Animatic Storyboard

This is my animatic video that I produced to help the planning of my final film opening. This was incredibly helpful while filming as I could use it to make sure that the shots I was filming matched up with the shots on the animatic, in this sense, it acted as a shot list.

It also helped me plan how long my opening would be, after producing my animatic I knew that my video would be too short so I knew that I would have to add more footage, I could then bear this in mind when filming.

Generic Conventions - Props and Essential Scenes

The film opening I am making is an action film, I have researched generic conventions for action films to help improve my opening sequence.



Guns, action films are well known for having lots and lots of guns. Almost every character carries some form of weapon usually and they play a vital role in the fight scenes.





Secret missions, the protagonist is usually tasked with completing a very dangerous top secret mission, normally involving infiltrating a certain group of villains.




Explosions, every action film will include a scene where something explodes, it seems that many action films try and fit in as many explosions as possible as they give a sense of awe to the film and get hearts racing.





Chase scenes, an action film will include a scene where someone, most likely the protagonist, is being chased by a group of official looking bad guys.





Fight scenes, action movies always have to have lots of these, well co-ordinated fights scenes are essential for an action film and are good to get adrenaline pumping and define the protagonist as the hero by defeating the villains.

Actors and Characters

For my film I will only need one actor; the person sitting on the bench who is also the person getting chased. My friend Dylan will act the character who walks into shot in the forest and sits on the bench, getting up and leaving near the end of the clip. Dylan will also act the character who is involved in the action/chase scenes, running away from something we don't see. I have asked a friend to act the character in the action scenes so that I can be behind the camera, constantly moving, doing follow shots and changing angles, running with the main character. This means that I can be more creative with the use of cinematography in the action scenes and use quick cuts with short clips edited together to fit the feel of the action scene.

Originally I was going to play the character in the forest scene and Dylan would play the character in the chase scene but I changed the film last minute so Dylan would play both characters and the chase scene would be flashbacks as Dylan, (in the forest scene) finally came to rest but couldn't relax, flinching and twitching as he remembered the chase. I preferred this because not only did it make the narrative more interesting but it also meant that I could be in control of the camera for all the shots, this allowed me to be more creative with the camera shots and be able to see how a shot is going to look at all times instead of placing the camera in the hands of someone else and risking not having the shot exactly as I wanted it.

BBFC Rating certificate research