What is Storyboarding?

 A story board is a series of drawings of each shot in the scene/film which make up the whole story.

Story boards are widely used in the production of films. They are used to plan and visualise what people will film. It also allows you to fully plan out what each shot will be, and try out different shots and see what works and what doesn't. This saves you from wasting time on set as everything is completely planned out. 

Before the story board we have only really seen the idea in words and maybe pictures of ideas that we want it to look like, so a storyboards allow us to see the film visually. Another thing story boards can help with is, after filming, for the editor to see the idea of the story and can guide them on how to edit and cut the shots. 

There is a lot of information in a storyboard, firstly you have the shot number, this is essential for organising everything, so you know exactly what shot you are working on and so the editor can arrange everything with ease. The location of the shot should also be included - stating whether it in inside or outside, what room it is in etc. This is useful as then you can easily see all of the shots in one location and film all of them together in that location to save time. For example of you are cutting between two locations.

A description of the action that is taking place in the shot is also crucial for a storyboard as it gives us a broader understanding of the movement, as this is not possible to draw. An example of this is 'man picks up glass and then throws it to the left. 

We need to know the movement of the camera, pan/tilt/handheld etc.

The sound and lighting also need to be included, for example dialogue/soundtrack/bright lights.

If we want any specific transitions like fade to black/cross dissolve we would need to mention this in the storyboard. This helps us see how the shots connect and match up. Another thing that helps with thinking about this is stating the shot duration and the timing of all the shots. 

This is the template we will be using for our storyboard: