Tips For Creating A Great Storyboard
by Ernest Cox
If you are planning on shooting stock photography or some other video, you are going to need to storyboard your ideas in order to make sure that you have a clear road map for your video. This will allow your video to have consistent tone and style, as well as a coherent story line should you be planning to add one. Here are some tips for creating a great storyboard for your video.
1. Start On Paper
While you are working on your planning process, especially if you are in a group, your ideas are likely going to be coming at a fast and furious rate. If you start by just sketching your ideas down on paper, it makes it easier for everyone to contribute ideas. This is extremely helpful because it helps you make sure that you are getting the largest set of ideas of choose from, increasing the overall quality of your storyboarding process.
Writing ideas down on paper also tends to be faster because you are dealing with a technology that everyone is capable of working with. There is no learning curve that can take time to master. There's just idea production and refinement.
2. Split the Story into Chunks
Your next step is to split the story into natural chunks. For example, if you are planning for a stock footage montage, you might have the first chunk devoted to caverns and the next one devoted to aerial shots of a state park. Chunking your story will allow you to divide it into smaller, more manageable sections that you can then focus on individually and make as good as possible.
Once you have your chunks, give everyone a piece of paper and have them fold it into quarters. This gives you eight sections counting the front and the back. Then, have everyone on the storyboarding team draw out a different variation in each of those eight sections. Allow about a minute for each section and make sure that you time it. All of the ideas don't have to be fabulous but it will force your team to come up with a ton of variations for each chunk so that you can better plan it.
3. Ensure Each Drawing Can Stand Alone
Finally, start choosing the final images and drawing them on a central board. Make sure that each image can stand on its own, meaning that no one has to be there to explain it. This will make your story more coherent.
Once you have all of your ideas together, you can start putting together a final version using design software and graphics.
For more information, talk to a company like DPA Photo that specializes in video storyboards.
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About Me
The best way to keep your special memories alive is to hire a professional photographer to capture them as they happen. But after working with hundreds of professionals over the years as a special events planner, I know first hand that not all photographers are created equally. Some can really focus in on their human subjects to capture emotion that comes right out of the photos, while others are more attuned to making the surroundings in a photo stand out like a 3D feature. So I figured that I could help people who are looking to hire a photography find the best possible fit for the occasion that is going to be documented. Learn the right questions to ask, find out what types of skills to look for, and figure out what tools and resources are needed to capture all the details of your special event.