Storyboard Like a Rockstar

Background

Aloha 7th Graders, as part of the next phase in the Design Cycle of our Design Folder, each of you will be creating some storyboards of your digital video tutorials.  In fact, to get full credit for the design phase, you'll need to produce at least 3 unique and different tutorial ideas that are guided by the design specification that you chose in the last part of the investigation phase.

Remember, the content you choose to teach others in your digital video tutorial is up to you.  I would consider coming up with a list of ideas before you start story-boarding them out.  What would appropriate topics be?  Think back to our problem: There are others around the world who want to learn, but who don't have access to the right tools or resources.  What could you teach someone that would help them be able to take the next step on their own?  Maybe something basic that they could learn, practice and begin to use as a a basis for expanding their knowledge and growing more in that area.

For example, teaching someone about the basic parts of a sentence would enable others to create stronger sentences and better paragraphs.  Showing someone how to cite a internet reference would assist other in creating better work cited pages and bibliographies.  Introducing people to how to read basic sheet music would enable them to understand how to begin learning or playing the instrument they've always wanted to learn.  Giving people the tools to understand how to take a screen capture might allow others to begin documenting their work and archiving their knowledge.

Don't get me wrong... I think teaching people how to do a 360 on a skateboard or boogy board is great... but is that going to really help us solve our problem?

Eventually, we'll scan all of these storyboards you create and import them into your design folder document.  Afterward, you'll be tasked with comparing each of your designs against the design specification you chose and eventually use those comparisons to pick and justify a design winner (that you will later actually film.)

Today, I want to give you some instruction into what storyboards are, how people use them and the camera focus, angles and movement that you'll need to know to create a storyboard. We'll eventually get some practice story boarding so you can get a feel of how to do it yourself. So... here we go!

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Introduction to Storyboards

Storyboards come in all shapes and sizes for all different types of projects.  In fact, take a moment to see some of the different types of storyboards people have created by following this link to Google's Public Template Gallery (on Storyboards.)  Take a moment or two to look through them and you'll see a variety of sizes and styles all with different size boxes and spaces for information to be written below.

To get a sense and idea on how and why we storyboard, i'd like to ask you to watch the following video clip and answer the questions below.  Be sure to scroll down to the bottom of the questions and submit.

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Introduction to Camera Framing, Angles and Movement

Every movie you ever watch will have some of the very same elements presented in it that have been developed over the past 60+ years by cinematographers wishing to better communicate their messages.  Each shot and scene you view is composed of how the camera shot is framed (meaning how you line it up with the subject or what you're focus is) the camera angles (how the lens is angled in relationship to your subject) and camera movement (how the camera lens moves with the subject including zooming, moving up and down, side to side or rolling along.)

Please watch the following video to get a sense of how directors use these common tools to communicate there perspectives to the audience.  Additionally, you can ignore the parts in the middle where he makes a pitch for some expensive stereo equipment.

Be sure to answer the questions below while you're watching the video!

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Activity One: Can you Storyboard?

Now lets see how well you can storyboard yourself.  The substitute will have a storyboard for you that you can use to "reverse engineer" the following video.  You'll find that there are a few different shots from a couple of different camera angles.  See if you can deconstruct and draw what you think AJ's storyboard would have looked like while he was planning before he started filming.

Make sure you pay attention to the each time the camera focus changes... that indicates a new shot.  Also be sure to put labels on your storyboard for references to dialogue, on-screen text, the various camera angles he uses, location, etc.

Your homework!

Start coming up with some simple and basic ideas that you feel you would be able to teach others that would help them take control of their own learning.  As mentioned before some good examples would include the basics of a sentence, how to read simple musical scales, how to cite a internet resources, etc.  Your task will be to come up with three different learning concepts and to storyboard out how you would teach others these concepts using digital videos.  Start your sketching  you'll need to have one complete storyboard concept and idea by the time we meet next week.