After many tears, tantrums and breakdowns, I have worked out a final storyboard. Most importantly I am very happy with it! Here it is:

I've been transferring shots off of my storyboard in preperation to shoot my animatic...

After presenting my latest beat board to a group of peers and tutor it was suggested that the Librarian is on screen constantly and this is not needed. The key image for the group was the Librarian throwing books over his shoulder (top right below) as this really showed his disdain for them. I could cut the scenes where he is interacting with the books and have instead him fall asleep in his chair and his part is over in the film. The Library then becomes the main focus at the end of the film with the books and stories coming to life, enhancing the irony that the Librarian hates stories and is missing such a spectacle.

Next step: I want to get these ideas into a work in progress animatic as I now feel confident in the first half of my story, but I want to set out timing and get a feel for some foley alongside it. I will then work on the Library scenes at al later stage.

Here it is, my second and improved (hopefully) beat board!

The Librarian is seen selecting books off of a shelf before dropping them carelessly to the floor, then dragging them to his desk whiere he impatiently flicks through them before throwing them over his shoulder. He pauses looking old and tired, then slowly opens up a new book. This one starts to narrate a story to him with the pages morphing into sculptural images, it is beautiful, the Librarian seems entranced. His expression changes and he angrily crushes the story being told. He falls asleep in his chair, only to awake to the library  being covered in alive stories alike to what was in the books. He carefully closes the book he was reading and places it neatly back on the shelf where he found it.

Out with the old and in with the new...

So I realised in taking time out of this production over Christmas and New Year to write my dissertation that when I tried to get back into it I was in a bit of a rut. I think I had got too fixated on the idea of the Librarian losing his father and this was creating too much of a complicated back story, creating unnecessary faff and causing more work for myself.

Therefore I have ditched the back story. The Librarian is now simply a man who has lost his love for stories and books and is tired and grumpy in his old age.

I have been trying to think of ways that would help show his hatred for books visually on screen:

Here's my first (serious) animatic following the latest beat board that I published here recently:

I've finally managed to pull a working story out of my brain and put it into beat board format.
The idea is that the librarian is reading a book which is narrating stories and images to him, and then tells a bit of his own tragic story which he gets angry about so slams the book shut. He is then seen in his library being tormented by the books (all in his head) and after a brief pause attempts another read at his own story.

I'm not going to lie, I did this within an hour in a mad panic to lay some ideas down before the pitch. There are many things that I don't like about it (perhaps mostly the fact that it doesn't make sense!) but there are a few ideas I may take away and build upon.