Computer Science (COMP) 230

Overview

COMP 230: Storyboard Design and Development introduces you to professional storytelling and storyboarding techniques, particularly for live action and animation sequences. It guides you through steps involved in storytelling, leading you to techniques of drawing and other media for motion and emotion. It then discusses specific aspects of directing a storyboard such as visual clarity, depth, semiotics, semantics, and dramatic irony.

The overall goal of this course is to guide you through the textbook, engage you to study individual storyboarding elements, enable you to practice these elements in the right context. There are assignments and a project to test your progress and storyboarding competence. There is no final exam since your learning experience cannot be measured in a 3-hour written exam.

Storyboards typically result in pictures. You could use a paper and draw on it, or you could use a software such as SketchUp. You are also welcome to use any other software of your choice. We also encourage you to use freeware such as Celtx to prepare your scripts.

Outline

Learning outcomes

Upon completion of COMP 230, you should have a deep understanding of storyboarding and storytelling concepts, methods, practices, and strategies, as well as the ability to create storyboards using powerful storytelling ideas. More specifically, you should be able to:

• disseminate the events of the story
• define the threshold of awareness in the story
• create the structural level of the story for clarity and dramatic presentation
• guide the audience’s attention to narrative questions and metaphors that drive the story forward
• direct the viewer's eyes and ears with composition and perspective
• signify meaning and associations through semiotics
• construct meaning with respect to continuity and causality
• evoke emotional response and measure it using thematic analysis
• evolve and sustain the story using storytelling ideas enacted through software

Objectives

Evaluation

To receive credit for COMP 230, you must achieve a course composite grade of at least D (50 percent) and a grade of at least 50 percent on each assignment and 50 percent on the final project. The weighting of the composite grade is as follows:

To learn more about assignments and examinations, please refer to Athabasca University's online Calendar.

Materials

Other Materials

SketchUp – a free 3D modeling program for storyboarding

Celtx – a free scripting program for storyboarding

Special Course Features

CIS courses at Athabasca University require that students use computer mediated communications. We expect students to have access to computer equipment with certain requirements.

The course work in COMP 230 requires students to have a storyboarding software and a storyboarding scripting program installed in their computer.

Special Instructional Features

Delivery of COMP 230 (contacting the tutor, submitting assignments) is dependent on computer mediated communications. Students are required to have access to the World Wide Web.

Challenge for credit

Overview

The Challenge for credit process allows you to demonstrate that you have acquired a command of the general subject matter, knowledge, intellectual and/or other skills that would normally be found in a university-level course.

Full information about Challenge for credit can be found in the Undergraduate Calendar.

Evaluation

To receive credit for the COMP 230 challenge registration, you must achieve a grade of at least D (50 percent) on the examination.

• Online Exam

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