Storyboards - Miss Miller

Storyboards are helpful because they allowed me and my group to collect our separate ideas onto one place and put them together to form a detailed plan of what our music video will look like - shot by shot. Putting our ideas for each shot/scene into chronological order provided myself and my group with basic guidelines to bring with us and follow when filming our music video.

I have previously carried out both primary and secondary research  which has helped my group to plan our music video. The primary research consisted of watching other music videos and analysing them by applying them to theories and seeing how conventional and successful they are in their genre and the music industry etc. This was helpful in terms of creating and planning the storyboard for my own music video because it showed me real life examples of what has and has not worked well in media products like the one I will create. Therefore I will know what and what not to do in my own in order to make it successful. An example of this is

Examples...

The secondary research entailed planning out several different elements of my media product using what I had learnt from the primary research. For example, I planned the locations, iconography, editing, camera techniques and artists image. The secondary research was very useful to carry out as it allowed me to gather my thoughts and ideas and make note of them so all my ideas would be set out more clearly. This gave me a better understanding of what I would like my music video to look like as well as providing research I can refer back to when filming in order to remind myself what to include and what to film in order to get a successful mark due to my research.

Examples...


The main inspirations for my music video were taken from other music videos in the indie music genre as well as previous A level music videos from students that my group found on YouTube. Watching other indie music videos made the codes conventions of this genre very clear to me so I am able to interpret them into my own. I could see what micro elements were common in the indie music genre such as playing and instrument or a natural style. I could also see what micro elements worked well and what did not so I knew what ones to try and interpret into my own music video.

examples of where inspirations have been taken from and where u can see them in my work....


Inspirations from other group members...
kerry - pills in a heart
me- memories
alfie - narrative of him
danny - photograph in fire



The first step my group and I took when creating our storyboards was to refer back to our previous research and discuss exactly how we wanted our music video to look from start to end. Then we each took a sheet and wrote our plans onto each section for each shot while discussing with each other what order the music video will go in. We started by numbering the sheets so the order of shots/scenes was clear and then we played the music video on one of our group members phones so we could see what parts of the song would play in each scene and then we wrote the time of the song on each shot so we would be reminded of this. Lastly we equally separated the storyboard sheets and began to draw a picture to go with each shot.


We equally shared the responsibility when creating the storyboards. For example, as a group we sat and discussed the sequence in which our shots would go and then wrote down on each section for each shot what setting, editing  and actors will be seen in this shot. As well as what will happen in the shot and what camera technique will be used. Once we had done this for every shot, we divided the sheets between us and all began to draw a rough idea of what the group wanted each shot to look like when filming.

When filming, I did follow my storyboards as I brung them with me on the filming days and created the shots as planned. However, I did not follow it completely accurately as planned because there were some shots my group and I decided to not include as we changed our minds about them working well in our media product. In the same way we added new shots that we did not plan if we came up with ideas that we thought would work well. Storyboarding my ideas was helpful to my filming because it allowed me to keep track of all of our groups ideas and not forget them when filming.

It is important to create a storyboard before filming because it meant we could take the storyboard with us when filming so we had guidelines to follow. This way we were less likely to forget any ideas we has made and had a clear understanding of our music video as we had a printout of the order of shots. The information we wrote underneath each frame was helpful to refer back to when filming because it supplied us with all details about each camera shot so we would know exactly how to create it like we had planned to. It told us what actors should be featured in the shot  and what camera technique should be used etc.

I both followed and adapted my storyboards when filming. The majority of the story board was followed and filmed however after reviewing our content, me and my group decided that our narrative was a bit too confusing. Because of this we decided to alter it to make it easier to follow. Therefore we had to adapt and refill certain scenes such as the picnic and pub scenes whereby the artist showed an interest in another male character in front of her boyfriend. When refilling, we removed the extra male character and just film the couple at the pub and picnic but emphasised on how the boyfriend is excessively drinking alcohol which causes distress for the artist. This made our narrative clear and simpler as well as giving us a chance to re-film scenes we were unhappy with due to being too shaky or having members of the public in the background. Furthermore, removing a character from our narrative has made it easier for the group because it means less people are needed for the filming days. We only need two actors compared to the before three so we are less likely to cancel filming if somebody cannot attend.

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