Storyboard + Critical Friend

Storyboards are a critical tool for movie directors and writers. Can you imagine the chaos of trying to film a two hour movie without first visualizing how each scene will be put together? It is the same with your product. Just as it is not time-efficient to have our students sitting in the computer lab working from scratch, so to, you should map out your story before beginning to input the contents into the actual product.

As we discussed in our face-to-face meeting, storyboards are absolutely central to the movie process. Before filming begins, complete storyboarding takes place to assist the director and set designers as they create their story from paper to film.

Here is an example of a storyboard of the opening scene from the film Star Wars: Troops.

Look at these websites to find some helpful information about storyboarding. For out project it does not have to been something super fancy. I just want to you get an idea of the process and to understand the importance of storyboarding in the planning process.

Sidebars
YouthLearn
Acting with a Pencil
Thinking through visual storytelling
Storyboard Template
Studio 1151

The Critical Friend is an important part of the process. Someone whose opionion you trust, and who can be honest about your presentation. This is where your critical friend comes in handy. You want someone who will give you constructive feedback on your work.

Select a partner from our class who you will work with. Each of you will exchange your works-in-process before sending it to me. Review your partner’s work without a lot of description by the author beforehand. Provide each other feedback on usability and functionality issues. By doing this, you will receive comments and suggestions from a potential user of your product. In essence, having another set of eyes provides a way for you to check that your goals and objectives are clear for the user. Your critical friend’s function is similar to having an editor for a writing project.

When you begin to test your product with your critical friend, try it out on more than one computer, and/or with different browsers to see the differences.

Let me know who you have partnered with when you send your storyboard.