All You Need To Know About Storyboards: A Complete Guide

A storyboard is a useful tool that helps people organize and plan the various stages of events in a story. You can use it to break a story into a set of steps that are then arranged to communicate the story you have in mind.

This makes a storyboard the perfect tool for showing the progression of time, explaining a process or, of course, storytelling. In this article, we’ll be taking a closer look at the storyboard, what it is and how it’s used. So keep on reading to find out more!

Short History of the Storyboard

Whether you use the classic pen and paper or you choose a storyboard template, it’s nice to know how this tool came to be. The storyboard was first used in the 1930 by Walt Disney and Howard Hughes. They both worked on their own projects – Three Little Pigs and Hell’s Angels. These first iterations then went on to create the modern storyboard as we know it.

At first, the old storyboards were made of story cards that were then pinned to a board. This helped the many collaborators come up with new ideas, revise and discuss the topics presented. Because they had the whole story split in fragments, it was easier to perfect everything by parts instead of having to redraw the whole thing.

Why Are Storyboards Useful?

There are various benefits to using a storyboard. While it’s mostly used in the film and TV industry, you can also integrate it in your various day-to-day projects. Here’s how a storyboard can help you!

Keep Your Thoughts Organized

Whether you’re an author, a project manager or a designer, a storyboard can help you focus on a single idea. When you have each idea laid down separately, you can perfect them individually. This storyboard will then make an excellent visual guide to help you navigate the production or implementation process faster and more efficiently.

If you work in the video industry, know that storyboards can also help you test various aspects of your video. You can see how different camera angles or cuts would look. In this case, the storyboard will serve to solidify your vision and make it easier to present to others.

Discover Potential Issues Early

Since every idea is laid bare on a storyboard, it’s easier to identify potential issues in the process. And when you find a problem early, you’ll be able to deal with it faster and in a more efficient manner. We can’t stress enough how important and time-saving that can be.

Better Planning

Because a storyboard deals with fragments of information, you can be sure you won’t miss essential details when presenting your idea to your peers. When you understand what’s necessary from every step, you can get everyone on board and the production will be much smoother.

How to Create a Storyboard

Creating a storyboard is fun and easy enough. You can use pen and paper or you can go the more modern route by choosing an online storyboard template. Just follow these easy steps and you’ll have a storyboard in no time!

• Choose your template. First and foremost, create a template. If you’re using pen and paper, draw a series of rectangular boxes. If you’re working with an online storyboard template, feel free to choose whatever suits your fancy.
• Add your story. Break your story into smaller scenes or concepts and add them to your template. Each square should have a different idea.
• Draw out the story. This is where you can showcase your artistic skills. If you don’t have any, worry not, stick figures will do the job just as good. You can use arrows to indicate the flow of the story and connect every scene to each other.
• Write notes. Notes are important, as they will help your team get a better idea about what’s happening in the storyboard. Feel free to add anything you might find important, as it will help later.

And that’s it! Your storyboard is done and ready to be presented to your peers. But before you do that, we’d like to get into the different types of storyboards. Yes, there are a couple!

• Hand-drawn. This type of storyboard is the most common and oldest of the bunch. It’s usually the preferred one, as it’s economical – after all, everyone has a pen and a piece of paper lying around.
• Thumbnail. A thumbnail storyboard is the, well, thumbnail version of the traditional one. These storyboards are usually made of smaller panels, are less detailed and take less time to put together.
• Animated. An animated storyboard takes more effort to put together. However, it allows for more elements and important details to be included. You can add sound and use them to set the pacing and flow of the scene.

Our Final Thoughts

We’re sure that by now you probably know more about storyboards than you’d ever hoped to. With that in mind, you can surely see how important they are. And no, a storyboard isn’t only meant to be used by videomakers – it can be used by project managers, writers and designers as well.

So are you going to give storyboards a try? If you already have, you can always share your tips and tricks in the comments below. We’re always looking for new ideas and opinions and we’re sure other readers will appreciate them too!

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