Planning: Storyboards

Sheet 1 

The first shot that we are planning to have in our trailer is a close up shot of the room, in the house where our child character lives. In other trailers i have seen there is often an establishing shot at at first or near the beginning of the trailer as in the others and Orphan where there is a long shot of the house where the film is set. This is why we thought it would be a good idea to include a shot of the setting.  The camera will be still for about 5 seconds, this will make the audience wonder what is going on and what is the significance of this room. The transition between this shot and the next shot is going to be the shot flickering to black and white, like what happens on old televisions when the channel is changed. This makes it seem like the shots are divided from each other. In horror films sometimes there is a old look to it, the tv flickering creates the sense that it is in the past, this makes up for the lack of props in the shot which sometimes makes obvious the time period of the film. It also conveys that there the trailer is not showing a continuous story, but just clips of the film.

The next shot that will be shown is a mid shot of the room. the camera will whip up from the floor up to the corner of the room, this will show more of the setting so the audience become more familiar with the theme of the film and. This will be on the screen for 5 seconds, this is to create tension. There are two similar shots after this, both mid shots from different angles of the room, again this is to establish the setting. This setting will be dark, with minimal light coming through the windows to create the spooky atmosphere that has been prevalent on other horror trailers that we have researched.

We are going to edit some non diegetic music on top of these shots, throughout the trailer. This music will be turned down at parts so that the voice over of the young boy will be overheard. We thought that having the boy as the voice over would enable the audience to relate to the boy as he is talking from a personal point of view. We are also going to include the sounds of footsteps, to also highlight the fact that there are people living there and that they are in the room even though you cant see them.  

Sheet 2

Then the last shot will transition into the low angle shot shot of the boy running up stairs to parents, this will last 5 seconds as well, and will focus on the boy, showing he is one of the main characters. there will also be a small amount of dialogue over these 4 shots, just to reinforce the plot line. I have noticed on other trailers that i have researched there has been a short amount of dialogue in the form of a voice over, which attracts the attention of the audience and can help create a sense of suspense as there is normally a long pause between each line of dialogue. This is how we will do ours, normally on trailers it is a narrator who does the voice over and not the characters, but we thought having the main character as the voice over would form a connection between the audience and the character.

Sheet 3

The shots shown above are of the boy in the forest, this is where he is upset, There is a long shot of the boy sitting in the woods upset, you can tell this because he is hunched over. It will be a high angle shot to represent his low feeling. The camera will gradually zoom in so the audience will see more of the expression on the boys face, which will engage the audience to empathize with the character. this shot will last about 10 seconds as the zoom is going to be slow which will take up some time. We will have to consider how the music will be at this point, i think it should be slow and calm to emphasize the feelings this boy has, and to construct the atmosphere. I think the music should be quiet at the start of the trailer, as this shot is at the start of the trailer, and then build up, and transform into a louder piece of music as this will build up peoples expectations of the film and make it seem more dramatic and entertaining.  There is then going to be a quick pan of the forest, which will be a mid shot, and i think we should make it a low angle shot so it looks like something is there with the character in the forest which is the scene we are trying to portray. the voice over and dialogue is going to echo making him seem like he is alone and lost.


sheet 4

After the last shot there is going to be a fade to black, where there will be text indicating the plot of the film. I have seen this in other trailers and thought it was a good idea because sometimes the footage isn't enough to engage the audience, and in our trailer, it might be difficult to understand that something has possessed and changed the character of the boy, this is why i think we should give subtle hints as to what is happening and what could happen. the text could be ambiguous making the viewer think a bit more, so they will be thinking about the film even after they have viewed the trailer.



The length of the shots are getting shorter as well as the trailer gathers speed which will intrigue the audience more than the slow part of the trailer.



Sheet 5

There is a series of fast pans, of boy trying to hide from spirit, but the voice of the evil spirit can be still heard, so the audience know that he hasn't escaped from its presence. there is then a close up shot of red eyes of the demon that has possesed the boy, they did this in the insidious trailer, where they showed just one extremely fast shot of the demon in the film, i thought this was very creepy as it was behind one of the characters, so the the character was unaware that it was there. In this shot in our trailer it is just this character in the shot. the red eyes immediately identify that it is not human and is therefore the evil one in the film. I think this shot is effective as you cant see the face of it, so it doesn't give to much away, and so the audience want to see what they actually look like.

Sheet 6  

there is then a new setting of the boy at home, and his parents are speaking to him, he goes into his room and when his parents come to check on him they discover what as happened to him as he has become violent.

there is a montage of fast paced shots that go with the music.

the music will come to an abrupt stop as the final title will appear which is the actual title at the film.

in other trailers the title has been placed in various different places, including the start and half way through, we thought it would be best to keep it at the end so that people have to wait to see and so they have to watch the whole thing just to see the title of the film. Also they will remember the title more as it is the last thing they see.

This storyboard has more detail than the one me and Manny produced for our AS piece, we have thought more in detail about the amount of time each shot will take, and we are more clear about what voice overs we are going to have. We have also included a wider range of settings as last year we only used one setting. We also have a back up setting of where we can shoot. Last year we didn't shoot some of our footage correctly and we had to shoot it again so this year we are making sure we are including a variety of shots. We have also thought more about music and sound and have planned the voice over. As last year we didn't plan it and just added it near the end of our project as we hadn't thought about it previously.