Entry 5: Storyboarding

As of yesterday, I have started developing my story boarding skills. I had tried story boarding before but it lacked in detail and even I couldn't read it. The next time I tried I had to much detail. You'd think that a lot of detail is actually good, but again it was incomprehensible. I learned that you have to find a balance between the pictures you draw and the information you give.

The picture on the left explains exactly what I mean. The pictures are not too complex, along with just enough explanations to get the point across. I think my big problem with storyboarding is imitating and reflecting the image from my head onto the paper. Especially when I want represent camera movements. Everyone says "Use the arrows!" but how am I supposed to do that when I want to do more than one movement at a time.

You're probably thinking
"Why more than one movement?"
Now, I really like to experiment when it comes to shots and camera movements. For instance for this project I had an idea that, personally I think is complex.

This is where I get to the project. For the opening scene, the first thing you see is a waiter walking through the tables with food in hand for our main characters. This will be a long shot, following the waiter to the table; almost like the long shot used in Goodfellas, one of our inspirations for the opening, just not as long. From here it will be a shot of the food that is placed on the table in the center of the frame. An example would be the food intro from Napoleon Dynamite(picture on the right). From that shot it will be continuous from the camera facing the food to a downward tilt, followed by a slight pan in order to get another angle of the food. This action is almost like a flip as we get the food from the center into another angle, in order to see our main character. This is then followed by a focus pull from the food to the main character.