The Art of Video Storyboarding

“A video without a storyboard is like a house without a foundation”

Storyboarding is not just a process.

It is an expression on either a piece of paper or a device that represents the video direction.

Consisting of a series of pictures or boxes along with notes and script, this gives us an insight into what the finished video will look like from start to end.

While the notes talk about what is happening in each scene, the script is the narration for the video which will be utilised as the voice-over of the video.

In our blog post, we talk about the benefits of a storyboard, the process, and its impact on business.
But before we dive into it, let’s talk about the importance of storyboarding.

Storyboarding guides you visually about the video production process and is the most essential part of video production. Assisting in defining the story, the flow, and the conclusion, it can help your team analyze the different hardware or software needs that a video needs.

To create a good storyboard, you should be able to draft the story visually with rough sketches on paper. Alternatively, you can also use printable templates or software to help you streamline the storyboarding process as well. Motion graphic artists pressed for time to hand-draw frames or with larger buckets of budgets also opt to use the specialized storyboarding software. These softwares are customizable and robust to help you set up the storyboard with ease.

Benefits of a storyboard

1. Aligns thoughts and vision – Rough sketches and graphics act as a stimulus to align and organise your thoughts hence kickstarting your design. This sort of visual aid helps in getting your teammates and customers on the same page.

Not having a video storyboard in place makes it challenging to explain the story in words to create visual imagery in people’s minds.

2. Helps in Production Process – The visual story helps in defining the steps for the production process. The story frames, visual library, styles, effects, imagery, different angles, add-in compositions etc. can be finalized while doing the storyboarding.

3. Saves time – Storyboarding saves time and since time is money, it saves your budget too! If you don’t create wireframes or storyboards, there might be chances of forgetting an important step or two. With the help of storyboarding, the production process becomes easier and smooth as it reduces the iteration levels.

Your storyboard is always going to be a rough draft of your video and doesn’t require that much artistic talent. What matters is creativity and how you drive the script visually. As long as one can convey the idea via rough sketches, the details in graphics during storyboarding doesn’t matter.

Best practice of storyboarding

It is a good idea to use arrows, numbering and swapping of the thumbnails, plotting scenes, and timeline differences in your storyboard for best results. Since the duration of the video is of utmost importance for any video, storyboarding helps ensure that the final product is exactly what you envisioned.

Analyze which scene is going to create an impact and what factors are going to contribute in that scene. This should then be highlighted and placed carefully in the thumbnails during storyboarding.

Impact on business

Storyboarding, if added into the initial part of the video production, can help you in taking the right decisions hence managing the approval process from stakeholders. Sharing your thoughts visually can create a positive impact on the business needs. As a result, the production line can have fewer iteration cycles with the help of storyboarding. With such fewer hiccups, it reduces the time effort and can cut down costs on video production.

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