Part of this was made up of a 6 minute steadicam shot and the end result was really impressive.

Trailers:
This was a key thing to talk about as we need to make either a trailer or opening 2 minutes for our films. I think I will do the opening 2 minutes but it was good to hear about trailers and what to think about when making them in case I change my mind. Trailers are to hook the audience into watching a TV programme or film. They were first used in the cinema and were originally shown AFTER the main feature, i.e. this is why they are called trailers. However, in the end they realised people would get up and leave during the credits and would miss the trailers, therefore, they brought them to the beginning of films, keeping the name 'trailer'.

We then watched a few different types of trailers, Psycho, Jaws and Terminator 2. It was interesting to see what trailers were like when these films came out. Psycho was especially interesting as it featured the director, Alfred Hitchcock, standing outside the house in the film and talking about key features of the film. Obviously, this is really different to todays trailers as they now consist of important parts of the actual film.

TV trailers:
- Often make a trailer with no style as the same as the actual show.

Questions to answer when making our trailers:
1. What is the story?
2. When is it on?
3. Who is it aimed at?

To finish Simon left us with a task to create a trailer for SOFT. The short film by Simon Ellis which we watched a few weeks ago.

Below is mine:

I was pleased with this as it is my first attempt at a trailer, however, I found it hard to decide what bits to cut out and to me putting the clips in the wrong order just seemed wrong and in the end most of mine are in order, which isn't really what a trailer is about. I like the way I put their names in when their longest clip came up. I didn't mind showing off the ending as its not at the very end of the trailer so to the audience it may not be the ending. After doing this exercise, I don't think I'll be doing a trailer for my story-telling project, I think it will definitely be the 2 minutes opening scene.