Great stories start with a great idea. Visualizing how you tell that story, or explaining a complex concept, that’s storyboarding.
As good as a script might sound on paper, storyboarding helps to express those ideas visually.
You can determine how your video or animation is going to look, long before you capture or design the first frame.
Most people don’t have the experience or knowledge to read a script and translate those words into pictures in their mind. Think of storyboarding like a comic book – a guide using pictures to break down all the information in a script. Sharing these pictures make it easier to explain your vision.
Storyboarding outlines the shots you’ll need, the order and flow of those shots, and how they interact or animate. Being able to lay out the entire video, allows you the opportunity to see potential problems and fix them before you even begin.
Although storyboarding takes a lot of time in the beginning, it makes the production process much smoother. And a smooth production requires less time overall, which means more money in your pocket.
The Environmental Finance Center at UNC-Chapel Hill reached out to Digital P to produce an animated explainer video about the full cost of providing water service today and into the future.
After you flip through the storyboard panels, watch the final video below to compare the differences. Do you see how integral storyboarding was to the final animation?
Storyboarding allowed us to take complex concepts and make them simple to understand. And we were able to make fundamental changes that would've been costly to the client. That's why storyboarding is so important!
Storyboard a meaningful story or a complex concept that expresses a strong message for your intended audience. Details often include perspective, color schemes, character design, and more. Here are some questions that will help you get you started:
What idea are you trying to convey? What is your setting? How many characters do you need in the frame? What type of shot (close-up, wide shot, establishing shot, etc.) do you need?
