Editing for Mood: Storyboards

For this assignment you will be creating a storyboard and/or film that will, like the examples you’ve just seen, use shot composition, arrangement of shots, the order of shots and rhythm to create two works with very distinct emotional effects.

1. Use the Storyboard Template to sketch ten shots which must include:

a) An action shot of a character doing something
b) A reaction shot showing a character’s emotion
c) A detail shot of an object or location

2. For each shot, consider:

a) The angle of the shot: is it level, low-angle (looking up at the character) or high-angle?
b) The distance of the shot: is it a long shot (where all of a character can be seen), a medium shot (generally from the waist up or shoulders up), a two-shot (a medium shot broad enough to show two characters), or a close-up (usually just a person’s face, or even closer for an extreme close-up)?

3. Once you’ve sketched out these ten shots you’ll complete two more storyboards, each with one of the following tones or genres:

a) Funny (like a comedy)
b) Suspenseful (like a thriller)
c) Sad (like a drama)
d) Scary (like a horror movie)
e) Exciting (like an action movie)

Both of these will use at least seven of the ten shots you sketched, but you can change:
• The order in which the shots occur
• The composition of each individual shots (a neutral shot might be done as a low-angle shot for one film and a high-angle shot in the other, for example, or the same shot might be a close-up in one film and long-shot in another)
• The duration of each shot (how long it lasts before cutting to the next shot)

Make sure to label each shot in all three storyboards with a brief description of what is happening in the shot and the angle, distance, duration and movement (if any).