What is storyboard? The role of storyboard in film production

Nowadays, for you to produce a movie or create a video, understanding the storyboard is definitely something you cannot ignore. So what is storyboard, how important is it and what are the steps to create a storyboard? Let's explore the answer with Viewfinder Media through the article below!

Storyboard is a storyboard that contains pictures or notes about things going on. Or storyboard shows story content arranged in a certain sequence using images in each frame. Storyboard is an outline for each video or movie shot, which is a simple way of answering the question “what does storyboard mean”. Not only that, but it also includes camera and lighting correction stages.

After understanding what a storyboard is, we need to grasp how important it is, especially in the film production process. Here are the benefits that storyboards bring:

The first stage of the storyboarding process includes developing the script and idea, this is the stage that takes up the most time. Once you've completed this stage, you won't have to spend a lot of time filming later. In addition, it also helps you to present your ideas to others smoothly and makes the ideation process easier.

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What is storyboard design? It is the process of you sketching ideas, this makes it easier for others to visualize, understand and have a right view of your product. You don't need to interpret lengthy sentences in the storyboard. Instead, you can generalize about the ideas and content that you want to convey to others. Storyboard will help people grasp your purpose and ideas faster, preventing the case of “he said chicken, she said duck” from happening.

What is another benefit of storyboards? That is to make the process of manufacturing and building products convenient and fast. A movie is always created by stitching together many scenes. Storyboard will help you easily distinguish the scenes and facilitate the movie creation process. Not only that, with the help of storyboard, you will quickly grasp the production plan, order and small details in the scene.

Creating storyboarding during movie production will help you optimize your budget. When the initial ideas for each shot are drafted, the filmmaking process avoids the lack of or excess of any shots. Therefore, storyboard helps the filming process to be on track and not to spend money on unnecessary expenses.

Timeline is the most important element to create a seamless connection for a storyboard, create emotions and give a certain meaning to viewers. So what is setting up a timeline storyboard? It includes the work of arranging content, briefly summarizing the content and scenes according to specific timelines. In addition, you can add annotations at the bottom of the picture frame to avoid confusion and affect the production process.

To create a complete storyboarding, you need to come up with ideas and pre-compile a script to be able to define the scenes. You can write scripts as text with unlimited length. You should cross out the main ideas of the scenario that you need to include in the illustrative frames before going to the storyboard. The main ideas in the script are important scenes, so you need to pay attention to filtering them carefully.

When designing a scenario, you draw rectangles on a piece of paper or on software. Each of these rectangular frames will correspond to an important scene. Therefore, you should leave just enough room for notes or script lines. For description lines, you should not be too long, but as short as possible to avoid confusion and discomfort.

The third step in the storyboard creation steps is to select the storyboard tool. So what is the meaning of this step in the storyboard? This is also one of the important steps that you cannot ignore when designing scripts and editing movies. When choosing a storyboarding tool, you should not follow trends but choose the tools that are most appropriate and convenient for you.

StoryBoarder, Adobe Sketch, Adobe Photoshop, etc. are tools that you can use to generate ideas. But, in case you are not proficient with these tools or you want to create with a new inspiration. You can generate ideas using paper copies and create storyboards directly.

If you are a person with a talent for painting, you can completely draw the necessary illustrations and details to convey the content to be conveyed. On the contrary, you don't need to worry too much if your drawing is not really excellent. Images on storyboards do not require glitter and excellence. You just need to make it easy to understand and recognize for your audience. In addition, to save time, you should not draw too detailed or add color to the sketch.

What is adding script in storyboard? Under each photo frame, you need lines to write scripts or dialogue lines that correspond to that scene. In the storyboard, these lines are called scripts so you can easily follow them. Storyboard scripts require only simple commands to remind you of important content.

You can draw a storyboard on paper for movies with short scripts. However, there are films that span dozens of episodes with long scripted content. How to draw a storyboard manually like that will not show professionalism and takes a lot of time. Currently, there are many software to draw storyboards quickly and easily. So what is storyboard drawing software? Here are 7 software that you can refer to:

Storyboarder software is a product of Wonder Unit. This is one of the right options when you are looking for a free software to use. Storyboarder makes it easy to visualize ideas and you can quickly draw a story background.

With this storyboard drawing software, you can flexibly customize drawing tools, color or add dialogue, etc. Storyboarder also allows you to cut, paste and arrange images. This software also supports you to export files as PDF, Premiere, etc. This is another advantage of this software, making your work more convenient.

Adobe Photoshop software is the right choice for those who are new to storyboard drawing. This is one of the very popular graphic design software today, released by Adobe Systems. This software provides users with rich editing features, allowing users to draw and edit smart videos.

Not only supports drawing or storyboard building tools, the software also has free ready-made storyboard templates and supports you to create layers directly on real photo samples. In addition, Adobe Photoshop is used by many people because it supports users to export extremely quality and sharp files. If you are wondering what storyboarding software for beginners is, then Adobe Photoshop is a perfect choice.

Boardfish software is used to design clear scenes and assemble objects into a professional composition. This software makes the process of making your storyboard simpler. You can easily create tables by dragging and dropping images from the Finder. Then you can proceed to note, organize, delete or hide with automatic mode.

However, the downside of Boardfish is that it restricts certain types of file formats. Because of this, the layouts will be customized to be saved as presets. You need to convert your file to PDF or print directly from Boardfish.

What is FrameForge software used to draw storyboards? This is a very appreciated software in making videos and making movies. The highlight of this software is that it focuses deeply on the script segment and makes it easy for you to cover the plot in the best way. FrameForge is suitable for those who work in the film industry without spending a lot of money on investment.

After Effects software must have been so famous in the filmmaking community that no one is unaware. You can easily edit or replace anything on the screen using After Effects software. In addition, you can also bring life to the sketch frame and translate it all into a final animatic.

After Effects software requires a fee if you want to use all the features of the software. However, with what the software supports and gives you, this price is completely reasonable.

Storyboard Fountain software is a storyboard drawing software exclusively for you using the MacOS operating system. You can easily download this software from the official website and use it for free. This software is considered to have tools that work quite effectively in transitioning scenes. You can quickly select scenes to edit, run demos and rearrange them without changing the rest of the segments.

What is the last software that you can refer to when creating a storyboard? It is Toon Boom Storyboard Pro software - a high-quality software that is being trusted by many people. This software combines both drawing and animation functions. Toon Boom Storyboard Pro allows you to sketch your storyboard more flexibly than ever before.

What's more, storyboard makes it easy to switch between sketches and scenarios. It helps you to accurately track every scene, scene and character action during product production.

What are the things you need to keep in mind when creating a storyboard? Here are some tips that you can refer to to create a more professional storyboard and get the most out of it:

The above article includes full information about what is storyboard, steps to draw storyboard and software that you can refer to. Hopefully the article will help you gain more useful knowledge to make the video making process as well as the film production highly effective. If you have any questions, please contact Viewfinder Media immediately for answers!