Individual storyboard (Miss Miller)

1. What is the purpose of a story board?

The purpose of a story board is to create a more realistic feel for your narrative. It helps the narrative come to life and highlights if theres any errors in your story's plot and if any shots are unrealistic. It also allows you to create a time frame onto each shot so we you can have a better understanding as to whether you need to edit or lengthen your storyboard and scene. The story board I created consisted of 12 frames overall and came to a running total of 1minute 52seconds. This is good as the guidelines put in place were set out to make a clip lasting 2minutes long so I now know I have more time available to add extra detail into my clip.   

Each of the frames contain information of how i want my want my shots to come out of and included camera shots, location, iconography, lighting, lighting, actors, sound, editing and narrative information. After giving out this description I then drew a picture which links with the description I have written and gives an idea of what the scene will hopefully look like.  

2. What conventions did you include?

For my story board I included a lot of conventions as I wanted to ensure my film fitted the thriller genre correctly. Some of the conventions I included were;

Female Victim
As well as this I also included a female victim and even more importantly a blonde female victim as they are more stereotypical and help portray the idea of innocence more which is important as for a thriller to be effective a good relationship has to be created between victim and audience as to create maximum suspense the audience has to feel empathy towards the main victim.This is conventional to a thriller as a female is typically seen as the weaker sex and so by trapping a female it makes the audience members feel more empathy towards them creating a bond built of fear for the victim as the villain is usually a man suggesting he is bigger and stronger than the victim suggesting to the victim that they are defenceless. However more typically a blonde female is used as they manage to portray more innocence to the audience emphasising their position as the victim. 

Weapon
A weapon and in particular a knife is very conventional to the thriller genre as they allow the villain and victim to have more contact during their fight scene. This means in order for an incident to happen they have to be very close together which makes chase scenes more tense as they appear to close the distance between the victim and villain. A knife is also more commonly used as it creates a more gory death as multiple wounds are usually achieved as a result. As well as this through using a knife it also allows there to be a momentary struggle where the victim has to fight with all their will power to get the knife away from them and aimed towards the villain. This allows there to be more suspense as the scene can be dragged out as a death by knife is slower and more theatrical then the other more action conventional methods of a gun.

Low key lighting
In all my clips I ensured that low key lighting was present in all my clips as it is the most conventional form of lighting. One reason for this is because by lighting the scene very dimly it creates a high element of suspense as the audience cannot see the situation and surroundings properly. This makes the audience more engaged as they have to focus harder on the screen to make sure they don't miss anything going on in the scene. This intense concentration allows the audience and actors time to build up the scene to the point where the audience know something is going to happen but unsure when that time is. This causes a high impact to be made when something does happen as the audience are fully engage so the scene will have full effect and surprise element, another very important factor to ensure the scene is successful. 

3. Where is your inspiration from?

Throughout the last few months both me and my media group have been watching thriller films from all ages and times so I know have a good idea of what elements I want to include in my thriller. Some of my main inspirations include; 

Insidious and paranormal activity
To add to these ideas I also liked the idea of using a house to base my film at. This idea as a setting can be seen in both the films 'insidious' and 'paranormal activity'. By basing the story in a real life setting it relates to the audience as they all come from a home to be there and so can image being trapped and teased within their own homes. Through featuring a realistic scene the audience then can relate to the film more and allow themselves to put themselves in the position of the central characters as they can all relate to the scenes as well as the iconography used throughout. As well as this the use of a home or house is also very affective as after watching the film the audience typically go straight home where they can then imagine the scenes taking part in their house putting them on edge even after the screening of the scene which is a positive sign that the effects of your thriller have been as intended.

The ring and 1408
Finally another idea I liked for my thriller which relates to 1408's clock scene is the time limit from the ring. This helps create a sense of urgency throughout the film and at times can make the characters seem powerless as they have no control over the time and cannot dictates when it stops. The time limit usually set in place is often unrealistic as well which can then relate back to the audience as they can relate to a time when they were put under mounts of time pressure and can help relate the feelings they experienced then and apply them to the situation in the film now. This creates a bond between the audience and leading actor as they can relate to each other through a mutual feeling and situation.

4. How will this help you when doing your group story board?

I found creating a story board very useful as it help me visualise my ideas and help them come to life. This gives me an overall idea of where I would want the actor to be positioned and what mise-en-scene I would want to be present in each clip. This will help when creating a group story board as our ideas will be easier to explain and demonstrate to the group, meaning decisions can be made quickly as to whether or not we would want to take the idea any further and incorporate it into our final story board.

5. How will you use your storyboards incorporate each others ideas into the final group storyboard?

When my group of Ravinder, James and myself next meet we will each take a turn to explain our ideas. After we all have stated our overall story we will then create our group story board first by asking each person who's first clip they preferred and adding that as a first scene and continuing this before creating our overall story board. However as we begin to build the story up we will keep reading back to ensure that the story still makes sense and has a clear narrative set in place.