From Word to Image - Storyboarding and the filmmaking process

By Marcie Begleiter

Michael Wiese productions, 2001

7" x 10", 224 pages

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There are several books about storyboarding and I must have browsed them all several times at the book store and I put them back on the shelves every time. I never could browse the Begleiter book because it was never available at my local book stores. I found it one day, at Powels, during a trip to Portland. I browsed it and I knew this one book about storyboarding was different than the other ones. To me, one very important aspect of a book about storyboard is that the storyboard examples are good looking. After all, storyboards being primarily visual communication tools, what good can a book about storyboard be if the storyboard examples are so-so or even plain bad. I may be completely wrong because I did not read the other books and, maybe the texts are so enlightening that they don't need excellent accompanying illustrations but I doubt it.

Storyboarding is an important document in the production of a film. It is first a visual communication tool that allows the whole film crew to grab, in a few illustrations, what is to be shot, which angles are to be covered, what type of lighting is to be used and what is on the director's mind and imagination. The storyboards is also an important process in a film development. It allows the pre-production team to communicate their visions of each scenes in an almost unequivocable way and it allows the director to test ideas, camera angles, lighting, framing, composition and staging to see if they work as imagined before any film rolls are even commited. Even when an experienced director have a pretty good vision of how the film should look, testing ideas in a storyboard may reveal some flaws or confirm the vision. For the less experienced director, the storyboard becomes an essential tool that will allow exploration and search for representational solutions.

What is not so obvious is that storyboards are even more important in the development of an animated film. In most animated film production, there are no scripts. At least, there are no scripts like the ones we see in actor-based movie productions. Usually, the storyboard IS the script. Sometimes, the script is written after the storyboard is completed.

Because animated sequences are fully invented and not filmed, and because animation films are usually an animated illustration, oftentimes a carricatured illustration, it is imperative to test all story ideas and their narrative sequential presentation as they are developped. And also, because an animated shot takes much more longer to produce than filming actors, cost much more and is much more difficult to re-take, it is usually out of the question to even think of trying a few takes of the same animated scene. Even pencil tests, in traditional cell-based animation takes quite long to produce and test. For obvious economic and efficiency reasons, the animated scene must be the right one the first time it is completed. So the storyboard is the tool that helps ensure each scene to be animated have been thouroghly verified, timed and tested in context before it is animated. In a 3D animation production, it is easier to retake a scene but it still very expensive if the scene needs to be re-animated and re-rendered. Fortunately, several quick 3D render modes are the equivalent of pencil tests and are much quicker to test than pencil tests for small tweaks. Still, storyboards are a lot easier, quicker and cheaper to change for anything but simple tweaks.

This book is not about storyboarding for animated films. It is important to note that. Animation storyboards are much more elaborate than live-action film storyboards. Live action film storyboards use arrows to indicate characters movements and / or camera movements for example. But animation storyboards will use a set of drawn frames to depict the characters movements or the camera movements. Another notable difference, is that animation storyboards are drawn by "story artists" who are full members of the directing team while a live-action film storyboard artist is a director's assistant.

There are no recipies for what camera angle to use to convey this or that, what lighting to use to give this or that impression, etc. in this book. Those issues are better covered in "directing" kind of books. It covers some of the basics terminologies of directings such as scale, angles, camera moves, edits, tansitions and point of views just enough so the storyboard artist can properly annotate the storyboard frames. The author focuses on visual communication. That is what storyboards are about.

Basically, there are not that much rules for storyboarding for live action films. It is not like writing scripts which must comply to a very strict format. Storyboard must communicate a visual idea and any drawing technique that can communicate that is basically allowed. That is the most important idea I personally got from this book and this is unlike other books about storyboardings which propose a strongly encoded way of drawing them. There are numerous examples, from real movie storyboards, that shows creative ways of graphically communicating the director's vision. Often times, new illustration techniques must be invented to enable the communication of innovative directing visions. This said, the traditional storyboarding techniques such as the use of arrows and the numerous extended frames, are covered as well with accompanying diagrams.

There are several types of storyboards, all with their specific purpose, from the editorial storyboard to the production illustration and they are all described but Mrs Begleiter focusses on the editorial storyboard which is really the "storyboard" we all think of. In contast with animation storyboards, where absolutely everything must be boarded, in live action film storyboards, not every scene need to be storyboarded. There is a priority. Special FX shots, stunts, crowds, action, complex camera movements, montage and opening & closing scenes generally requires more precise choreography and thus storyboarding. Those are all covered in the book with their special illustration requirements.

For example, SFX shots, because they are outsourced, are elaborately storyboarded so the contractor knows exactly what kind of visuals are expected. Stunts and pyrotechniques generally require illustrating the whole scene floor plan with any rigs and pyrotechnique positions in addition to the traditional storyboard. Complex camera movements require an overhead diagram in addition to the storyboard. Opening and closing sequences are extremely important and so they are carefully storyboarded.

Storyboard, as explained in this book, is not only drawing a set of sort of realistic comics panels. It can also involve drawing the overhead shooting plan, adding some sidebar diagrams and selecting a numbering system that will reference different production documents.

But then, again, those categories are really for live-action film storyboards. Animation storyboards don't have those priorities since everything must be storyboarded. Animation storyboards are really made so they can be assembled into a smooth flowing animatics where acting, pacing, camera moves, the editing and more generally, the storytelling and the communication of emotions can be worked out before the actual animation begins.

There is also a section of aspect ratios with advises for storyboard artist to take into account the pan and scan techniques used when a film is transferred to TV 3:2 format. Although this is less of a problem today because of the HDTV format, there are still some movie format that are wider than the HDTV format and such storyboarding attention should be considered. Those considerations also apply to animated film storyboards.

The second section of the book is dedicated to the craft of drawing storyboards. It first covers composition, then perspective and then drawing the figure. Each of those sections are complete enough for a storyboard artist to learn and apply the essentials and I must say, I found them quite well done. But, in my opinion, for serious storyboard artists, education on those topics should be completed with books on each of those specific techniques.

The last sections covers advises for storyboard artists on how to get a contract and how to negociate. Then there is a list of DVDs that contain storyboards and/or visualization documents as supplemental materials. Then there are a list of resources, from software packages helpful for storyboarding to web sites with nice storyboards and other visualization documents to books titles. BTW, I found it interesting that she list Scott McCloud "Understanding comics" in her "Theory / Film Practice" reference section.

All in all, I found this a very good book on storyboarding and all the associated illustration tasks that are used in a live-action film production process. If the goal is to learn about the craft of storyboarding for live-action film, I do not hesitate to recommend it. If the goal is to learn the craft of storyboarding for animated films, though, then this book can serve as a basis but really, story artists are first and foremost visual storytellers. This book is not about storytelling or visual storytelling.