"The Husband who was to Mind the House" - Storyboards

As well as design concepts for the play, I have created storyboards showing the major actions taken throughout. I am familiar with creating storyboards through my time studying animation, but these boards take a slightly different approach. Whereas a starboard for animation would look to frame the action through the eye of the camera, and at different angles, these boards are all from the same viewpoint, as if looking directly at the stage. The idea of these storyboards are to give an idea where each piece of action takes place on stage, as well as showing changes to the set that happen. This is useful as these can not always be shown practically in original concept designs.

The Breakdown

I had previously broken down the play text into thirteen units. These helped to plan out the storyboards, and show a summery of what should be happening on stage at the time. Each unit is described below. The storyboards are labeled with unit changes in order to help follow what should be happening at the correct point in the text in each panel.

Unit 1 - Husband introduces setting.

Unit 2 - Husband returns home grumpy, Husband and Goody decide to switch roles for the day.

Unit 3 - Goody sets out to work.

Unit 4 - Husband starts to churn butter, gets thirsty and goes to cellar.

Unit 5 - Pig knocks over churn, Husband attacks pig leaving it for dead. Cow enters.

Unit 6 - Husband decides to milk cow once it has been fed from grass on roof.

Unit 7 - Husband remembers Baby in house, takes churn with him.

Unit 8 - Husband wants to water cow, accidentally pours rest of cream down the well.

Unit 9 - Cow is coerced onto the roof.

Unit 10 - Husband heads off to make dinner, ties rope to himself and cow via chimney.

Unit 11 - Cow falls off the roof, pulling the Husband up through the chimney.

Unit 12 - Goody arrives home to see the calamity the Husband has caused. Cuts the rope, Husband falls head first into the porridge pot in the fireplace.

Unit 13 - Goody pulls Husband's head out of pot. "This is what happened the day the husband was to mind the house".

The Storyboards

The boards are all drawn from the perspective of the audience looking directly at the stage. Certain panels are zoomed into the main area of the action (such as inside of the farmhouse) to help see more clearly what is happening when needed.