COMP 3: Storyboard & Screenplay

A Level Media Studies

Here is our music promotion package's storyboard and screenplay (for the music video). The storyboard was made by me (Sharon), whereas the screenplay was done by Maxi. This blog is written by me (Sharon).

Timeline Development

Before creating the storyboard and screenplay, my group and I decided to print Feather's lyrics sheet and annotate (the task that I volunteered to do, but discussions were done as a group), such as scenes per line/verse. This would help guide and ease the process of developing the storyboard and screenplay - saving a good amount of time. Also, this annotated lyrics sheet can and will be used during our production process as a major guide when filming each scene (having a rough idea).

Self Reflection: Annotating the lyrics sheet will assist the production process for my group as we can have a rough idea of how each scene will go and save time in ways of an effective production process (ideas don't just come up on filming day). Further and other improvisations can be done during filming along with the cast. Additionally, this provides me (Sharon) and Maxi a practical guide when creating the storyboard and screenplay (wouldn't take much of our time to simply figure out on our own of each scene). This task was done as a group and everyone contributed fairly, such as pitching in innovative ideas, since we had 2 project lessons to complete this. However, my personal task in this would be annotating the lyrics sheet, which I very much enjoyed. One challenge and problem for us was figuring out what was best to do in verse 2 (annotated with a question mark, which we came back to later on). Nonetheless, we have decided to do a flashback scene, featuring the star's ex-boyfriend, due to that it was simply for a short duration. Before starting on this task, I was quite worried that we wouldn't have been able to complete this in 2 project lessons. Regardless, with my team and I's effective discussions, active participation, along with help from our Media Studies teacher, we were capable of finalising it. I am happy to say that I am impressed with our ideas for each and every scene since they aren't repetitive and creative, which greatly resonates with our overall concept.

Storyboard

The storyboard below was drawn by me (Sharon), however, other members would give me additional details/ideas, and guide me throughout the way in cases where it was difficult for me to visualize. I have chosen to organize them verse per verse to ease the follow-through during both drawing and utilizing the storyboard in production.

Self Reflection: I volunteered to wholly work on the storyboard as I was also the one who did the storyboard in Comp 1. Some challenges I encountered include time management, and having a hard time visualizing objects from certain angles. However, I still managed to complete the storyboard before term 2 ended (which avoided holding back my group in continuing with the production process), and I utilized Google to search for images in those angles/positions. As seen, only the intro is neatly done, this is due to that I had to colour each box, measure the sizes of each box and ensure they're all equal in size took a huge amount of my time (time-consuming). Hence, I have decided to simply do a sketch for the following scenes and lines. Moreover, a storyboard mustn't require always be coloured and neatly done for us to understand, especially in a music video. Last year's project (Comp 1), the film opening, it was necessary to be detailed and neat as we were working on a film production. The next time that I'll be working on a storyboard, I will ensure that I start weeks beforehand in cases where it must be detailed, organized, and neat. During this task, I surely felt overwhelmed as I was having a hard time focusing, which left a few of the boxes empty for a while. Nonetheless, it felt rewarding once I've slowly completed each and every box. A storyboard, I believe, will guide my group during the production process where we might need visualisation of each scene (in cases when we have forgotten what goes on in that scene). With that, it could help in effective filming as it would be less time-consuming to decide what the cast should do from zero.

Screenplay

The screenplay below was entirely made by Maxi. This was made to ease the production process (easier to visualize in cases where the storyboard and the annotated lyrics sheet as shown above couldn't provide much detail).

Self Reflection: Having a screenplay (which was entirely written by Maxi), could ease the production process to extend our visualisation instead of simply having the storyboard and the annotated lyrics sheet. At first, we believed that a screenplay for a music video production was unnecessary, however, we decided that we should be prepared in all possible ways.

Nonetheless, as we filmed all the scenes, there were lots of improvisations we made on-set as expected since we were able to act them out realistically instead of simply visualizing, which was what we did when creating the storyboard and the screenplay. That enabled us to get the best shots for the music video as a whole.