Storyboard - 22/09/11

In today's lesson me and Daniel began to create a written storyboard to show what will happen in our trailer so that we can later show this to our focus group and get a good response from them. To do this, however, we first needed to say what props, actors and music we would need, as well as what the title of the film will be. We decided that the music could be "The Sound of Silence" that we will need the permission of - we will email the creators and ask if we can use their music for our trailer. We decided that the props we would need are as follows:

Top hat
Tuxedo/suit
White gloves
Cane
Gag
Rope
Chair

We then picked actors to feature in our trailer. There will only be two characters. I will be playing the victim, and Tom Webster will be playing the magician. The title of our film is "Black Magic". Our storyboard is as follows:

-Static sound fades into 'The Sound of Silence', we see a hallway. It's dimly lit and the camera is moving down it as if someone is walking and we are seeing from their point of view.
- Cuts: we are now in a dark, claustrophobic space. It is just possible to see that there is a girl gagged and tied to a chair. She looks terrified.
- Back to the hallway. We can now here footsteps and whistling to the music.
- We see the lower body of a well dressed man, the one who's whistling, carrying a cane and swinging it as he walks with a spring in his step.
- Now we can only see his eyes. He has strange markings over one eye, and a vacant yet focussed look.
- Cuts: the girl has begun to struggle now, becoming manic, we can hear her muffled moans.
- Now we can only see the man's mouth. He's smirking. We faintly hear him whisper "prepare to be amazed".
- Back to the girl: a crack of light illuminates one side of her face, as though a door has opened, and she stops struggling. Tears cloud her eyes.
- We see the man standing in the doorway, leaning on his cane (from behind). He puts on white gloves as she muffles another scream.
- Cuts: black screen, with the words "black magic" written across it.
- Cuts: the white glove thrown onto the floor, covered in blood, we can hear muffled whimpers from the girl.
- Cuts: black screen, with the words "coming soon" written across it.
- Now for the last quick scare: the camera is on the floor, the girl falls and fills it with her dead, bloody face.

I later drew up this storyboard in pencil for the focus group later in the year:

We discussed the setting of our trailer in great detail and length. At first, we were struggling to find anywhere that would look abandoned, and even when we were encouraged to use the stage at school as the room where the girl is, we were still finding it difficult to find a decent hallway to film in. Finally, it was suggested to us that we could use a corridor in school as long as we made it look abandoned by putting cardboard and leaves on the floor.