Story Boarding

I am containing many different shot types of angles and movements to keep my short film entertaining as it is not an action film, there is not much excitement. Therefore I am trying to do this with the fast paced shots. Resulting from this there would be a very large amount of frames on my storyboard. Which is why I have story boarded very roughly. I have storyboarded basic ideas of what I want to see in my film. Though story boarding is often seen as an essential part of production, personally I don't rely heavily on story boards. I mainly have the image within my head of the scenes, in great detail. However this is a very bad habit I still think they are essential and useful. I do like having the idea of shots that you want before filming as you feel more prepared and less stressed. So i have used this opportunity very well.
Now I have a great idea of my films progression, I can start planning on location for the scenes and props necessary within my short film.

Example of one of my storyboard sheets:

Script

For my short film there is no dialogue so a script with many characters conversing is not needed. This is as I have decided my short film to be a narrative short film so the character in the short film is describing what he is doing within the short film. Here is my script for the short film:

Fade in:

Warren has a nightmare, a montage of him exploring areas but only 
finding horrible humans chasing him and no useful loot. 

Warren gets woken up by the gun shots in his nightmare and also the alarm clock.

Fade out:

WARREN, Middle aged English man nuclear war survivor who is in a bad mental state due to the loneliness from the intense dramatic fall.

Warren leans up and gasps for air from his nightmare and begins to get out of bed.

WARREN VOICEOVER
This is what my life has become, my unconscious time takes me back to the life I had before. Brought back to the reality of my life now. I long for the life I had before, what I wouldn't give to wind back the clock. Now after the devastation and carnage of the nuclear war, my life couldn't be more different. Alone, afraid and on the edge of going insane.

FADE IN:

INT. Inside house - DAY

Flashback of the day of the attack and Warren preparing.

WARREN VOICEOVER

The day of the attack, took the world by surprise. My survival was purely down to my paranoia and preparation. I remember years before thinking the cupboard under the stairs which was lined with aluminium to allow storage of wine would make a fantasticate nuclear shelter.

CUT TO SCENES OF TRUMP AND MILITARY

WARREN VOICEOVER

As tension grew around the world following president elect trumps victory, I began to make the cupboard more sustainable, as China and Russia started military manoeuvres. Water, canned food, bedding, medical supplies and any other necessities to keep me alive during the initial aftermath. My conscious seemed to pay off.

FADE OUT:

INT. Inside house - DAY

Warren begins his daily routine.

WARREN VOICEOVER

It feels like groundhog day. Everyday the same routine, I get up alone. Always with the hope and belief of someone out there who is friendly, someone close - who will make this life more bearable. I eat breakfast, usually either tinned fruit or baked beans followed by a small amount of water which I have to ration now as my stock is getting low. I know a foraging expedition with a town of friendly citizens is close, and this fills me full of dread. I have never been out that far and it is just too dangerous out there.

INT. Streets and neighbours house - DAY

Warren goes to scavenge stock at nearby houses.

WARREN VOICEOVER

So far I have only ventured beyond my immediate neighbours a few times. I mainly adventure only within my area as people are not trusted out there. However, it proved to be quite fruitful as being elderly had cupboards of tinned food, most of which was in date. My other neighbour was a kean hiker and camper and I managed to obtain two camping stoves and enough gas for six months - if I last that long.

My will to live was like a roller coaster, I wanted to curl up and die, as the loneliness and lack of human contact was beginning to make me hallucinate more and more. Slowly, I was going crazy with my own company. And on the other hand I had waves of excitement, trepidation and adrenalin at the thought of meeting people in the same position, just trying to get through the hell that has become our lives.

I miss the human contact, the ability to talk, touch and smell another human being. My life is full of dull routines mixed with vivid flashbacks of what my life used to be like. The reality is my initial stock of food is critically low, this fact together with my human instinct to see if there was anyone out there who is friendly has driven me to the decision that I must look further afield. Tomorrow, I will drive to the local campsite in the hope of supplies and human contact.

Fade out:

INT. Abandoned campsite - DAY

Warren goes around scavenging the abandoned campsite in hope for food and human life.

WARREN VOICEOVER

I was unprepared for the devastation and desolate surrounding. A place which I remember to be vibrant, noisy and full of life - was now a ghost town. It also looked like I was not person to have the same idea, stores, supplies, and anything useful has been stripped out. My heart had sunk, my hope crushed, what was the point..

Changes to Plot and Idea

My first plot idea: resulting to a worldwide nuclear attack it leaves one survivor, who is my dad, as he is immune to the nuclear substance due to him researching this area for his whole life. He is on a quest to find other human life and to restart the human race.

Now once I have had done research, I have came to realization that I want my plot to be slightly different and needed improvements. So here is my updated plot:

Due to Warren being deep below the surface when the bomb hit, along with supplies and water, he finds himself a lone survivor in a world ravaged by the effects of a nuclear war. It takes time to adjust to the surroundings, but the mental toll effects him badly. Knowing he probably wont see his wife, children and family again hit hard, his world will never be the same. The world will never be the same. He is on a quest to find supplies to last him longer and other human life and to restart the human race.

Deadline Plan for finishing Short Film

Now I have finished Research, I am now going to plan my deadlines for the planning, filming, editing and my final product. Being organised and following a deadline plan is very helpful to keep up with my work, be focused and on track. I wont complete these to the exact dates however I will try my best to keep up to date with it as possible. I decided to put it in a table as its easy to comprehend and know my deadline dates.

There will be many posts throughout this process of showing my journey of the short film. Once I have completed the main task, which will hopefully be before Christmas so I can have a break, I will then have a month to complete the two little projects, the subsidiary tasks. I feel like that will be plenty of time as the ones I have chosen are Photoshop based which I am quite good at. I will make a deadline list after I have created all short film related posts, so it doesn't get too confusing.

Short Film Questionaire

I had 30 members of my sixth form to fill in a questionnaire related to my short film. I am interested to know the majority of peoples opinion on my idea of a short film and short films in general. This will hopefully direct me in the right path and see how successful my own short film will be.

Evaluation of Results
This information has been very useful to myself and great research for my short film. Firstly, people expect a short film to be 5-7 minutes as 17 people responded saying this and second was 3-4 minutes with 7 voting for this. This tells us that people prefer around this time therefore I am going to try and keep it around 4-6 minutes as this will help with peoples expectations and also keeping with their attention spans.
Furthermore,  we received great feedback that the majority of people would like to see a film about a nuclear war survivor as 5 only said they wouldn't, meaning more than 80% of people I asked would enjoy to see this. The only negative feed back about this was my plot as it does seem quite unoriginal as many films use the same plot however I have tried to change it slightly by it being a nuclear war rather than zombies or virus's.
Moreover, peoples majority vote of the importance of a short film was to tell a story and portray a message. I need to defiantly keep these in mind when creating my own if this is what people think is most important for a short film.
Lastly, one of my most vital questions was the last - what attracts you when watching a film. The 30 students I asked mainly said the actors intrigue them the most and also the look of the actual film. I do not have any big, famous actors that will attract them to watch the film so this is a shame however I can make the film look as professional and interesting as I possibly can by using cinematic and a variety of shots to maintain the interest and engage them to watch.