With the creation of a film or animation, it is often important to start with a storyboard. A good storyboard helps to plan the narrative of a film or animation, scene by scene. It becomes a blue print for the production.
A storyboard looks like a traditional comic strip and can vary in quality from rough 'thumbnails' to high detailed frames.
After the storyboard is produced and approved by the client, the filming or modelling of the animation can begin.
What is storyboarding?
The book ‘from word to image’ starts with a quote from Alfred Hitchcock “I think one of the biggest problems that we have in our business is the inability of people to visualize”. Storyboarding is the pre-production process of literally drawing shots on paper that will become the template for your intended film or animation production before you begin production.
Why use storyboarding?
It is both an artistic and logistic process allowing the film crew to have a visual idea of what the director wants in the scene before the actors, actresses, props and set get involved. The role of a good storyboard artist is to prevent a lot of wasted time in filming aspects of the scene that are not what the director is looking for, as well as streamlining or eliminating unnecessary scenes and filming requirements from the production.
Film making is hugely collaborative and a good storyboard represents a road map that can keep everyone on track during production. It lets you see the plan ahead of time and allows the various departments involved to prepare in advance of the cameras rolling.
When to use it?
You can use storyboards in all types of motion projects to help you organise your work and give your clients an idea of what your final project will look like.
Trying to remember everything you want to do even in a short animation piece will be impossible, as a project grows in length, storyboarding becomes more and more useful. The storyboard also helps you think visually.
I would not use storyboards on simple productions such as talking head shots, this would be a waste of time and money; nor on unpredictable situations such as random pick up shots at a shoot or sports event such as a football match. In these circumstances you would be better off creating a shot list for the types of shots you want to capture.
What should it tell you?
A good storyboard artist will understand about cinematography and editing which will allow them to create a realistic storyboard. Considerations include aspect ratio, lenses, composition, perspective, as well as how things will cut together. It should also be clear and concise so that anyone, at a glance, can understand it.
Common work activities include:
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Listening to the director’s verbal description of the scene and then sketching what it would appear like in reality.
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Creating new and interesting ideas to capture both the activity and the emotion of the scene.
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Organising and managing timelines to ensure all work is completed and submitted on schedule.
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Revising, editing and modifying sketches as indicated by the director or creative team.
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Using various computer programs to enhance the visual presentation of ideas.
Other visualisation tools
The storyboarding stage can be taken a step further and may be followed by mock-ups called "animatics" to give a better idea of how the scene will look and feel with motion and timing. At its simplest, an animatic is a series of still images edited together and displayed in sequence.
These days we use a 3D previsualisation (also known as previs); this involves building the action in 3D where you can fly a camera around in 3D space allowing far more control and options for editing. Previs can include music, sound effects and dialogue to closely emulate the look of fully produced and edited sequences, and is usually employed for complex or difficult scenes that involve stunts and special effects. The previs can be used as the template for full blown visual effects shots later. Previs is a collaborative process that generates preliminary versions of shots. It enables filmmakers to visually explore creative ideas, plan technical solutions and communicate a shared vision for efficient production.
Summary
Film and animation production takes a great deal of planning; just as any complex project would. This is why the role of storyboarding is so vital. I would love to hear your views on storyboarding.