Individual Storyboard - Miss Miller

Storyboard

The purpose of a storyboard is pre-visualise how we want the scenes in our opening sequence to look after we have filmed it, and the appropriate camera techniques that will assist us in achieving these shots. The storyboard consists of a rough picture that shows the characters and setting within the frame, along with a brief description of the iconography, lighting, sound and editing that will also be present.

We each created an individual storyboard of how we think our group narrative is going to look once we have filmed it, including the camera shots, iconography, lighting, sound and editing. My storyboard consists of 18 different frames: frames 1 to 3 are the main shots from the suicide scene that takes place in the school, which is followed by frames 4 to 8 that show the build up to the death of the mother, Grace. Frames 9 to 12 introduce the character Harmony, who then goes on to find the mother dead in the house. Frame 13 is when the title of the film will play, along with the song "tiptoe through the tulips", and then finally, frames 14 to 18 are the build up to the end of our opening sequence, which will leave the audience with an enigma due to the possibility that the girlfriend could be in danger as she does not yet know who the killer is but the audience does, and they do not know what will happen to her once the sequence finishes. These individual storyboards will be discussed in our groups and the selectively joined together in order to create a group storyboard that will be the final outline for our opening sequence to the thriller film.

In my storyboard I incorporated different elements that are considered conventional to the thriller genre such as low key lighting, shallow focus and the fact that the victim is female and the antagonist male. Low key lighting will be used during the dinner scene in which the mother will be killed. The use of low key lighting is conventional to the thriller genre as the darkness of the light will suggest that something dangerous is going to happen but the audience will not know what, therefore suspense will be created as a result of this. The audience will have only just been introduced to the two characters in those frames, therefore they will not yet know who the victim is or who the antagonist is. But once the killing begins, the audience will sympathise with the mother who was not expecting her son to stab her to death. The antagonist will now be identified as someone for the audience to fear, especially when he is alone with other characters in the sequence. In the same frames, the low key lighting will be partnered with slow editing which is also conventional to the thriller genre as when the timing of the frames is slowed down, the sequence becomes prolonged leaving the audience waiting longer to see what happens next. The use of low key lighting was mostly inspired by the film Shutter Island, a thriller that uses low key lighting often to create dark shadows around characters and objects to make them appear dangerous and more significant to the frame. The use of low key lighting also makes it difficult to work out what is happening behind the characters, which will build tension within the sequence as it is more likely that the audience will experience jump scares due to things jumping out in the scene that they did not expect to be there. The fact that the victim is female and the antagonist is male are both conventional to the thriller genre as the woman will represent vulnerability and an easy target for the strong, male antagonist. The victim in the thriller film Psycho, Marion, was young, blonde and pretty, which is the most typical description of a victim. The colour white connotes the idea of innocence and vulnerability, which is why the victim in most thriller films, including our own, will be seen wearing white. In contrast, the colour black represents the idea of danger and hidden identity, which therefore means the antagonist will usually be seen wearing this colour. As a result, the audience will find it easier to identify which characters in the sequence are good and which are not, which they may find comfort in knowing. The use of a knife as the iconography is conventional to the thriller genre as the weapon requires more energy than, for example, a gun, which means the death of the victim can be prolonged and emphasised to create fear and shock within the sequence. The audience will be forced to watch the victim suffer for longer, and as a result they will sympathise with them. In contrast, the audience will begin to fear the antagonist who will appear brutal and personal in the way that they have killed their victim. In our sequence, the mother will be killed at the dinner table by her son, and so the knife will appear as part of the setting, due to the characters using the knife to eat. This will create shock within the sequence as the scene begins with a homely, natural feel and then suddenly turns violent which the audience will not expect.
 In conclusion, my individual storyboard is a rough outline of how I expect our group narrative to look after we have finished filming it. I think that when we create a group storyboard we will need to add in some more frames or extend some of the already existing frames in order to make the sequence more detailed. I think my storyboard may need to be slightly longer, however at the time I only needed 18 frames to show the most important ones within the sequence. Also, I feel as though I have been repetitive with the camera techniques that I have decided to use, such as the close up. In order to solve this our group will discuss alternative camera techniques that we can use instead of the close up. Using various techniques will make the sequence more interesting for our audience to watch. Our individual storyboards will help with planning our group storyboard as we will have three different interpretations of our group narrative, which we will be able to consider and take ideas from each to build up our final group storyboard.