To tell a good story, first of all you have to plan, it is one of the most important phases to have a good final result, and for this you have to learn how to make a storyboard.
It is one of the most used tools in the world of filming, in which each scene is represented graphically and achieve a coherent recording.
Having an illustrated script by our side when we want to make an audiovisual project is essential, that's why we are going to teach you how to make a storyboard step by step. There is no general rule to make them, and they are not all the same. We are going to show you one of the most common models.
Before starting to create our storyboard, we have to know what one of them is and give you some tips for its realization.
What is a storyboard?
The storyboard or graphic script technique has been done for many years. It's about a group of images or drawings divided into vignettes, which form a visual script, through which the scenes can be previewed which will be recorded later.
Has his Origin in the 30s at the Walt Disney Studios, where they began to use them so that the creators of the animations could see in advance what the film was going to be like before it was recorded. The sketches were hung on the wall of the studio and thus in a visual way the ideas about the scene to be recorded could be transmitted.
It is one of the most important resources when planning a recording, be it a movie, a commercial or personal work. It is not a script, which must be followed to the letter, it is a visual orientation guide and during the filming changes or modifications can be made at the time of recording or editing the scenes.
Steps to create a Storyboard
To start making a storyboard, the first thing we have to have is a written script where we are explained the plans that we have to draw.
Once we are clear about what these plans are, we have to draw them on our storyboard. To do this, simply we need a surface to work on, a sheet of paper or notebook and a pen to draw.
When illustrating the plans, it is not necessary to be very detailed, we can do quick sketches that everyone understands. An important note is that it is not essential to know how to draw to make a storyboard, with simple drawings in which what we want to understand is clearly understood is more than enough. It is not necessary to make drawings with all kinds of details.
Below the bullets, you can add small annotations if we want to include different indications of some specific detail, phrases of the characters, lighting, camera movements, etc.
Storyboard Examples
There is nothing better to understand how a storyboard works than to see some examples.
Some of the most famous are the storyboards of the Disney studios, it was they who introduced this technique to many film studios.
In them we can see how the protagonists of their animations are drawn in each of their vignettes and at the bottom of some of those vignettes, annotations for the animation team.
There is no person who does not know the saga of Star Wars, before the start of filming, its director and the film crew had a storyboard in their possession of the film that served as a guide when structuring the scenes.
Who hasn't been shocked by the mythical shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's film Psycho.
There is also a storyboard for this scene, as can be seen some of the planes are different from those of the original film, and as we have mentioned, the storyboard admits changes and these are usually made during the shooting phase.
In Game of Thrones, one of the fashion series in this last year, the storyboard was essential, in each of the scenes that were drawn had to include all kinds of details before filming.
Storyboard Templates
There are alternatives to drawing our storyboard by hand, and they are the templates, there is no defined template model, the vast majority are structured in the same way as a handmade storyboard.
El first section, it would be the information of the script, in which to add the information of the sequence, the place where it occurs and we can even add the page number of the script to which we refer.
The next point would be drawing boxes, it is the area where we will make our illustrations or we will place the images, to show how the sequence of the filming project progresses.
Next, we will add a brief description of the vignettes, in which we will write down doubts of the same, such as the movement of the camera, the position of the actor, among other things.
And finally, at the bottom of the template appears the section of the observations, it is an area in which the person in charge of the storyboard leaves a comment about a scene specific. This field varies depending on the template that we use, in some it appears and in others it does not.
We leave you a couple of examples of templates so that you can see the different sections that we have talked about.
Example 1.
Example 2.
Ultimately, use a template saves you the trouble of drawing each bullet box, after all, the rest of the steps are the same in both methods.
A storyboard is one of the best, if not the best, tool for professionals or amateurs of filming, in the audiovisual world. With this tool, we easily get a guide to create an animation, movie or spot.
It can be a very laborious job, but it is really useful as it is of great help in the stage before the recording, thanks to the fact that it shows how the sequence is going to look before its production and discovers what is going to be necessary in each of its shots and if a problem arises, it can be corrected before filming.