STORYBOARDING

In GeneralStoryboards are panels which are used to organize shots in the form of illustrations or images displayed in sequence to pre-visualize a movie, an animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence.

The process of storyboarding was developed by the Walt Disney Studios in the early 1930s, after several years of similar processes being used at Walt Disney and other animation studios.

Storyboarding for filmsBasically a film storyboard is a large comic version of the film or a section of the film, which is produced beforehand to help the director, cinematographer and producers visualize the scenes, so they can figure out the budget and find potential problems before they occur.

Storyboards also include arrows or instructions that indicate movement.

In creating a film from a script, a storyboard gives you a visual layout of events as they will be seen through the camera lens.

The biggest advantage of using storyboards is that it is easy to experiment with changes in the storyline to emphasize reaction or interest.

A good example for that are flashbacks, which are a result of laying storyboards next to each other out of order.

This type of planning allows people to brainstorm together in a group, placing their ideas on storyboards and then arranging them on a wall. This way the film has more input and artistic influence from different people.

Why Storyboarding doesn’t work

Storyboarding is essential for planning complex scenes and sequences. But when it comes down to planning a dialog scene storyboarding is the worst technique to plan that scene. The reason for that is, that every time a new action happens a new camera is added through storyboarding, which will make the scene really cutty.

But most people use storyboards to plan their shots.

A better and more efficient way to plan shots is to write down blocking like notation is used to write down music.

I will tell you how to use this technique in a different PowerPoint.

Storyboarding for Dummies

Here are some videos that will show you the basics of storyboarding:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uhaJhT25hU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux_Em1lVsjI