What is a Storyboard?

What is a Storyboard? 

A storyboard is a visual representation of the order of shots and events of the sequence. Nearly every single studios use storyboards in order to construct their film or TV products and is used in both before and after filming.

Before filming a storyboard can be used to plan out the camera work, create a visual plan which can be communicated to the crew to help organise the details around the director's vision, consider how to use mise-en-scene to construct each scene, spend significantly more time planning before the shoot so on set full advantage of production can be taken and finally to make sure the entire story flows well. After filming a storyboard can be used to act as a guide for the ditor to follow when editing all the footage together and can be used as a checklist for the post-production team to use to make sure all the key shots are used and do tell a coherent story.

A storyboard must have the following components on each shot:

Shot number, location, action, shot movement, sound, lighting, transition and timing.

Using a storyboard will definitely help our production group connect our ideas together in a way that really makes sense such as by using juxtaposition and interesting shots next to each other to add dynamism to the sequence as well as making it more engaging.

Finally some key tips to keep in mind with storyboards are:

camera composition and framing - rules of third, foreground background, symmetry asymmetry; and Editing - how may the shots be edited together through possible juxtaposition or how the shots could match.

It can be simple in its design as long as shows the character depth and position in order to aid the production team and director when shooting so they know how the composition of the shots should look.