Storyboarding

What is a Storyboard?

In the basic sense a storyboard is a sequence of hand drawn pictures arranged to represent the events of a story which will be filmed, placed in the order in which they will be edited and shown. In addition to the drawings, the cut and paste technique using clip art could be included along with potential sound effects that may be used to enhance a particular scene or scenes. The storyboard should directs the animator and film maker in the basics of what camera angles should be used, the type of lighting preferred, character arrangement, and prop arrangement and should eliminate any confusion when production begins. The most important point is to remember that the storyboard is a preview of your movie and it is the framework for the continuity in your production work. The more information provided in your storyboard, the easier it will be to do your claymation and create a final product. The description of the above storyboard is referred to as a Production Storyboard.

Other types of Storyboards

Conceptual Sheet - a sequence of images (similar to a photo-essay) which protrays the visual style of the film.
TV - larger and more detailed because of the need to deal with short time frames and a lot of shorter length segments being filmed.
Animatic - the transfer of the images of a Production or Concept Storyboard to film and including a soundtrack.
Digital or Rush - a Production Storyboard complied using digital images collected from actual still pictures taken at rehersals or exploratory shooting. This type of storyboard permits the re-arranging of various aspects of the board almost instantly which in turn provides for more choice and a greater opportunity to problem solve.

Some Important Points

The storyboard should focus of four main items; the character(s), the setting (props and background), the action (how is it to be introduced), and how it will end.
Identify which parts of the storyboard serve as the critical elements of the story, which provide the atmosphere for the event and which parts require some form of narrative (if required).

Examples of Storyboards