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Writer's pictureJules Zucker

WHAT IS STORYBOARDING?



 

When you’re working in film and video production, your job revolves around taking your client’s creative vision and bringing it to life. But how do you turn an idea or concept into a visual final product? It’s a complex process, but one crucial piece of the puzzle is storyboarding, or creating a visual representation of a project using a series of panels depicting what will be seen on screen.




These sketches lay out what different shots will look like, potential camera directions, and even lines of dialogue or narration. Think of a storyboard like a comic strip for your project. Why is this important? Generally speaking, storyboarding helps provide structure and create a clear road map for getting the project from A to Z. How many locations will you need? What sorts of shots will best serve the creative vision? Like many other video production companies in New York and around the world, we rely on storyboards to act as technical blueprints guiding the process forward.




Our clients’ input is incredibly important to us, so storyboarding helps us make sure everyone is aligned on the vision, the priorities, and the plan for the project. Before every shoot, we’ll sit down with the client to draft up notes for the storyboard and then run the actual storyboard by them before the shoot even begins. Since the client already has an idea of what the final video might look like, there’s a much smaller risk of any surprises down the road. Time and budget are precious, after all!




We work on both commercial and narrative projects, so storyboards look a bit different depending on who our client is. For our video with Magnus Walker, for example, our storyboard laid out the different shots we wanted, the locations we had in mind, and how the storyline of the video would ultimately come together. Not only did this help us plan location scouting and streamline production on the day of the shoot, but it also gave our postproduction team an idea of how to assemble and edit the footage to create an end product that mirrored the original vision.




Storyboarding was especially important for Your Labs Are Normal, the narrative film we created with writer-director Rhisa Parera. Working from Rhisa’s original screenplay, we storyboarded out 180 different frames to take the words Rhisa had written and translate them to the screen. This gave us a much clearer idea of the specific shots and locations we would need to execute Rhisa’s vision, and it allowed us to cut down on shoot days by aligning on our creative direction before the shoot even began. Ultimately, creating a comprehensive storyboard helped us stay on schedule, on budget, and on the same page about what we wanted as a production team!


Video production can be a complicated process, but the right preparation will always set you up for success. Have you got questions about storyboarding your next project? Give us a call! Let’s bring your ideas to life.


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