Below is the photo board we created in order to establish the shots we need to capture for the narrative element of our music video. The creation of a storyboard is commonplace within most areas of the media industry, whether it’s for a music video like our project, or a huge budget Hollywood film. Being able to visualise and creatively test potential ideas is really helpful when it comes to maximising your potential.
We need to have a sense of direction, not only in terms of how the video is going to look on a visual level but also in what sort of footage we need to capture. Creating a storyboard, like the one above, allows us to express ideas and decide on whether not certain ideas are viable when it comes to realistically producing them using the equipment we have. Unlike producers with extremely large production budgets, we are crafting a video with quite a few limitations. This is why ensuring you are aware of what you can or can’t do will reduce wastage of time and a sense of disappointment if something we want to do doesn’t work out.
Our narrative plan has a clear connection to the performance shoot we have already shot, with them both connoting themes of control, conformity and a lack of individualism. We are hoping to create a clear binary opposition of freedom and a lack of free will within the narrative. This will be achieved through the combination of the types of shots we capture and the use of mise en scene. We want there to be a clear escalation of events within our music video and for it to be able to get our audiences invested in the drive of our protagonist who is trying to escape his current situation.
In particularly, we hope to use the costuming of our talent as a direct visual signifier of conformity, and also as a cultural code which will be able to be decoded by audiences. The use of white shirts will clearly connote themes of office working and the mundanity associated with the lifestyle. We can then combine this with the use of framing and proxemics in order to clearly demonstrate the narrative journey of our protagonist becoming disenfranchised with the conforming lifestyle, which we will show through change of costuming and also a change in how he is framed with the rest of the characters. There will be a clear change in the shot distances in order to focus in on our protagonist and methods such as cut to close up will really emphasise the significance of his performance which will involve him looking visually distressed and uncomfortable.
Reflection
These uses of media language will really go a long way in ensuring our video is correctly understood and achieves the intended reading by our audience. By crafting this storyboard, me and my partner now have a clear idea of what we need to capture during our narrative shoots. The creation of the storyboard was really beneficial in terms of developing our pre-existing ideas as to what we want to do with our narrative and it helps us realise not only any other possibilities of what we could do but also any issues we could encounter.
