For my two storyboards, I have decided to pick one from my favourite animation called “My Neighbour is Totoro.” which is directed by Ghibli and the other film directed by Woody Allen , “Midnight in Paris “.
Compositional and Sequential trends
By looking at the scenes which I have selected from the two movies, I realised that the scenes from the two movies would mostly have close up shots and medium shots. This is because those scenes would tend to focus on the character’s emotions and facial expressions
For “My Neighbour is Totoro,” the scene would mostly be about how Totoro reacts to the rain on his umbrella. I realised that majority of the scenes would focus on Totoro’s facial expression. As viewers. we can see that at every moment of this scene, Totoro’s facial expression changes as his eyes grew bigger and he became more fascinated about the rain. As a result, this would lead to the last second part of the scene where he would jump up and making the rain from the trees to fall even more heavily . When the rain stopped, an extreme close up on Totoro’s face to capture him exclaiming out loud and expressing how much he loved the rain. I find it very interesting on how the composition for this scene was made as the storyboard was meant to focus on Totoro’s reaction to the rain. By focusing the attention on Totoro, as viewers, we can tell that Totoro has never felt rain before and is a creature that is unfamiliar of the elements including rain that may not be found in his own forest or home. Furthermore, the scenes focusing on Totoro were at eye level which also draws the attention of the viewers into his own thoughts about the rain.
The sequence is not much of a narrative unlike “Midnight in Paris,” because of how the scene was meant to focus on how Totoro reacts to the rain and his facial expression. Thus, each frame would show the degree of enthusiasm Totoro expresses himself towards the rain.
The scenes in “Midnight in Paris”, were mostly shot at medium shots as both characters were having a conversation and the camera angles were shot at an eye level. For the compositional elements, I realised there were a few of the scenes that were a long shot because it was meant to establish the place that the main character was walking. This long shot also establish the mood of the scene when the character was walking alone and the area seemed to be quite empty as there were no other people around. Furthermore, the scene was shot in the night which made the lighting to be less bright and more dim to create a sense of loneliness for the character at first until he met another character, a lady named Gabrielle. The scenes would then switch to a medium shot on one of the characters and sometimes an off the shoulder shot when the both of the characters are talking and to show the reaction on both characters. From this point, I realised that after the man met the lady because of how the type of shot changes which also changes the mood of the scene to be less lonely However, I particularly like the last scene when both characters were walking together and they were slowly pictured as two silhouette figures as they continue to walk away from the viewers , along the aisle of the pathway. This scene may be simple but it shows that the conversation between the two couple would be going on for a long time as they seem to be engage with each other’s conversation throughout the whole scene. Additionally, this scene was shot in the night and the street lights that were made to be more orangey made this particular scene between the two couples to be more romantic.
The scenes had a narrative sequence as when it starts from the beginning, the scene had an empty and lonely type of atmosphere when the man was walking alone and it slowly transmitted to how he managed to engage the lady into a conversation leading to a romantic ending as both characters walk together.
