Sherm Cohen - Story boarding genius

Johnny recomendded watching this hour long video on storyboarding and i think annabeth did also, at first i was dreadding watching the whole thing but suprisingly i enjoyed the whole thing and was very disapointed that the final fifteen minutes were him selling his course. nonetheless this video explained susticntly a fanstasitc way of approaching a story board, as well as taking notes throughout the video, i also tried to copy along with the sketches he was doing. This blog is just a summary of the 7 points he made.

       1.  Stepping foward -

        Firstly he explains that your storyboard should follow 'film grammar' a type of progression of shots that have shown to be effective in captivating audiences. He does state that it is a pattern and not a perscription. The shots he mentions are:

• Establing shot (where we are)
• Full shot 
• Medium shot 
• close up 

These shots are trypically used to show a furthing of a story. He calls this 'Stepping foward' and only to step with one or two at a time. He briefly states when showing the audience new information, you should typically regress the shot and that the medium shot is your 'home base'

The medium shot is also used for conversations between characters. 

Sherms makes a point of re-establishing when a scene has gone on for too long, the full shot or establishing shot should be used for this.

He also makes a point on staging and how it gives the character and the adience soemhig to folllow. The key point he makes is that focus on what the most importabing thing in that moment and that should be the what you are stepping into

       2.  The tease
        

             Instead of starting off with a typical establishing shot, you start off with a close up and go straight into an action. Then stepping back to say a full shot and showing the audience what/why the action happened. Sherm suggests that playing with the audicenes perceotion is this moments add for a greater effect. 

       3.  Insert shot

            The instert shot a form of close up, where the audience is being shown more inside information of the scene. This is normally followed by a reaction shot so the audience knows why they should care about this new information.

       4. Corresponding shots.

           A more obvious point but a very important one. Its important to keep the sizes of characters and the scene consistent as well as the angles used. Such a conversation between a tall character and a short one. Having the camera looking up at both of them, doesnt make a correstponding shot. The only example i can think that would oppose this if you were trying to show power or status of a character. 

        5. 3/5 Transition 

            A type of transition used instead of fade out or wipe. The point is the add small quick shots of a the environment to indiacte a change in storyline. At first i didnt really understand what sherm meant by this, but then i was watching some casey neinstat viedos and i didnt realise how seamlessly he used this kind of transistion. Also he uses it  at the start of a lot his videos but in a very subtle way. i perticalrarly like this video because its all fight club.

     

       6. Time compression

            cut down on the amount of shots your characer is travelling to save time. Keeping your audience engaged is super important, so staying away from boring and monotonous actions is important. Keeping a visual veriety helps in keeping the auiences attention. 

        7. POV
         
            If you want to use a pov shot in your story, there are three simple stages that you should follow. 1) have the character look off screen. 2) what the character is looking at (pov). 3) Resolve the shot by going back at the character.