Storyboarding

What actually is a storyboard?

Storyboards are graphic organizers such as a series of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence, including website interactivity. (Definition taken from Wikipedia.) In my eyes, a storyboard is a set of images, generally hand-drawn, that represent the camera shots that will appear in a sequence within a motion picture or animation.

Why is storyboarding an essential part of the film making process?

Storyboarding is a vital part of the film making process because:

• It allows anyone on the production team to see visually what the sequence is planned to look like.
• It allows a group of people to brainstorm and get ideas down together.
• It lets director experiment with shots and angles before going out to film on set.
• It shows the actor how to react to special effects in advance from the shooting.

All the above reasons mean that storyboarding is necessary when planning out a film, and although not the whole film has to be storyboarded, it is vital that the main action scenes, or emotional shots are storyboarded so everyone has a preview of how these big scenes are going to pan out.