Storyboards

A storyboard is a visual outline that breaks up the narrative into a series of thumbnail images. Storyboard art is either hand-drawn or created using graphic designing techniques. It is similar to a script but is visual instead of text-based.

Storyboards are a powerful way to visually present and organize information for storytelling, explaining a process or taking viewers through a timeline of events. Creating a storyboard will help organize your thoughts, plan more effectively, clearly convey your ideas, identify problems early, save time and stay in budget.

Finding the balance of detail for your storyboard is the most important element in communicating your story’s vision. Too many images and you’ll lose your audience, but too few and the story will be difficult to understand. A good storyboard has all the necessary information to imagine how the final product will appear.

There are many types of projects that should include storyboards, especially when creating videos. Animation explainer videos are classic projects that require storyboard art, along with short films, cartoons, music videos, video series, books, infographics, and more.

There are key elements every storyboard should include, such as scene panels, scene and shot numbers, action shots, any dialog that occurs, and technical details to help explain how to produce each shot.