Planning Group Storyboard - Miss Miller

Planning Group Storyboard

In our groups, we made a group storyboard in order to combine our ideas and come up with a general storyboard around our narrative, that we will use for filming as it contains everything that thee group have decided upon and what we think will be interesting for the audience. When creating this we collaborated and compared the variations in each other's individual storyboards and took note of how one group member made a choice that was better than the other group member's and kept it for the final storyboard.

We have created a group storyboard in order to make the production of our opening sequence easier as we will have everything already planned out in terms of what we need and how it will look, as well as being able to have a collective storyboard featuring everyone's idea. We have taken specific elements from each other's individual storyboard in order to combine the best of all our storyboards and make sure we produced a piece that everyone had contributed their best parts too in order to create a conventional and engaging narrative for the audience.

In our piece we have decided to use Nojus's version of the planning room opening over mine and Olivia's. The audience see a zoom out of the killer's planning board from a picture of the victim (Olivia), that slowly includes more pictures and the back of the killer (Nojus). We decided to incorporate this over mine and Olivia's openings as we felt that it was more mysterious and intriguing and would engage the audience more a there is a lot to take in and aspects of the scene like the killer's hidden identity will allow the audience to think about who the killer is. While also creating suspense as the audience do not know who the killer is and will have to wait to the end of the film to have the killer revealed to them or be presented with enough information to work it out themselves. This was easy to incorporate as this scene doesn't have much of an impact on the rest of the opening sequence as it is isolated from the rest of the events, and as long as the audience get the message that he is planning to kill the victim. This can relate back to the 'Se7en' opening sequence as in that opening sequence the audience see an unknown killer performing odd actions, which creates suspense in the audience as they want to know who this character is so they can work out the killer before the main character does, and so it relates to our opening sequence as the audience will see the killer planning the murder he will commit.

Another element that we have used from a group member's work is the fast-paced chase scene from Nojus's work. The audience see the killer running after the victim as she was last seen with the creeper and he has been murdered, and so in order to stop her from getting far away before he can get to her, he begins chasing her. We have decided to use this version of chase scene as it was more fast-paced than the other chase scenes presented, which would be more conventional as the audience expect to see the killer be determined to kill the victim, enough to chase after her, while the other chase scenes presented were more slow-paced and wouldn't be as enjoyable for the audience as there has been a lot of suspense being built-up that is taking too long to pay off, whereas Nojus's chase led to a engaging scene due to it breaking up long spans of suspense. Nojus's chase created shock as the audience don't expect to see the killer chasing after the victim in broad daylight, showing that he has more confidence than the victim and will be able to keep up with her, indicating that he will be able to capture and restrain her until he attempts to kill her. This will be easy to incorporate into the storyboard as it would require faster-paced editing that would be easy to show in the storyboard and, as we haven't started filming yet, wouldn't lead us to have to change anything major in our piece, and the speed of this chase doesn't have much of an impact on the following scene. This can relate back to the 'Scream' opening in which the victim is seen running throughout her house away from the killer who will attempt to kill her, yet the audience haven't seen the killer yet, only heard his voice, but in our scene we show the other side of the killer following the victim who is rarely seen during the chase, although we see her before the chase scene.

Another element tat we have used for our group storyboard was the iconography of the calling card left by the victim, who is really the killer, that I included in my own storyboard. The audience see the killer reenter the school where the creeps body was, although in his place is a note left by the victim. This was incorporated into the storyboard as it would bridge the gap between the killer being knocked out and losing the tracks of the killer, and rediscovering where she is and being able to catch up to her, my inclusion of this was kept in the group storyboard as it made it clearer to the audience how the killer knew the victim murdered the creep. This creates suspense in the audience as they are starting to have what they expected of the narrative overturned due to the plot twist changing what they thought would happen, and so they have to wait and see what the narrative will reveal to them in order to attempt to work out what the victim's true identity is and what she has planned. This being included into our piece required a small change to a shot in order to make sure the audience could see the note and read what it says so they can see the same information that the killer is getting and allowing them to continue to engage themselves in the narrative. This could relate back to 'Saw', as the killer has a recognizable look and voice, puppet man and a slow gravelly voice, that the audience can recognize that will help them to determine what the killer has done in the future and if it is their handiwork or not in the killings that will take place.

Another element that we chose to include in our group storyboard was the diegetic dialogue heard at the end of the opening sequence, as used in my own piece. The audience will hear a small exchange between the killer and the victim at the end of the sequence that informs the audience that more killers are coming after her and she doesn't intend to stop killing. This will be used because it adds a variance in the sound heard as there is not a lot of different sounds used in the piece and this would give something refreshing for the audience to listen to which also explains more about the role of the killer being a vigilante and the victim doing the killing in the opening sequence and before the events of the film. This creates intrigue in the audience as they want to know who the killer's friends are and what role they will play in the remainder of the film and if they will be able to stop the victim's killing spree, while the audience also want to know why the victim is killing people. This was a bit difficult to add into the sequence as we had to think of what they would say that would be interesting to her and be ambiguous enough for the audience to want to keep watching to find out what they are talking about in more detail than what is shown. This could relate back to thrillers like 'Scream' and 'Saw' that rely on dialogue to inform the audience about what is going on in the sequence in a way that the audience can listen to without it distracting them from what is going on in the scene, while the scene usually shows things of little interest to the audience in order to have them focus more on the dialogue.

Another element we used from the group storyboard is the more frequent use of a knife in the shots, as was included in Olivia's storyboard. The audience will see the creep with the knife still next to the body, rather than having the knife be removed. This will show the audience that something brutal has happened and that there is still danger lurking about and that this will affect the narrative and put all the characters into dangerous circumstances, rather than having the knife disappear which would negate the extra effects that leaving the knife could bring. This creates surprise in the audience as they do not expect the killer to be well trained enough to commit multiple murders without being caught but still be careless enough to leave the knife behind, as well as the knife being left out in broad daylight in a public place around schoolchildren. This was difficult to add due to how we would be able to keep the knife with us and out in the open in school without having anyone be in danger, so we have decided to have it be out for as quick as possible and, when we come to filming, make sure that everyone using it is careful with it. The use of a knife can relate back to films like 'Halloween' where Michael uses a knife to murder his sister silently without anyone hearing that could land him into trouble for being found with a knife and a dead body, although in ours we will be using the knife to indicate that it was a silent kill made by the victim that no one was around to hear.

Another element that was used from the group storyboard was the use of silence, as was included in Olivia's storyboard. The audience will only hear the footsteps of the killer as they see a point of view shot through his perspective when he turns the corner to find the body. This was used because it would make the scene more mysterious and force the audience to engage in the narrative in order for them to continue to understand what is going on in the film and gather evidence to make an educated guess as to who the killer might be, while the use of a silences and on-screen sound of footsteps leaves the audience wondering who committed the murder. This creates intrigue in the audience as they want to know who killed the creep in order to look out for this character and begin to speculate on how they can affect the victim's attempt to solve the murder and bring the killer to justice. This was easy to incorporate into our piece as it would rely on us changing the sound from eerie music to silence and, as no filming has taken place, there would be no scenes that needed to be re-shot in order to get what we want, only our plan would have to be changed. This relates, again, back to 'Halloween' where before the audience see the murder there is silence, to indicate the build up of suspense in the audience as they do not know what will come next as they do not have the sound to help them in what they think.

I think our storyboard was conventional and engaging to our audience as we featured many conventions from the genre that the audience will expect, like the chase scene towards the end of the opening sequence that will create suspense in the audience as they don't know whether the killer will catch the victim or the use of knives that are used to connote the danger of the scene and the dangerous circumstances the victim is in. We managed to incorporate our ideas easily into one final collaboration as we all had individual storyboards that were quite similar due to discussing a general plot for our opening sequence beforehand, so we our differences were deviations in events or different locations and camera angles. This meant that we could easily replace a scene with another variation of the scene that is better than the original, our opening of the killer planning the kill differed between each group member but we decided in the end to use Nojus's opening. Something we had to compromise on was the use of the iconography of the knife sticking out of the creeps back as I had originally not wanted to have the knife in the back and just have the dead body, however Olivia thought it would be better for the knife to still be in the scene in order to show the brutality of the situation.