Our Film Opening Storyboard: The Newest Edition

  

    Since we have finished filming and are now in the process of editing our film opening, my group and I have created a new storyboard to display the changes that we have made to the scenes and the editing adjustments as well.

    This was a fairly more accurate storyboard as the number of actual shots we have in the opening so far fits the amount of shots we actually have in this new storyboard.

    In the first set of scenes, there is a fade from black that then goes to a close-up shot of our main character, Betty, slamming her hand down on her alarm clock as it goes off to wake her up, a cut to a medium shot of Betty waking up while music plays in the background, and then a cut to ripped letters and pictures from her ex James being displayed on her desk. At the beginning, the sound from the alarm can be heard, then soft piano music begins to play in the background, and not too long after, Betty's voiceover starts.

    With filming this scene, at first we, as in at least one other group member, planned to film "Betty's room" ourselves so that the actress playing her would have less work to do and it would look a bit professional, but after the craziness involving cast changes and location changes, we decided it would be best if Tori film the entire scene herself in her own bedroom, and I think that actually worked out for the best. 

    A couple changes that were also made in terms of shooting the scene include the fact that we changed the waking up part to a medium shot instead of having it be a wide shot and changed the content of the last part, now having insert shots of several of Betty's items laid out rather than a having the camera pan around her bedroom, as we thought that would take too much time and not be relevant enough to the story to keep in.

    This next set of scenes includes a cut to a medium close-up shot taken from over the shoulder, of Betty applying her makeup, a cut to a medium shot taken from Betty's POV of her opening the front door for James, and then a cut to a medium close-up shot of James, shown in shallow focus, begging for forgiveness, again from Betty's POV. The soundtrack music, Reverie (Piano Version) ft. Adarsh PV by Lahar, and Betty's voiceover would still be playing in the first shot but would stop when Betty's doorbell is heard, giving way for diegetic sound to be heard in those last two shots. 

    Although for this scene we pretty much stuck to our original plan for filming the different shots, we did change the last one, the one shot of James in Betty's doorway, from a over-the-shoulder shot to a POV shot, mainly because we wanted consistency in that sequence and because it was easier to film it that way.

 

    For this scene, there was a cut to a medium close-up shot of James trying to get one last word in before Betty slams the door in his face, still from her POV, a cut to a medium long shot of Betty appearing upset and sliding down the door to the floor, a fade to a medium close-up shot of James walking, a cut to a shot of his feet while he's walking, and then a cut back to that MCU of his face as he notices August. Then, there is a cut to a medium close-up shot of August rolling down her car window and yelling after James trying to convince him to get into the car. At this point, there would be strictly diegetic sound, mostly of James' footsteps as he is walking, the rest dialogue that is spoken toward the end of this scene.

    

    What we did change in shooting this was that we ended up using medium close-ups for all of these shots. For instance, the shot of Betty slamming the door was going to be a medium shot, the part where James is walking was planned as a wide shot, and August calling out to James from her car was also supposed to be a medium shot that actually included James in the frame. Overall, we actually used little to no wide shots during our entire filming process as we were not really putting emphasis on landscape and scenery in our film opening since its focus is on the characters and the dialogue, etc. For timing and our camera's battery life it was, you could say, meant to be, for all of these changes to have been made.

    In this very last set of scenes, the previous scene now cuts to a medium shot of James walking towards the car to talk to August, the camera panning between the two of them as they have a slightly aggressive conversation. Then, as James is convinced to get into the car, he exclaims and goes in, the camera simply following this movement. Next, there is a cut to a medium close-up shot of James and August arguing, then in the midst of this, the camera tilts up to the sky, where the title of our opening, "The Hope of it All" appears. During James' and August's argument, right before the tilt to the sky happens, more music, Token (feat. Cloe Sutherland) by Fernweh, begins playing in the background.

    With the exception of two shots, we maintained our plan in how we wanted to shoot this part of the film opening. Initially we were going to have a wide shot of August and James' argument, but then there were complications with the lighting and the sound that the camera was not picking up so we decided to, instead of filming this shot from outside the car and then backing up to tilt to the sky, film it from inside of the car instead, which I think ended up in creating a more immersive look to it all.