Creating my storyboard

I decided to use scene eight of my screenplay (the flashback scene) to create a storyboard around, due to it being an integral scene in the story and it being a scene that was easy to facilitate in terms of location, since I could use my own house and bedroom. I asked three of my friends to be actors in the scene with Molly Farrer playing Holly, Persie Bell playing Clara and Mia Jarvis playing Amber. Molly and Mia had both already had acting experience through doing drama GCSE, so taking the pictures generally went very smoothly and we were quickly able to get the shots done. I had planned my storyboard in advance with very rough pen drawn images of the different shots I wanted to achieve. There didn’t seem to be many risks when we took the majority of the photos, since our locations were my room and the landing outside. However, the end of the scene is the part where Amber falls down the stairs, so when were taking the picture where she fell, Mia lowered herself slightly over the banister and shook her head and her hair to give the effect in the picture hat she was falling. When doing this we made sure that two of us kept a strong hold on her so that she didn’t actually fall herself.
Once the photos for the scenes had all been taken, I assembled them on Microsoft Word into a story board format, with a description and explanation for each shot by its side. This was where I explained why each shot would work within the scene and how these shots should work together to create the overall flow of the scene. This was how I created my storyboard.

The three act structure in my screenplay

I found that the easiest way to coherently organise my ideas when first drafting my screenplay was through using the three act structure. I found this especially helpful given that we were writing a short film that had to be condensed down into just ten pages. 

I first looked at the set up and decided on throwing the spectator straight into the story by beginning it at the funeral of Amber, the girl who has died. This way the audience are immediately informed of a large incident in the story just by understanding the setting. It also builds intrigue, which would help to keep and audiences engagement and hold their attention. I decided to then introduce two forms of conflict in the Confrontation section, or the middle. One form of conflict was between Holly and Amber's ghost, who is just as mean as Amber was before in life, and who is haunting Holly. However, here Amber could be seen as a hallucination of Holly's to deal with her guilt, so this would be more of an internal conflict. The second conflict is between Holly and Clara, who are both finding it extremely difficult to cope with what they have done but are reacting to it in different ways - Clara is much more intent on keeping their secret than Holly is. During the resolution (the third act) we see a flashback of what actually happened to Amber and the reasons behind it. We then see Holly struggle between wanting to keep herself safe and wanting to do the right thing and own up to what happened. The film ends in the knowledge that Holly has finally made the right decision. This is how the three act structure helped me to construct and coordinate the plot for my screenplay.