Storyboarding! Developing! Drawing!

Acclaimed author F. Scott Fitzgerald once said 'Show me a hero, and I'll write you a tragedy'- well, in the case of A-Level student Finley Harnett, it's a matter of 'show me a badass evil teacher, and I'll write you an awesome two-minute thriller opening.' Well, that's the plan. I'll stop referring to myself in the third person. The past couple of weeks our group has been working on storyboarding our final task; this was a pretty strenuous, time-consuming challenge, and there was a lot of experimentation in terms of changing the frames around and seeing what worked best. We used a wall to stick up our shots; it was strange to actually see an idea coming together and to see the shot-by-shot chronology of the piece. Also, there was no fixed 'order' per se, so this part of the process was very much open to change:

Storyboarding Image 

Close-Up of Storyboard (Left)

Close-Up of Storyboard (Right)

As you can see its a lot of work: not only have we tried to make our sketches detailed and visually impressive ('cos stickmen are just naff) we've also aimed to include more detailed information such as transitions, sound, dialogue, clothing, colour palettes, camera angle, in short the list just goes on... I can't stress how important storyboarding has been for us as a group, for several reasons. Firstly, theres no better way to explain an idea or concept than by sketching it out (although I'm hardly an artist extraordinaire). Second of all, the way we've been able to use the 'wall' format (I don't know how to describe it any other way) has allowed us to make changes and see what order works well. And finally, I feel as though for the first time, our whole group is now on the same page in terms of what we're trying to achieve, and what we're trying to achieve is essentially to bring that storyboard to life. And so, with just a few weeks before filming, I now feel confident that we can film in a more efficient, focused way...