**Storyboarding Homework** - Individual homework - Available Mar 13 - Due in class Mar 17 The goal of this assignment is to translate narrative into visuals, the final step in our backwards march towards total coverage of cinematography preproduction. A key idea in doing so is that the visuals create an interpretation of the literal script, and may do so in suprising ways to either good or bad effect. We give an excerpt from the script for _Let the Right One In_ (dir: Tomas Alfredson, cin: Hoyte van Hoytema, 1h 55m, 2008) below, corresponding to a scene that begins at about 1:26. You may not watch _Let the Right One In_ until you've finished this assignment. (It is of course OK if you've already seen the film, but do not refer back to it or watch it now if you haven't already!) This scene develops a key point in the film between the two main adolescent characters: a bullied boy, Oskar, and the strange girl next door, Eli. Oskar knows that there is something darkly magical about Eli but does not yet know that she's a vampire. Eli has claimed to Oskar that entering his apartment without an explicit invitation will kill her. In this scene, he silently challenges her to do so, not believing her claim. Your task is to decide what this sequence needs to accomplish with viewers --- how you want to affect them --- and then to visualize it as fully as you can. Then translate that mental film into the storyboard frames necessary to communicate the essential visual elements needed to shoot it. Remember that meaning and emotion don’t always line up with dialogue --- your most telling shots here may not be annotated at all in the script --- and that much will depend on the rhythm of shot/reverse shots, on framing, and on the comparative distance of the camera from the actors. (Will the camera be on a tripod or handheld? How do you want to handle depth of focus?) We encourage you to borrow a class member or two and block this out to get a feel for what you're after. Your shots can't communicate anything in particular unless you’ve imagined that particularity. Think about the lessons from Katz, Mamet, and Brown's books. There is substantial room for creativity in this assignment, but not all innovations are successful. Expect to spend much more time thinking than drafting, but do so iteratively, so that you review your visuals and then improve them rather than using them to record your final thoughts. As Katz explains, you need not have any artistic proficiency to complete this assignment well. However, you must attend carefully to the main elements of film composition: - Aspect ratio - Field of view - Light direction and shadows - Relative proportions between elements as seen through the lens (which includes perspective; consider how distance from the camera to the subject affects the relative size of other subjects and objects) - Continuity editing for space and time - Transitions - Foley (sound effects) and dialogue - Camera motion during each shot Script Excerpt =============== _Interior of an apartment. A 12 year old boy sits alone, eating cereal and reading the paper. The doorbell rings. He looks up, startled, then turns his head to the door. Cut to exterior to see his visitor - a dark-haired girl of about the same age. The door slowly opens._ **Eli**: Hey. _She smiles._ **Oskar**: Hi. _They exchange hard-to-read looks. Why doesn't she enter?_ _He motions with his head for her to come in. She doesn’t move._ **Eli**: You have to invite me in. _She's still smiling, now a little anxiously. _ **Oskar**: What happens if I don't? What happens if you walk in anyway? _He puts his hand up, as if there were a glass wall between them._ **Oskar**: Is there something in the way? _He motions again, now with his fingers, but still she won’t enter. He’s clearly enjoying his unexpected show of power._ _He steps aside._ _She walks in and past him. _ _A series of shots of them exchanging looks. At first, nothing seems to happen; then Eli slowly hunches into herself and begins shaking. Sounds of squishing or bubbling are heard. Blood begins to pour from her eyes, mouth, ears, back. We see the boy, now looking distressed. _ **Oskar**: No! You can come in. _He holds Eli by the shoulders. They breathe heavily. He embraces her._