The next brief which I picked to do was relating to a storyboard brief. Where I had to design and create a storyboard relating to a topic of my choice. For the topic I decided to go off my last project of a
book cover for the book 1984 by George Orwell.
The reason why I picked this subject is the book is rather outdated as well as the film was last released in 1984 as of this I thought of making a short TV add no longer then 20 seconds. Relating to themes of the book while making a complete storyboard linking to a past brief.
What I wanted to convey with this is the feels of the book. Such as the dark and creepy tones of being watched while linking back to the sense of a technological world in a modern setting. I looked into this while doing my book cover and I was fixated with the idea of digital glitches. As technology plays a role within the book, however such things as CCTV and cameras had already been explored in a digital sense for the book. So I wanted to relate to them somehow but with a new original idea and I came up with the idea of glitches. These glitches would work even better as a moving image such as for a TV add and will be the main on screen focus that I will use. Along with this Since I'm going to be making a add based story board there ill be thought provoking quotes from the book throughout along with the obvious title slate advertising the subject somewhere within it.
When planning these things I had to also think about the choice of media, I'll be making my storyboard on paper with pen but with the inset of it being made digitally. As such I'll need to make sure to jot down any effects and camera angels which would be used. along with sound and music cues. While researching storyboards I didn't realise the amount of detail which went into them. As such I found a new found admiration for the work directors put into their work, such as Hayao Miyazaki. I found out that for all his amazing films he has been apart of making over the years from Spirited Away to Princess Mononoke he has produced the storyboard almost single handily. As such I was truly inspired to try and get my message across as strongly as possible.
After my research the first thing i did was to jump straight into the drafting of my first storyboard. For this I drew out a quick grid of boxes so my sketches. The first problem I came across was which camera angles should I be using where and how best to transition from one frame to the next. As such I found to start off the storyboard a fade in was perfect for what I wanted as The ad started off from a black screen so having the glitch come in from black with rising music would really catch the attention of the viewer.
My main focus for this was to have a glitch effort moving in and then transiting in to a quote effect being glitch across the screen. For the famous phrase from the book, 'War is peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is strength'. Having each word pop up in and out of glitch would be a very striking and attention grabbing effect which relates well to the book and works well as a whole for this storyboard.
After this y thought was to zoom out from the phrase and glitch into the darkness of a keyhole and further away back to nothingness where you here the chime of the clock striking 13 and the title appears on the screen. Finally ending the storyboard with the title quote and fading to black. I feel this is a really well put together storyboard with timestamps between each one to indicate how long each frame should be with camera annotations through out. I feel this is the best way to do a storyboard as it means it can be handed off to an editor and they can see everything they need to produce an actual mock up.
After completing the first storyboard I had the bug and wanted to produce another one as I thought instead of just drawing it I could use some of the glitches I made from my previous photoshop work and add the onto the storyboard to give even more guidance and visual help to see the progress of the story. As such I released it would be more beneficial to me to make up a template page which I could then use as a copy sheet for whenever I needed more.
With this board I did something a little different from the last. Where as I hand drew everything this time I used images I already had in photoshop and used effects in photoshop to give the visual effect i wanted. For example the glitch effect I could put straight in and where I want static I could over lay it with the effect for noise and decrease the level to show the noise / static fading out. However to make this even more clear what I should have done is to write underneath the frame what is going on in each frame for validity.
As for the scene with the text '2+2=5' I could;t show the sound effect of a keyboard / type writer going off so I still added in cues for sound effects and music above each frame saying where they should start, finish and fade. For time scale same as before I indicated between each frame about timing but on this one I was a little unsure about the timing for the zoom in of the title '1984' as Depending on the timing it could look rushed and jumpy. As such I put a time but a rough one of 1-2 sec instead of 1 sec along with a question mark to show that the editor has more freedom when editing this story together.
Out of having a completely hand drawn storyboard or a digital one I think I personally prefer a icing of the two and some effects are quicker done in photoshop then hand drawing and if the storyboard is being passed on to someone else who is going to interpret your own work. I personally would want to make their job as easy as possible. Whether this be by showing them the visual, explaining with text and giving queues on the likes of sounds, music and timing. I feel that is what makes the best possible storyboard as long as the topic is also good to go with it.
I enjoyed the research side of storyboards a lot more then I did actually making one. I loved looking up about all the different cameras angles and I could pictures myself shooting them but I didn't enjoy the process of having to put down each and every one. Planning a story board was a nice journey however I don't see myself pursuing it in my free time. Looking back at amazing directors and looking at the amount of dedication and time they put into their storyboards is mind blowing to me and makes me look at the in a whole new light. As such I think going away from this project overall I have a new sense of enjoyment from watching more complex films with interesting camera shots and how they were planned out and the final film / projects come together.
