Convince the Investors

What is storyboarding ?
A storyboard is a rough sequence of drawings, which include the ways in which a
filmmaker plans to arrange a story in the specific order of its contents. It is often
described as a blueprint for the main body of a film. Storyboarding assists in saving
precious time, especially when it comes to editing, pre-filming and filming.
Storyboarding can be used preliminary to creating movies, tv commercials/programs
and games and many more.

Evolution of Walt Disney Storyboarding (from the 1930’s - 2000’s)

● 1933 – Disney’s three little pigs (first complete storyboard).
● 1935 – Another big studio switches from story sketches to storyboards.
● 1939 – ‘Gone with the wind’, more live-action films to be produced.
● 1940’s – Storyboarding became admired in live-action film production and
eventually built into a standard medium for pre visualization of films. Storyboard
generally adopted by the action.
● 1955 - Lady and the Tramp was publicized to higher box office success
compared to any other feature from Walt Disney from the studio ever since the
release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It earned approximately $7.5
million at the North American box office.
● 1966 - Walt Disney dies.
● 1970’s – after the breakup of the big studios, many historic storyboards were lost.
● 1990’s – Joe Roth took over Katzenberg’s place as chairman of Walt Disney
company after Katzenberg was forced to resign.
● 2000’s - hand drawn animations were starting to become outmoded.

History of storyboarding
One of the first storyboards designed by Disney progressed in the early 1920’s from a
comic-book named “story-sketches” in order to demonstrate concepts for animated
subjects such as Steamboat Willie and Plane Crazy. It did not take long for the idea to
become widely used by many other filmmakers and by 1937/1938, the vast majority of
American filmmakers were using the concept of storyboarding in order to create their
own films.

When creating the first ever storyboard, Webb Smith, whom was a Disney created
animator, drew up separate scene’s on individual pieces of paper and then went on to
pin them up along a bulletin board in order to be able to clearly visualise the story in
chronological order (or as it would be shown once the film was completed).
In the early 1940’s, using storyboarding as a form of pre-production became much more
favoured and used in live-action film production.

Features of a storyboard
Sketches - The principle of the sketches on a storyboard is to give the filmmaker an
instant brief visual idea of what is going occur in a single frame/shot. It is important to
ensure that motion of all of the objects and characters is the main focus of the images
and that all of drawings in some way relates to the allocated script.

Short notes - The purpose of the short notes (which is usually located at the top of each
of the individual drawings) is to similarly succinctly inform the director/filmmaker of what
is suppose to happen next however in note form (a synopsis), as sometimes it may be
hard to identify what is going on only through the use of images.
Arrows - The main use of the arrows on each of the individual frames is to indicate to
the director progression, motion and how a scene is planned out to be shot. For
example using the Panning method to do an establishing shot or filming a tilted up angle
shot etc. Additionally, the function of arrows between the different shots is to specify any
transition that are supposed to transpire for example dissolves.

Shot Sequence Number - the purpose of a shot sequence number is to give the
filmmaker/director a clear understanding of what structural order the shots are going to
occur in but also comes in handy in the case that, if you go on to expand and advance
your ideas, when reordering your shots it’s a lot more easier to rearrange as well as edit
the footage later on.

Layout of the storyboard - The reason why filmmakers layout storyboards the way they
do (pinned up in rows on a large board in sequential order) is so that is a lot more
straightforward and stress free when it comes distinguishing out what scene comes next
when shooting a film/tv program etc due to the fact that is already in order, therefore the
filming process is smooth.

The reason why storyboarding/storyboards for films is a lot more different (aesthetically)
in comparison to storyboarding for a game, advert or a music video, is because
storyboards for films include large amounts annotations and arrows in order to indicate
to the director and cast members where they need to be at all times and who needs to
be involved in each of the different segments.

A ‘client board’
A client board describes the kind of storyboard used in advertising to convey the visual
representation of the brief. Unlike film storyboards these often have limited written
information as the boards tend to be talked through in an office style presentation.
These boards don’t link as directly as film storyboards but really just capture the
essence of each scene. These might even be drawn by someone in the agency - or
perhaps they might bring in a professional storyboard artist.

Storyboarding for games

When storyboarding in order to produce a game, it is crucial to give a brief manifestation
of what the allocated players can do, for example controlling the character(‘s) within the
game. Typically the techniques used throughout the game are primarily based on the
actions as the scene is already set. Additionally, only a minority of player activity has to
be connected to a player, although it does not always have to be based on a player, for
example in paper doll games.

It is vital that designers produce a design document prior to creating a game as the
design document is a script which contains information about what happens in each
level of a game.

There are numerous ways in which a video game designer can storyboard for a future
game, some of which include:

Method 1 : One of the methods include producing a design document, which will allow
the designer to take note of their ideas so far. It should include the storyline revolving
around the various game levels, remembering that each of frames should clearly
indicate the different levels of the game and the final frame should illustrate the goal
and/or target.
Always illustrating the frames aids in having a straightforward idea of what is going on in
each stage.

Method 2: Another method incorporates recording the progress of each sequence/level

and repeating this process for the whole of the storyboard (whether it has a linear or
single narrative strand). The storyline could be made up of set-up’s or menu’s. Each of
the levels could have dissimilar storylines.

It is important to avoid paying close attention to detail when producing a storyboard for
a game as fewer intricate details enables you to do further brainstorming of your ideas
in order to advance your game and make it as entertaining as possible however, every
detail is essential. After all, creating a game storyboard requires planning, rehearsing
and repeated editing.

The art of storyboarding - Ridley Scott

Ridley scott is a British film director and producer who uses storyboarding in order to
blueprint the action for his upcoming films as well as explain to the actors what they
needed to do when shooting the film. Prior to becoming a well known movie
producer/director, he attended an art school (Grangefield Grammar school) in which he
managed to secure a design diploma. After studying at Grangefield Grammar, he then
went on to schooling at the college of Art, which is located in London.
Ever since his first storyboard, Scott has always painted and did hand drawings to
include in his storyboard. In order to come up with the storyboard idea/designs, whilst
reading out the allocated script, he would begin to plan out the series of sketches and
narratives in his head and would scribble down brief, unpolished sketches as he went
along. He even, on some occasions, outlined the storyboard beforehand and then went
on to advance them overtime. To him “It’s like rehearsal”.

Storyboarding for Films

Film directors use storyboards to have a clear vision of their scenes and point out any
potential faults before filming, as it aids in reducing the possibility of unnecessary
additional expenses. It also helps to avoid wasting precious time besides predicting the
final price that the producers will to pay in order to generate the film. Furthermore,
another advantage of storyboarding for films include the fact that it gives the director a
clear optical layout of events as they are planned to be viewed through the lens of the
camera. This is beneficial as it provides the actor with an instant straightforward idea of
their placement when filming.

Storyboarding within the Music industry

When creating music video’s, producers often start out with a storyboard in order to
chart out what is going to happen within the video and at to what timings. It is also
beneficial as, pre planning is vital in order to ensure that everything runs swiftly on the
day of shooting the video and that limited time is wasted, as if everyone (including the
camera crew) know what they are doing and stick to a specific time rota, there will be
minimal setbacks along the way. Additionally, another advantage of storyboarding
before producing a music video is that, it briefly illustrates to the camera crew the
footage that is needed to be filmed and in what order, ensuring that the most important
and complicated parts take priority and come first, not to mention the different shot
types they need to be filmed with.
Storyboarding for a music video has got an identical layout to storyboarding for a film or
game, however when storyboarding specifically for a music video, it is important that
time frames are included as taking note of the duration of each scene making sure it
matches up to the timing of the song that is going to be playing on top of the video.

One of the major differences with storyboarding for a film in comparison to

storyboarding for a game or an advert is that it includes a lot more annotations and
arrows in order to indicate to the director along sides the cast members what type of
shot/angle the sequence is in and a brief note of the dialogue that is required to take
place.

The thing that makes storyboarding for games quite unique to storyboarding for any
other purpose such as a film or a music video is the fact that it usually does not include
vasts amount of text but is generally made up of images (which are fairly detailed). The
reason for this is because, the different images are used to represent the different
stages and levels of the game.

Similarly to a game, an advert does not include extensive amounts of annotations

because usually there does not tend to be a lot going on in an advert and the images
are detailed enough to the point where the director can make out what is going on in the
scene without having to read large chunks of text. However commercial storyboards do
(sometimes) include arrows and short notes in order for the director to know what is
going on.