Step-by-step Professional Video Preparation Series: How to create a storyboard

Storyboards are a powerful way to visually organize the composition, action and look of a film before you get behind a camera. As director, producer and screenwriter Martin Scorsese said, “The storyboard is the way to visualize the entire movie in advance.”

What Is a Storyboard?

A storyboard is a visual outline of a film (be it a short film or feature film) or animation. It’s an important part of the preproduction process and consists of a series of images that show everything that’s going to happen in your finished piece. Many storyboards are hand-drawn, but some creators or animators choose to use storyboarding software. 

Why Is Storyboarding Important?

If you’re working with a script, you already know the flow of your project. The key is to translate that flow from words to images. Each image on your storyboard needs to include enough information that someone who has never read your script can look at it and know what’s going on. 

Think of the storyboard as the graphic novelization of your script, where each panel represents a new camera angle or a key moment in the action. The aim of the storyboarding process is twofold; to ensure that you get all the coverage you need on set to craft a coherent story in the editing room, and to do so in an economical way, so as to avoid spending time filming unnecessary shots or lose money in video production or special effects. 

Storyboards become a precise map of what’s almost certain to be a hectic shoot day. 

How to Make a Storyboard in 4 Easy Steps:

• 1. Make a shot list. Our previous blog post showed you how to take a scene from your script and make a shot list. From this list, you can start to determine which scenes are key in your production and essential to translate to members of your film team. How can particular camera angles tell the story, or make a moment more impactful? What can you reveal about your characters and the story via camera angles? This is where a rough sketch of your shot list will ensure a more successful and economical film day and editing process.

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• 2. Sketch it out. Whether you’re working on a feature film or a short animation, choose one of the more complex sequences, and scope out a vision for the scene. List all of the shots that you anticipate needing, and then sketch them out in the squares of your storyboard like a comic strip. If you’re not much of an artist, it’s fine to use basic shapes and stick figures on a piece of paper. But if you’re not getting the effect you want, you can work with a storyboard artist to map out a proposed sequence. If that’s out of your budget range, there are plenty of screenwriting software tools you can invest in more affordably. These programs take care of formatting your script for you so that you don’t have to fiddle with margins, spacing, page breaks, and other clunky word processing commands. You could invest in storyboarding programs such as Final Draft, Movie Magic Screenwriter, Fade In, and Celtx, or opt for free software, such as Photoshop or StudioBinder.

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• 3. Fill in details. Your storyboard has to contain the most important elements of each scene. But while it’s a static image, the end result will be a moving video or animation that follows the entire storyline. With that in mind, be sure to indicate motion in your storyboard. For example, you can indicate the direction a person is walking with arrows. You’ll also want to include any props that will be present in the final product, as well as the camera angles and framing of each shot. It is important to include a general outline of all of the relevant details of each shot, without going too deep into distracting details. 

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• 4. Add words. Once you’ve created the images, it might help to add additional words at the bottom of the images to give more context about what’s going on. While each frame is a static image, try to communicate how it will look and feel as a moving sequence. As you write out the details of each scene, consider describing the composition and framing, style and mood details, transitions, character blocking, emotion and expression, annotations, and dynamic actions, if these should apply to your project.

Now that your storyboard is complete, you have a clear vision for your film! Remember, just as creativity and inspiration are constantly evolving, so are ideas. Come back and edit your storyboard when inspiration strikes.