Storyboarding

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** Storyboarding **  ** Storyboards are an integral part of Pre-Production. In essence, a storyboard enables you to visualise the film before you make it. By doing this you significantly cut down on wasted time when you are actually on set. Being on set can cost huge amounts of money and to have cast and crew hanging around waiting is a massive waste of both time and money. Producers will not like this. So storyboard. That way, when you arrive on set you know where you want your actors to stand, where they should move to, where and how the camera should move etc. ** You do not have to be a good artist either. Notoriously, Hitchcock was an awful artist and would only be able to storyboard very basically using stick men. So do not be put off by lack of drawing ability. Storyboards can be very detailed, or they can be rather more sparse. Either way, it is very good practice as it forces you to consider the film in a visual medium. After all, filmmaking is the transferring of the written word (the script) into the visual (the film) - and storyboarding is the perfect bridge to enable this to happen seamlessly. ** Try it. **
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 * [[image:http://accad.osu.edu/womenandtech/Storyboard%20Resource/graphics/gonewithwind.jpg width="600" height="472" align="center" caption="Storybaord image from Gone with the Wind"]]

What is a storyboard? Once a concept or script is written for a film or animation, the next step is to make a storyboard. A storyboard visually tells the story of an animation panel by panel, kind of like a comic book. Your storyboard will should convey some of the following information:
 * What charaters are in the frame, and how are they moving?
 * What are the characters saying to each other, if anything?
 * How much time has passed between the last frame of the storyboard and the current one?
 * Where the "camera" is in the scene? Close or far away? Is the camera moving?

Why make a storyboard? Creating a storyboard will help you plan your animation out shot by shot. You can make changes to your storyboard before you start animating, instead of changing your mind later. You will also be able to talk about your animation and show your storyboard to other people to get feedback on your ideas.

How do I make a storyboard? Most commonly, storyboards are drawn in pen or pencil. If you don't like to draw you can also take photos, cut out pictures from magazines, or use a computer to make your storyboards. Keep in mind that your drawings don't have to be fancy! In fact, you want to spend just a few minutes drawing each frame. Use basic shapes, stick figures, and simple backgrounds. If you draw your storyboard frames on index cards, you can rearrange them to move parts of the the story around.

Storyboard Language CLOSE-UP SHOT: A close range of distance between the camera and the subject.  DISSOVLE: A transition between two shots, where one shot fades away and simultaneously another shot fades in. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> FADE - A transition from a shot to black where the image gradually becomes darker is a Fade Out; or from black where the image gradually becomes brighter is a Fade In. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> HIGH CAMERA ANGLE: A camera angle which looks down on its subject making it look small, weak or unimportant. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> JUMP CUT: A rapid, jerky transition from one frame to the next, either disrupting the flow of time or movement within a scene or making an abrupt transition from one scene to another. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> LEVEL CAMERA ANGLE: A camera angle which is even with the subject; it may be used as a neutral shot. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> LONG SHOT: A long range of distance between the camera and the subject, often providing a broader range of the setting. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> LOW CAMERA ANGLE: A camera angle which looks up at its subject; it makes the subject seem important and powerful. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> PAN: A steady, sweeping movement from one point in a scene to another. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> POV (point of view shot): A shot which is understood to be seen from the point of view of a character within the scene. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> REACTION SHOT- 1.: A shot of someone looking off screen. 2.: A reaction shot can also be a shot of someone in a conversation where they are not given a line of dialogue but are just listening to the other person speak. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> TILT: Using a camera on a tripod, the camera moves up or down to follow the action. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> ZOOM: Use of the camera lens to move closely towards the subject.

<span style="color: #666633; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Storyboard Examples <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">From the Jane Animation Project - Hunting Sequence

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">A simple storyboard made using stick figures

<span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left;"> A storyboard for a TV Western

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">More Links <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Acting With A Pencil <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Famous Frames - Storyboards from Hollywood movies || <span style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">Taken from: [] Storyboard of scenes from //To Kill A Mockingbird// [] **Saul Bass's storyboards for the** //**Psycho**// **shower scene** Saul Bass prepared storyboards for the shower scene, and was on the set during at least part of the filming. After Hitchcock's death, Bass asserted that he had directed the scene at Hitchcock's invitation--a claim definitively contradicted by both Janet Leigh and Assistant Director Hilton Green. Bass's partisans have subsequently held that Hitchcock merely mechanically filmed shots already laid out by Bass. Comparing the storyboards to the filmed sceneshows that to be untrue. On the other hand, the most crucial elements of the scene, such as the drain-eye matchcut and the tracking shot that follows it, are in the storyboards. That proves nothing about the author of the scene, however, since Bass drew the storyboards after extensive discussions with Hitchcock about the design of the scene
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