[Webinar Recap] Storyboarding 101: Ignite Your Storytelling Skills as a Student
A student’s guide to storyboarding and how it can shape your future career.
Storyboarding is a crucial initial step in a video production process.
It lays the foundation for the entire creative endeavor, guiding the final product's direction, composition, and flow.
As we’ve been in the industry for years, we understand how challenging it is to create a video storyboard.
However, anyone can develop the skills for storyboarding during their high school years.
Teamed up with the Hyouman team, Our CEO, Andre Oentoro discussed this topic with Merlion School students through an hour-long webinar.
We’ve curated the essential parts of the webinar session in the following discussion!
What is Storyboard?
Before diving into more details regarding with storyboard, let’s look into an example below.
When we talk about storyboards, we look into something like the example above.
There are several pictures in a sequence, and each box has a description of the scene.
Descriptively, a storyboard is a sequence of pictures or drawings as a plan to represent how to tell a story (commonly in a video) and how it will unfold.
Storyboards come in many types. The above example is a thumbnail storyboard, while some others are:
Animatic Storyboard
An animatic storyboard combines storyboarding with basic animation or motion to create a rough representation of the final sequence.
It shows timing, movement, and sound effects to better understand the pacing and overall visual flow.
Digital Storyboard
It uses digital drawing tools or specialized software, allowing greater flexibility, easy editing, and sharing capabilities.
Vertical Storyboard
Vertical storyboards are sometimes necessary for mobile app development or social media content.
The vertical aspect ratio is necessary for optimizing platforms where vertical scrolling is the primary navigation mode.
Storyboard Mashup
A storyboard mashup combines different artistic styles, mediums, or sources of inspiration.
It allows for creative experimentation and helps generate unique and visually striking ideas.
Read: The Essential Guide to Storyboard for Explainer Videos
Uses of Storyboards
Another rising question is, in what way can we use a storyboard?
A storyboard isn’t limited only to video production. Other uses of storyboards include:
- Multimedia presentation: Visualizing the concept is essential before creating an engaging presentation.
- Game development: Storyboards, such as puzzle and tactics games, are particularly important to structure the gameplay and storyline.
- Mobile app development: When creating a new app or refining an existing one, storyboards help designers and developers map out user interfaces, interactions, and user flows.
- Website development: Storyboards enable efficient communication among designers, developers, and clients, ensuring the website’s layout, navigation, and content placement align with the desired narrative.
Why is Storyboard Important?
A storyboard is crucial for many purposes, from video production to presentation and game development.
Here are some reasons why a storyboard is important:
Visualize complicated concepts
Storyboarding helps simplify complex ideas and concepts by breaking them into visual representations.
It allows you to see the big picture and understand how different elements fit together, making communicating and comprehending intricate concepts easier.
Deliver messages more effectively
Storyboards provide a visual framework for organizing information and messages.
By presenting ideas sequentially and visually engagingly, storyboards enhance clarity and make it easier for your audience to grasp and retain key messages.
Convey a story flow
Whether it’s a video, presentation, or any narrative-based project, storyboards help plan and visualize the flow of the story.
They enable you to structure scenes, determine the pacing, and create a cohesive narrative that resonates with your audience.
Ensure everything is in a pleasing sequence
Storyboards ensure that the elements of your project are arranged in a logical and coherent sequence.
They help you identify gaps, inconsistencies, or potential issues early, allowing for adjustments and improvements before the final production stage.
Free Tools for Creating Storyboards
While creating a storyboard can be done manually with your drawing skills, it’s also possible to do it with advanced tools.
Our CEO recommended these two free tools to assist you in your storyboard creation.
Studio Binder
StudioBinder is a comprehensive production management platform that offers storyboard creation tools.
It allows you to create digital storyboards with customizable layouts, drag-and-drop functionality, and collaboration features for seamless team workflows.
Canva
Canva is a free visual design platform with storyboard templates among its many design resources.
With its user-friendly interface and pre-designed layouts, Canva makes it easy to create visually appealing storyboards even if you don’t have extensive design experience.
These free tools provide accessible options for creating storyboards, empowering you to bring your ideas to life and effectively communicate your vision, regardless of your technical expertise.
See the full recording:
Developing skills as a storyboarder as early as possible can bring many benefits.
You can join a competition, work with a video company, or work as an individual freelancer in the future.
Breadnbeyond has more resources regarding storyboarding which you can explore further on our blog! Start here.
