Entry 4
Date of Entry: February 1, 2018
Section: Planning
ATLs: I am addressing creative thinking skills, in addition to organization skills since I created storyboards and scripts to structure my video ideas into visual and written plans.
Subject: This entry is about how I used storyboards and scripts while producing my vlogs and documentary and how they helped me to visualize and edit my videos.
Content: When I came up with the idea of a YouTube for my Personal Project, I immediately started visualizing the plots and structures of my videos. I wanted to create three different types of videos: vlogs, tutorials, and a mini-documentary. My brainstorms developed quickly and so I started sketching and writing down my thoughts and ideas to not forget them. For my vlogs and my documentary, I chose to use storyboards and scripts as my organizers. Due to the spontaneous nature of the video, I did not create a script for my third vlog. Below I provide my storyboards and scripts and display how I used these organizers helped to create my final vlogs.
Date of Entry: February 1, 2018
Section: Planning
ATLs: I am addressing creative thinking skills, in addition to organization skills since I created storyboards and scripts to structure my video ideas into visual and written plans.
Subject: This entry is about how I used storyboards and scripts while producing my vlogs and documentary and how they helped me to visualize and edit my videos.
Content: When I came up with the idea of a YouTube for my Personal Project, I immediately started visualizing the plots and structures of my videos. I wanted to create three different types of videos: vlogs, tutorials, and a mini-documentary. My brainstorms developed quickly and so I started sketching and writing down my thoughts and ideas to not forget them. For my vlogs and my documentary, I chose to use storyboards and scripts as my organizers. Due to the spontaneous nature of the video, I did not create a script for my third vlog. Below I provide my storyboards and scripts and display how I used these organizers helped to create my final vlogs.
Vlog I
Through the storyboards I was able to visualize my videos ideas and bring them to life when filming and editing. Provided are some screenshots to demonstrate this. In vlog 1's storyboard I wanted a scene where I am talking about why I created a YouTube channel and it's connection to my Personal Project. The middle screenshot shows part of this scene which actually came to life in my final vlog. To continue, I also directly took influence from panel 6 in my final version of the vlog. In the storyboard, I planned that I would be playing basketball in the video; the first screenshot below clearly shows that this was included in the final version of vlog 1. The storyboard also helped when I wanted to put notes and reminders when editing. For instance, in between panel 3 and 4, I write “MONTAGE,” so that when editing I included a transitional scene that is a montage of my swim training. As can be seen below, the rightmost screenshot displays the montage I made for my morning training session before school.
Vlog II
The final version of vlog 2 did not completely match the storyboard for it, but matched the script better. The reason why I was able to visualize my video better in a script was because I had a good idea of how the dialogue and narration was going to be in this video. Nonetheless, some scenes drawn in my storyboard did come to life, like panel 5. In this scene, I wanted to show what I eat for breakfast and talk about how I will create a website that encourages healthy living. The screenshot from the video demonstrates how I ended up doing this in my final version of this video.
Vlog III
This was the vlog where my ideas were least clear and the events were the least predictable. It was a race vlog, so I knew I could make it interesting and engaging, I just could not plan it out very well. It is difficult to predict how races will pan out. In the end, I could not write a script for this vlog because it would have been counterproductive considering that I would not be able to predict how the events of the race would unfold. Consequently, for this vlog, the storyboard was especially helpful. For example, the drawing in panel 1 influenced the opening scene of the vlog, which was an establishing shot of racers on the starting blocks. Panel 4 shows that I planned to put my backstroke race in the video, and I actually do this, as can be seen in the screenshot with the arrow in it.
Documentary
Like in the other videos, the important scenes provided on the storyboard clearly came to life in my documentary. Panel 4 is a great example, as it depicts the IICS swim coach talking about his hope for swimming at the school; the screenshot shows this exact scene in the final version of the documentary.
In the end however, the most useful plan for the documentary was the script. In my documentary, the narration and details from my script are almost matched word-for-word and scene-for-scene. In my script, I decided to make a few changes to the order of scenes in the storyboard, like in the first scene. In my storyboard I wanted the first scene to be an establishing shot of IICS. In my final documentary, the opening scene changed from the establishing shot to a snippet from an interview with Mr. Johnson.
To conclude, the plans were vital for keeping video ideas in my head and ultimately were highly useful during the production of my final videos.