Lloyd: My Role As A Storyboard Designer

To decide on our roles for our group we got together and discussed who would suit each role best. As our groups have changed from the previous year we all thought it would be best to stick with our original roles from last year’s project as we have experience and knowledge on particular roles. This meant that I would be the storyboard designer, James would be the script writer, Sam would be the director and due to Ryan’s departure from media studies we all have taking the role of editors. I believe taking on these roles will help our production be most successful.


After finding out my role I decided to research into storyboarding. When designing a storyboard the graphics can be hand drawn, the idea is to give enough information in the storyboard to help develop the final product. There is loads of professional equipment you can use for creating storyboards but one of the best pieces of equipment is the storyboard pro. This piece of equipment benefits are it reduce cost, it helps visualize your ideas, animate you storyboard and it takes shorter time to produce. Many big companies use storyboard pro such as:
• Cartoon network
• Disney
• Fox
• Sony
• Warner home video

This has helped me understand the role of being a storyboard designer. Although storyboard pro would be a great help in creating a storyboard for my A2 media project I will not use this as I believe I have enough skills to draw a storyboard with enough information for it to be produced into a short film. As our group has decided what we will be doing for our production I can begin to think about doing some drafts of what the short films key scenes will be as trying to do too much too early may affect the outcome because changes will happen due to things like location and characters as they may force our group to reconsider our ideas making sure everything works out ok for the final production of the film.

Sam: Audience For All Short Films

When making any film it is paramount you research your proposed target audience in depth. But before I make a definite decision on my target audience, I will look at how films primarily target their audience.


Firstly the narrative or plot of a short film really has to be spot on if you want it to appeal to a certain audience. Generally speaking, romantic films with happy endings appeal to the female audience. Whereas it seems that clever, subtle and non-obvious narratives interest males.



NEED TO FINISH

Sam: Distribution Of Short Films

Sam: Topics

A common question which is asked when talking about short films is why do people make them? well firstly people make short films for a various different reasons. After looking at alot of different short films on 'you tube'  i seem to repeatedly come across charities trying to raise awareness of what is going on in the world around us. These sort of films are not  often done to win prizes but to gain support and followers. the short film 'chicken ala carte' which was studied by one of our group members is a perfect example of this. nevertheless, some short films are made purely on the fact the win prizes at global events to get there companies on the map. Having watched 10 short films on 'you tube' , 4 were comical , 4 were charity based , and two were very dramatical and nurrative structured based. This will be brought up in the next meeting when choosing a form of our film.
something i have definetly learned from studying these films is that, if you have real belief in something, you can express it through a short film. I get the feeling the key element to any short films is creativity and imagination. Also a common occurence in short films, is that the sound is normly a tune or song of some sort, verbal communcation is rare. These different topics will be considered seriously when making our own film.

Sam : Reflection Of The Project

Ryan finally announced he was officially leaving the group today to pursue with his retail management course. It was thought he was going to do a u-turn and carry on doing his A levels, this meant everything came to a stand still. However now me and Lloyd can really crack on and get some intense research done. I felt it was important to call a meeting to get things on track again, so this will be held tomorrow afternoon in the conference room. We will use ryans research and information to hold us in good stead for the future.Meanwhile I am going to expand my background knowledge of the short film genre by looking at the different topics and distribution of short films in general. Also I hope to see some examples of animated and drama short films from lloyd. Finally i have high hopes that we will start to make some key decisions on the form, target audience and pleasures and expectations of our short film. However firstly to make this important decision , I think i need to gain further background knowledge of the why people make films, how they get distributed and finally who they target when doing so.