On Storyboarding:
A storyboard is a comic strip of sorts, a way of sketching out frames or shots for later adoption in video. Storyboards enable imagination of both the form and content of a video - through quick sketching or even photography and collage, the designer is able to establish an economical series of scenes to convey a narrative, and a point-of-view.
Storyboards are intended to be edited, re-arranged - shots switch places, get added or substracted, angles shift. Your storyboard should consider the following design elements:
1 - narrative: choose one or more persona/scenarios for realization. tell your story in as few shots as possible
2 - point-of-view: consider how camera-angle constructs a unified perspective on your story. Will you tell it from a third-person or first-person perspective, and why? Will you use narration or intertitles to help your story, or no?
3 - movement vectors: use arrows to indicate pans, zooms, dominant directions of movement in the frame
4 - annotation: provide annotations and captions to describe each frame's portion of the story.
5 - genre & mood: consider what emotions and associations you wish to make with your video. Are there existing genres or forms you wish to emulate? Which ones, and why?
You can create your storyboard in pencil, photography, collage, computer - your choice. You may create your own grid or use an existing template. Here are a couple examples, you can google for more if you like.
one
two
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Here's a good page with some examples of realized storyboards.
On the Video Prototype (or "video envisionment"):
The Video Prototype is a way of providing a realistic and sensory story of how a particular interface might operate in the world. The ubiquity of video helps this prototyping method find a broader audience, as less is required of the viewer compared to other methods. Video prototypes can take a variety of forms, and may employ our other methods along the way - paper prototypes, personas and scenarios make frequent appearances in video envisionments.
The big magic of video, however, is in the edit. Montage functions as a "wizard-of-oz," bringing all sorts of outlandish scenarios into being. Increasingly, postproduction and compositing (special effects) also play a role in video prototypes, to bring expensive designs to life.
Consider that your prototype can take a wide range of approaches, hiding the means of illusion to a greater or lesser extent. Will your video feel more like an infomercial, a science show, a movie trailer, a music video, a vintage documentary? Choose the best approach for your audience and design mission.
Here are some examples to think about:
Early Cinema used very basic illusion techniques to bring dreams to life:
Many of computing's commonplace tools were realized early on via video. Here are some classic examples:
Office of the Professional
Starfire
Vimeo and Youtube are full of video prototypes at this point, many created by students. Here are two examples of video prototypes realized by a former graduate student in New Media here at Illinois:
RINGTONE, by Mat Yapchaian
BREATHDRAWING, by Mat Yapchaian
FOR TUESDAY, APRIL21:
Have created a storyboard for your video and be prepared to show it in class. Also, have answered the following questions in writing:
1 - How many personas/scenarios did you choose to realize in your video, and why?
2 - What point-of-view or views does your video take, and why?
3 - What other videos or cultural references/genres will your video reference, and why?
4 - How hard will you work to hide the way in which the illusion is created, and why?