Storyboard Task - Small Creation

For the second week of Production Technology, we were given the task of creating and shooting a 12 shot film. The task was given as follows : 

Production Technology Week 2 Task

Individually write/design and plan a storyboard a 8 - 12 shot film lasting approx. 45 seconds at the max.  No dialogue is required. You could add some sound if you really want to but we advise you to concentrate on visual only.

The aim is to demonstrate you have understood the fundamental skills of cinematography and picture editing.  Think about the 5 C’s as much as possible.  Remember the key fundamentals of the rule of 3rds, symmetry and single point perspective.

The topic is ‘an event’ and can be designed around anything you wish.

You should create a storyboard of the key parts of the process.

Then shoot the process! 

Examples could be

This could be making of a cup of tea, a person getting out of bed and preparing for their day, a person getting into a car and driving off into the distance etc.

But remember that the images need to implement the following skills.

Focus eye piece

Focus camera

White Balance

Set exposure

Set shutter (film like shutter is 1/180d setting)

Turn Zebra’s on

It should all be shot on the Panasonic HMC151.  Edit the clips into the sequence for review in the lesson next week.  You are free to help each other but one piece is needed per student.  If you complete them before next week you can if you know how render the clip out as an mp4 and send it to me.

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From this point onwards, I had to think of a way of presenting a 45 second video that would be able to portray an event. As I'm personally a fan of thriller/horror movies, I decided to go down this route and create a scene that portrayed a psychotic woman, whose intention is to kill. I wanted to create a rather dark and bleak image for this film, with only hints of light, to keep the sense of eeriness.

Moving forward with the idea, it was time for me to think of storyboard. Bearing in mind, I had to make sure that I only had 12 shots to create the whole scene. As I had a rather clear image in my head that I wanted, thinking of each shot became rather easily when putting it down on paper, if only It had been as simple when shooting.

Here is the working progress of my storyboard...

After finishing the storyboard, and being happy with it, it was time for me to move on and plan ahead, and make sure I had all the equipment I needed to make the shoot. As it was a fairly simple scene I chose to do, the only equipment that I desperately needed, and of course the Camera itself, and a tripod to go with it! This all had to be arrange over SISO, which is Staffordshire Universities Media Stores. Before booking any equipment out, I had to make sure that I had done a Risk Assessment, which can be a rather tedious task to do, but is indeed vital to ensure that every possible risk has been checked. Once doing that, I was able to book the Panasonic HMC151, along with a tripod. The Booking system SISO can be seen below!
  

Information displayed on your bookings, and what time/date you have booked them for!

Filming Day! With the storyboard complete, and the equipment booked, it was time to collect it, and get ready for shooting! As I had issues at first booking on SISO, it had to try and film the sequence and edit in the same afternoon, as the task had to be handed in the following day!
Once we got to the location, It was time to set up the tripod and attach the camera. Having done that I had to ensure that

Before being able to start filming, we had to ensure that everything was correct on the camera itself. We checked various things such as the White Balance, Iris, Focus and the Zebra Lines to ensure that the sequence would be perfectly lit, and would be as clear and as visible as it could possibly be on it's playback.




The Killing from Sion Campbell on Vimeo.