Planning - Storyboard

This storyboard briefly goes through our trailer and just gives an overview of what we plan to include, we are going to go through each picture in the storyboard and explain what this represents and the shots it leads to.

Shot 1: the first shot will be a long shot of the women kneeling down at her husbands grave, then a point of view shot of her holding a military hat that he wore whilst fighting in the war and she is crying.This will already raise questions and emotions for the audience. She will also be holding her stomach to indicate that she is pregnant with his child.

Shot 2: This next shot will be set "4 months later" when she has just had the baby, the shot will emphasize how happy she is and how healthy and happy her new born baby is, suggesting that her baby is now the new focus in her life and after all her trauma with the loss of her husband, she finally has something to set her mind to and think about. This drastically changes the tone of the trailer from going to a negative to a positive. Quick shots will display her taking her baby home, maybe her holding it and enjoying having a baby. 

Shot 3: This is where the film goes wrong as the baby sadly dies, its mother cries and sobs at the loss of her child and obviously takes her back into what the audience will assume is depression and anxiety. Quick shots will show her screaming at the loss and the taking away of her child. 

Shot 4: This shot shows the distributors of the film, so the company or individual that is responsible for the release of a film, either theatrically or for home viewing (for example DVD, TV programmes, Video-On-Demand etc.) After the deconstructions we did of existing trailers, we found that showing the company that distributes the film is very commonly and is almost always shown in the trailers. 

Shot 5: The next shot shows her having very vivid dreams, her in bed tossing and turning because of this dream she is having. The dreams show that she is seeing a figure holding a pillow suggestively about to suffocate her baby, however this figure she sees is unclear. Fixated with this dream she truly believes her baby didn't die of naturally causes but was murdered. 

Shot 6: This next shot shows the police arriving, as she is convinced that a full investigation must be made into the death of her baby to find who or what has killed him.

Shot 7: Again, from doing our deconstructions we learned that often actors names are shown to encourage to audience to watch the film, as often if an actors name is recognized they will be influenced to go and watch a film. Also from our audience research we found that 75% of our respondents were influenced to go and watch a film by who the cast was and who directed the film. 

Shot 8: We want to indicate to the audience that these dreams are of some importance to the plot therefore we are going to include another part of her dreaming to build up suspense and tension as the audience will question these dreams, and also be quite unnerved by who is in her dreams. 

Shot 9: From our AS coursework, the film we produced the opening scene of called "distorted" was a horror film, however the opening scene also was very thrilling. Therefore we thought it would be a good idea to include in the titles: "From the makers of distorted" we had a lot of positive feedback from our audience feedback questionnaire and they would continue to watch the film. Therefore we thought we would use the common convention of displaying previous films that the makers have made. From previous research we found that if an audience has enjoyed previous films made by the same people, they will be encouraged to go and watch this film as they know the positive reputation of the film makers. By doing this we hope to make this a convincing and realistic trailer.

Shot 10: Last part of the trailer will be very fast pace getting quicker and quicker along with the soundtrack becoming louder and faster to build up to the climax at the end of the trailer of a cliff hanger. This shot just displays one of the shots that will be shown, a close up of the main characters eyes opening very quickly, giving an element of shock and danger as we can see the veins in her eyes showing her anger and despair. This sudden opening of her eyes we feel will fit in well with the fast pace of the trailer. 

Shot 11: The next shot shows the slamming of a door and a shot panning backwards, seeing the women through the window in the door struggling to get away and screaming to get out. Again this raises more questions which is exactly what we want to do. 

Shot 12: The last shot it of the actually title of the film, after all the fast pace shots, it suddenly stops still on the title of the film. This last shot lingering on the screen will hopefully stick in the mind of the audience, it will be memorable and will stand out, making them remember this trailer and therefore wanting to go and see this film at the cinema which ultimately is what this trailer needs to do. Referring back to our audience research, the most popular answer to the question where do you prefer to see the titles displayed in a trailer" was the end. Therefore we took this into consideration and put our titles throughout the film, but mainly displayed it at the end.  


Thrillers are mysterious and fast pace, this trailer makes the audience ask questions, they will want to know what happens next, why all these things are happening and will hopefully be thrilled by the trailer, thus want to go and watch our film.