History 211
Pinsker
Election Day Documentaries
Story boards due on October 12
What is a story board?
A story board is a visual outline used to construct a documentary film. Good story boards will
include images (or descriptions of likely images), draft narrative text (or brief outline of likely
text), and brief information about sources / permissions.
Objective
The story board is a form of a proposal and should serve to introduce the topic and narrative
argument and structure of the proposed documentary video.
Details
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Students will receive a story board template (MS Word) over email
Software programs such as Windows Live Moviemaker, Photostory 3 and iMovie create
online storyboards automatically for users once images are uploaded but this draft
storyboard in Word will allow easier exchange of ideas between professor & students
Reminders
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Documentaries should attempt to capture some of the experiences, emotions, symbolism and
significance of a single Election Day story from 1840-1948 through a short video of between 3
and 5 minutes.
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All images should be still images available in the public domain or identified as images that
require permission (more discussion of copyright issues will follow during the semester)
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All narrative text for documentaries should have some secondary or primary source as support,
though students may use the same source for multiple slides or frames
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Students should anticipate needing about 6-8 images for each minute of documentary video or
about 30-40 images for a 5-minute presentation (though some may be re-used or detailed)
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Students should think creatively about image types:
o Photographs
o Cartoons / Illustrations
o Page images (especially newspaper headlines or text)
o Stock images (or generic images that can be associated with text)
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Students should be careful to keep narrative text concise (no more than 10 seconds per image)
Storyboards do not need to include information about music or sound effects