FINE CUT FILMS - MEDIA SKILLS


THINKING VISUALLY

I decided that it wasn't much good just saying 'Don't Litter'; I wanted to SHOW that littering was bad. And not just bad for the environment, but bad for the litterer - in other words, that if you litter, bad things happen to you.

So I came up with a vague idea: Man litters, litter bites back, he decides to do better next time.

Well, litter can't actually bite back, but the proverbial banana skin came to the rescue. If he throws the skin away, then slips on it, the lump on his head will remind him to use a bin next time he eats a banana.

But why should he retrace his route so that his feet meet the litter? Not too difficult - anything that motivates him to turn about should do the trick. Maybe a stunning yellow Lamborghini honks its horn.

Sadly, I don't have a Lamborghini. So his attention will have to be drawn by a pretty girl.

Why should she call to him? Obviously not for boy-girl reasons. Easy - she wants him to pick up the banana skin.

The next step is something called a storyboard.

It's simply a series of sketches that show the main shots you intend to take. The crudest artwork will suffice. As my example shows. All a (simple) storyboard has to do is indicate three things for each shot:

Have a look at the next page; you can see the vague banana skin idea start to become pictures.

Storyboard 1