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INTRODUCTION

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CHAPTER 1

What Are Storyboards?

The storyboard is an illustrated view, like a comic book, of how the producer ordirector envisions the final edited version of a production will look. This view ofthe production is the most effective form of communication between the produceror director and the rest of the crew. Just as building plans direct construction crewsto build a house the way an architect designed it, storyboards direct film and TVcrews to produce a project the way the director designed it. Each drawing instantlyrelates all of the most important information about each shot and defines a singu-lar look for the entire crew to achieve.

Storyboards actually started in the animation industry. In the early 1900s, thegreat animator Winsor McCay was creating comic strips for his amazing anima-tions. These were certainly some of the earliest storyboards. Later, in the late 1920sand early 1930s, scripts for the emerging animation field were typed out in theformat of live-action scripts. This very quickly caused complications. A writtendescription of an animated action does not necessarily get the right idea across. Ifthe script said a character had a funny expression on its face, what does that mean?It’s easy to write the words “funny expression” or “funny action,” but animatinga character to achieve it is much more difficult. The animators were finding out thata written gag was often not funny when translated into animation.

To remedy this, the “storymen” (there were no women in the story departmentsback then) began to draw sketches of the salient scenes and gags. Very quickly theystarted adding more and more drawings to their scripts until it became customary

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Figure 1.1 Frank and Ernest byBob Thaves. (© 2001 Bob Thaves.Distributed by Newspaper Enter-prise Association, Inc.)

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4 Introduction

to sketch the entire story. In order for the entire story-writing team to see the sketches, they were tacked upon the wall. Someone had the bright idea of puttingthese sketches onto large pieces of beaverboard (thus theterm “storyboard”). Beaverboard was used extensivelyfor partitions and ceilings, and is a lightweight, fibrousboard that is easy to push tacks into. This was advan-tageous for the storymen, who were tacking up hun-dreds of drawings. With the drawings on such boards,the entire story could also be moved and viewed inanother room.

Cartoon productions at the time started holdingwritten descriptions down to a minimum. Cartoons arebest expressed visually, due to the gags. Writing “BillyBob falls down in a funny way” is not the same as anartist’s sketching the pratfall and subsequent events.Writing was limited mostly to dialogue and simplecamera instructions. If an idea did not hold up graphi-cally, it was rejected. While the practice of writing fullscripts was prevalent in the 1970s and 1980s, John Kricfalusi, creator of Ren & Stimpy, went back to thestyle of creating the cartoon classics and relied on tal-ented story artists to drive the script instead of just awritten script.

Storyboards are now used to help develop a script,flesh out an idea, enhance a script, and/or visualize afinished script. Development of animations often usesstoryboards throughout the entire production process.The Star Wars epics used storyboards to work out ideasand scenes before the script was complete. They are agreat device to help develop a project in all phases ofproduction.

Over the years, the practice of storyboarding hasbecome more prevalent in live-action shooting.

Although animations have every scene storyboarded,without exception, live-action storyboard use is mostlylimited to commercials, as well as action, stunts, andspecial effects scenes in movies and TV shows.

A well-done set of boards is beautifully representa-tive of any visual motion, like a comic book; the imagesflow together to tell a story. The line work may be some-what rough, or it may be very tight and detailed, butwhat is important is properly visualizing the flow of thestory.

You’ve heard that “A picture is worth a thousandwords.” In the entertainment industry, a picture isworth much more than a thousand dollars. Whenpeople read a script, everybody gets a different image ofwhat it should look like. The producer and the director,however, are the ones who make the final decision.Without a set of boards to represent exactly how theywant a scene to look, any number of things can gowrong. Statements might be heard on the set like “Oh,that’s what you meant” or “What are you doing?! Thatis NOT what I asked for!” When everyone is workingtoward the same vision, miscommunications such asthese will not happen.

In the golden years of animation, in the days ofChuck Jones, Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, Friz Freleng,and Walter Lantz, the directors drew most of their ownstoryboards. As animation studios grew, tasks were delegated to others. Only recently has the trend of direc-tors doing their own storyboarding begun to growagain. Some animation directors, such as John Kric-falusi, of Ren and Stimpy fame, feel that it’s importantfor cartoon writer/directors to draw their own boards.He maintains that it’s important for stories to be writtenby cartoonists who not only can write but can draw.

Figure 1.2 Hollyweird. (© 2006 Mark Simon.)

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Chapter 1 What Are Storyboards? 5

Storyboard artists will work mostly with a director toillustrate the images in her mind for the entire crew tosee. At times they may work with a producer, if the pro-ducer’s vision is the guiding force for a project or if adirector hasn’t get signed onto a project.

The other person a storyboard artist is likely towork with is the production designer. The productiondesigner holds the creative vision of a project regarding

Figure 1.3 Captain Scarlet boards by Tracey Wilson, Lee Munday, Chris Drew, and Teri Fairhurst.

Cartoons are not just funny writing; they are funnyimages and sight gags. Cartoonists know the capabili-ties and limitations of the medium and can best takeadvantage of it. Writing alone can’t do this. Cartoonsare best when they do the physically impossible and dealwith exaggeration.

Live-action storyboards are generally done in pre-production, as soon as a script is in its final stages.

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6 Introduction

everything behind the actors, including not only sets andlocations, but also props and, at times, costuming. Thelook of the sets and locations will be extremely impor-tant to the characters’ actions. A storyboard artist mayhelp out with the look of a project in a number of dif-ferent ways. The production designer will supply theartist with all the visual information needed. Storyboardartists may also be asked to draw conceptual illustra-tions of what the sets or locations should look like,before detailed designs and construction starts.

The people running a low-budget production maythink they are saving money by not using boards, butquite the opposite is true. The lower the budget, themore organized the production has to be in order toaccomplish the difficult task at hand. Any misunder-standings or faulty communications can throw thealready too-tight schedule out the window. The more aproject is boarded, the better the preproduction will be,the less overbuilding of sets and props will happen, andthe faster the crew will move in unison to get all thecoverage in shots. Instead of shooting every angle forpossible edits, every edit is shown on the boards, cutting

the extra cost of film and processing, as well as the laborexpense of shooting excess footage and wading throughmiles of useless film in the editing suite.

For example, I storyboarded a number of scenes on a shoot for Chuck E. Cheese pizzerias. This shootused a walk-about, (a character suit of Chuck E. thatsomeone walks around in), instead of animation. In one sequence of boards we had Chuck E.’s hair doingsomething special. During a preproduction meetingwhen we had all the crew heads together going over theboards and production needs, the woman in charge ofthe Chuck E. Cheese costume said that the hair on the costume wouldn’t do what the boards showed. Thedirector asked her what could be done about it. Shethought for a moment and said that she could removethe original hair and have it and a new wig for thespecial task rigged to be Velcro’d on and off during theshoot. While her task seems simple, it will still take time.Without going over the boards before production, wewould have been shut down for a couple of hours justbecause of some hair. That one delay would have costmuch more than the cost of the boards. Multiply that

Figure 1.4 Set illustration by Mark Simon. Art direction by: Mark Dillon.

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Chapter 1 What Are Storyboards? 7

Figure 1.5 Hoot storyboards by Alex Saviuk of Animatics & Storyboards, Inc. (Images courtesy Hoot Prods LLC.)

times the amount of things that come up during a production and you can easily see the value of storyboards.

Drawing storyboards is a wonderfully exciting andcreative outlet. A storyboard artist is crucial in both theflow of a story and in the organization of a shoot. Goodstoryboarding requires knowledge of directing, editing,storytelling, and camera techniques. Add artistic talent,

and the ability to work with others to tell a visual story,and you too may enjoy illustrating in the exciting worldof entertainment.

For producers, directors, and other crew peoplewho don’t draw, knowledge of storyboarding is just asimportant, for it will enhance your ability to communi-cate with your crew and in the end help you tell a betterstory and run a better production.

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