Film , showing the number of drawings (~70) needed for an 8-minute film. A film storyboard (sometimes referred to as a shooting board), is essentially a series of frames, with drawings of the sequence of events in a film, similar to a
comic book of the film or some section of the film produced beforehand. It helps
film directors,
cinematographers and
television commercial advertising clients visualize the scenes and find potential problems before they occur. Besides this, storyboards also help estimate the cost of the overall production and save time. For fast-paced action scenes, monochrome
line art might suffice. For slower-paced dramatic films with an emphasis on lighting, color
impressionist style art might be necessary. In creating a
motion picture with any degree of fidelity to a
script, a storyboard provides a visual layout of events as they are to be seen through the camera lens. In the case of interactive media, it is the layout and sequence in which the user or viewer sees the content or information. In the storyboarding process, most technical details involved in crafting a film or interactive media project can be efficiently presented either in pictorial form in a storyboard frame, or as notes in the margins of specific frames. During
principal photography for live-action films, scenes are rarely shot in the sequence in which they occur in the script. It is also sometimes necessary to film individual shots within a scene out of order and on different days, which can be very confusing. (The reasons for this are explained at length in the
production board article.) In the latter scenario, directors can use storyboards on set to quickly refresh their memory as to the desired effect when those shots are later edited together in the correct order. This is more efficient than having to reread the script for each shot (with cast and crew waiting) to refresh their memory as to how they originally visualized they would film that shot. The great Russian
theatre practitioner Stanislavski developed storyboards in his detailed production plans for his
Moscow Art Theatre performances (such as of
Chekhov's The Seagull in 1898). The German director and dramatist
Bertolt Brecht developed detailed storyboards as part of his
dramaturgical method of "
fabels."
Animatics In
animation and
special effects work, the storyboarding stage may be followed by simplified mock-ups called "animatics" to give a better idea of how a scene will look and feel with motion and timing. (probably derived from 'animatic' or photo-animation) is a series of still
photographs edited together and presented on screen in a
sequence.
Sound effects,
voice-overs, and a
soundtrack are added to the piece to show how a film could be shot and cut together. Increasingly used by advertisers and
advertising agencies to research the effectiveness of their proposed storyboard before committing to a 'full up'
television advertisement. The photomatic is usually a research tool, similar to an
animatic, in that it represents the work to a test audience so that the commissioners of the work can gauge its effectiveness. Originally, photographs were taken using a color negative film. A selection would be made from contact sheets and prints made. The prints would be placed on a rostrum and recorded to
videotape using a standard
video camera. Any moves, pans or zooms would have to be made in-camera. The captured scenes could then be edited.
Digital photography, web access to
stock photography and
non-linear editing programs have had a marked impact on this way of filmmaking also leading to the term 'digimatic'. Images can be shot and edited very quickly to allow important creative decisions to be made 'live'. Photo composite
animations can build intricate scenes that would normally be beyond many test film budgets. Photomatix was also the trademarked name of many of the booths found in public places which took photographs by coin operation. The Photomatic brand of the booths was manufactured by the
International Mutoscope Reel Company of
New York City. Earlier versions took only one photo per coin, and later versions of the booths took a series of photos. Many of the booths would produce a strip of four photos in exchange for a coin (or coins).
Comic books Some writers have used storyboard type drawings (albeit rather sketchy) for their scripting of
comic books, often indicating staging of figures, backgrounds, and balloon placement with instructions to the artist as needed often scribbled in the margins and the dialogue or captions indicated.
John Stanley and
Carl Barks (when he was writing stories for the
Junior Woodchuck title) are known to have used this style of scripting. In
Japanese comics, the word is used for rough manga storyboards.
Business Storyboards used for planning advertising campaigns such as
corporate video production, commercials, a
proposal or other business presentations intended to convince or compel to action are known as presentation boards. Presentation boards will generally be a higher quality render than shooting boards as they need to convey expression, layout, and mood. Modern ad agencies and marketing professionals will create presentation boards either by hiring a storyboard artist to create hand-drawn illustrated frames or often use sourced photographs to create a loose narrative of the idea they are trying to sell. Storyboards can also be used to visually understand the consumer experience by mapping out the customer's journey brands can better identify potential pain points and anticipate their emerging needs. Some consulting firms teach the technique to their staff to use during the development of client presentations, frequently employing the "brown paper technique" of taping presentation slides (in sequential versions as changes are made) to a large piece of kraft paper which can be rolled up for easy transport. The initial storyboard may be as simple as slide titles on Post-It notes, which are then replaced with draft presentation slides as they are created. Storyboards also exist in accounting in the ABC System
activity-based costing (ABC) to develop a detailed process
flowchart which visually shows all activities and the relationships among activities. They are used in this way to measure the cost of resources consumed, identify and eliminate non-value-added costs, determine the efficiency and effectiveness of all major activities, and identify and evaluate new activities that can improve future performance. A "
quality storyboard" is a tool to help facilitate the introduction of a quality improvement process into an organization. "Design comics" are a type of storyboard used to include a customer or other characters into a narrative. Design comics are most often used in designing websites or illustrating product-use scenarios during design. Design comics were popularized by Kevin Cheng and Jane Jao in 2006.
Architectural studios Occasionally, architectural studios need a storyboard artist to visualize presentations of their projects. Usually, a project needs to be seen by a panel of judges and nowadays it's possible to create virtual models of proposed new buildings, using advanced computer software to simulate lights, settings, and materials. Clearly, this type of work takes time – and so the first stage is a draft in the form of a storyboard, to define the various sequences that will subsequently be computer-animated.
Novels Storyboards are now becoming more popular with novelists. Because most novelists write their stories by scenes rather than chapters, storyboards are useful for plotting the story in a sequence of events and rearranging the scenes accordingly.
Interactive media More recently the term
storyboard has been used in the fields of
web development,
software development, and
instructional design to present and describe, in written,
interactive events as well as audio and motion, particularly on
user interfaces and
electronic pages.
Software Storyboarding is used in software development as part of identifying the specifications for a particular set of software. During the specification phase, screens that the software will display are drawn, either on paper or using other specialized software, to illustrate the important steps of the user experience. The storyboard is then modified by the engineers and the client while they decide on their specific needs. The reason why storyboarding is useful during software engineering is that it helps the user understand exactly how the software will work, much better than an abstract description. It is also cheaper to make changes to a storyboard than an implemented piece of software. An example is the Storyboards system for designing GUI
apps for
iOS and
macOS.
Scientific research Storyboards are used in
linguistic fieldwork to
elicit spoken
language. An
informant is usually presented with a simplified graphical depiction of a situation or story, and asked to describe the depicted situation, or to re-tell the depicted story. The speech is recorded for linguistic
analysis. ==Benefits==