Storyboard

This is our story board:

This is the first page of our storyboard. We wanted to fade in from black to a cutting shot of an alarm clock. We had a red table to demonstrate danger and evoke the risks and threats to come. The shot of the alarm clock uses the rule of 3, and positions the alarm clock in the middle of the shot. The analogue clock demonstrates what the character is like and shows his old-fashioned style. The next shot is his legs appearing out of bed. This builds tension as his face isn’t revealed. The shot of the socks shows the 'Tuesday', when the typewriter shows that it’s actually Thursday, also revealing his character being 'dopey' and that he's a bit dense.

This is the next page of our story board; the next shot is a shot of the shower - another quick shot to demonstrate he’s getting ready for work. The next shot we didn’t use, of his spraying deodorant. Instead we used a shot of his trousers on the toilet and his hand reaching for toilet roll. We also used a shot of a toothbrush being put in a glass, the rule of thirds being used and the light through the glass and lighting the shot.  We also then had him tiding up his shoe laces, showing how he’s getting ready for work, the quick editing of the shots and series of jump cuts builds tension and shows his getting ready - evoking how he's not concentrating and could be quite vulnerable, the lack of decisions he needs to make shows how he is in his own little world, and reinforces that he is an 'ordinary person in an extraordinary situation' conforming to Alfred Hitchcock’s theory.



The next shots we used were of the breakfast cereal. We began with an over the shoulder shot of him pouring the cereal, and then a shot of his pouring the milk. The surrounding books and pens show his workaholic character and the choice of cereal of 'bran flakes' we felt represented the type of person he was. We decided to add in the radio shot here as well, allowing him to hear the news and for a song to be played diagetically and off screen. This also allowed him to be shown listening to a local radio station and the 60s song shows more about his personality.

We then had a point of view, over the shoulder shot of the door and letter box. the lighting appearing quite dark to suggest the tension and suspense. We wanted a focus pull, but because of the distance this was hard to establish and so decided to add in short clips of the hostage, to make the audience question and wonder. The letter then appears through the door and the character is seen walking over. There is then an over the shoulder shot, explain in an earlier blog post, in which was had an interesting shot of an envelope. The then reveals the shot of a hostage, with the picture in black and white. There’s then a zoom and a jump cut to the hostage, allowing the audience to be separated from the central character, and the character who doesn’t know what’s going on is then positioned lower than the audience as he is less aware than them, creating a connection between the audience and character.

Finally we then had drastic shots of the hostage, where an icy blond - a typical character featured in Alfred Hitchcock films, appears to be captured. There were different views of the hostage, evoking chaos and there’s a shot directly through her feet, showing another female character walking past, keeping her hostage. We had shots of her hands and different angles, but decided it would be more effective to just have 2 varied shots and cut between them.

Ellie.