6 Steps to Storyboarding
Penguin July 30th, 2007
Now that you have your cast and crew, it’s time to storyboard. You don’t have to storyboard all at once. With the shooting schedule in hand, you should be able to storyboard before the shoot.
- Go through your script and mark your shots. As the director, you will have a special version of the script. When initially printed, it will look just like everyone else’s. But as the director, you need to know when to cut from coverage to coverage. Based on the dialogue and the action, you’ll be able to determine what parts will be part of which shot. So take a red pen and draw a small horizontal line at the beginning of the shot. Next, draw a small horizontal line at the end of the shot and connect the two lines (at the center) with a straight vertical line. Label the beginning of this line with the type of shot you want. Is it a medium shot? Is it coverage of a specific character? Is it a cutaway to emphasize that something has happened? The idea, is that you can quickly look at the script and see where your shots are going to happen without having to refer back to the dialogue.
- Print out copious amounts of the provided template. Below, you can download a PDF of a storyboard template. On each sheet, you’ll find 8 boxes formatted 16:9. You are going to shoot 16:9 right? Of course.
- Start drawing. Yeah, your drawings are going to suck. You’re a writer! You’re a director, not an artist. That’s fine. Label your drawings if you have to. The point is, you want to be able to convey your ideas to your crew and your actors.
- Draw on the right. Your natural inclination is to draw in every box in order. Resist! Instead, draw in only the boxes on the right. Why? Because if you realize that you need to insert a shot, you’ll be glad to see an empty box to the left. Sure, this may use more paper, but you’ll save a lot of time redrawing every board again. It’s especially bad if you’ve filled all 8 only to realize you missed a crucial shot after frame 7. No good.
- “Walk” through it. Done with the scene? Took almost an hour? Go back and walk through it. Make sure your shots make sense and help tell the story. Can you add or change a shot to increase the dramatic effect? Can you remove a shot to tighten the pacing?
- Write down shot numbers. If you’re using my template, you’ll conveniently find, above each frame, “Scene: Shot:”. Fill in the appropriate information. It may seem tedious, but when you start shooting and slating, you’ll have a good reference to work off of.
Now, you’re ready to shoot!
Here’s the file: storyboard-template.pdf
-Penguin
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