Storyboarding

What is a Storyboard?

• Storyboards are sketch that shows each scene of a film. It helps to organize visuals through a series of illustrations displayed in sequence.
• The importance of storyboarding:

1.A well planed storyboard helps to plan a film shot-by-shot and therefore, deliver the message effectively.

2.Storyboarding helps to visualize how the film will look like, how the story should unfold, and what shots will best convey the story.

3.Storyboard save time in setting up shots because director knows exactly what scenes he need to shoot, at which location with what type of camera and lighting. It especially helps in complex sequences.

4.For a small budget film storyboarding is the responsibility of Director or, DP (Director of Photography), otherwise a visual artist would do the job.

How to Create Storyboard?

• To create a storyboard, first we need to consider video as a story comprising various elements in a timeline. For each major scene, it include information about subject, action, location and so on.
• Knowing location beforehand helps to sketch a rough plan view showing the placement of the camera, light source, people, and any other important features or props.
• Storyboard includes sketches of important scenes, along with scene descriptions, and notes about location, transitions, plot, dialogue, and sound effects.
• It is a good idea to draw arrows from one scene to the next where they are most likely to be edited. Writing the type of transition between each scene and color coding the arrows further smoothen the production process.

• Identifying the scene transitions (i.e. how to move from one shot to the next) in storyboard makes the editing phase much easier, and also helps to determine the variation between shots. 90% of transitions should be straight cuts.
• Storyboard should also consist the planning of capturing the audio and any special arrangement like external microphone should be mentioned.
• There are scenes in which sound recording is not necessary, but in other situation there might be important to record background audio, for example, at a track and field event, it might be require to record the sound of the starter’s gun, some crowd noise, applause, and so on.
• In addition to the audio recorded during shooting, music, a voice-over, sound effects, or another audio track may also require for a film. Storyboard should consists all these details.
• The size of storyboard can vary, depending on the requirement of shoot. For example, a wide screen format requires board according to that size.
• It’s important to number each scene while drawing storyboards so you don’t get confused later. When a shot is one motion requires multiple boards, create a secondary numbering system. For example if first shot requires three boards of motion label them 1a, 1b, and 1c.
• It is important to draw subject in a frame and have a clear and consistent background.
• There are a number of different ways of showing a camera movement to draw motion.