My Disney Class

The first step in creating a storyboard is to draw a series of squares on a piece of paper (you can also find tons of printable storyboard templates on Google). Think of these squares as the video frame. In each square a different shot or scene will take place.

 

You can sketch the scenes by hand, create them on a computer or even take photographs. Make sure to leave space to write notes and lines from the script beneath or next to each frame.

 

Beneath each picture you should write the lines from the script that will be said in that shot and jot down some notes about what is happening in the scene. People should be able to read through your storyboard like a comic book to get a sense of exactly what will happen in your video.

 

Note that your storyboard doesn't have to be incredibly detailed -- you don't have to draw in all of the props or even use color. If you're not great at drawing that's fine too. Just provide enough visual detail to give an impression of what is happening, which characters are in the scene and what the general framing will look like.

 

The script and notes will help fill in the rest of the details. You can also make notes about camera angles and movement, transitions between shots and other details that will come in handy during production and post production.

 

According to Christopher Finch in The Art of Walt Disney (Abrams, 1974), Disney credited animator Webb Smith with creating the idea of drawing scenes on separate sheets of paper and pinning them up on a bulletin board to tell a story in sequence, thus creating the first storyboard.

 

The concept of Storyboarding is not new. Artists such as DaVinci were using the concept of visually sequencing their ideas for creations hundreds of years ago. Frank Lloyd Wright's studio/Library in Oak Park, Illinois was full of what we now call "storyboards."

Perhaps no one is more closely associated with modern day storyboarding than Walt Disney. Disney and his brother had many early entertainment industry failures. When they broke out into success, the use of storyboards played a key role, both in animation and later, business planning.

Early animators worked much like monks, who before the invention of the printing press spent years transcribing Bibles (one Bible one monk). Disney recognized that a team of animators could work together to develop a cartoon through a more rapid collaborative process if they could share their work. Rather than working in isolation, they came together in front of storyboards where animation cells could be displayed, then easily moved around into a proper sequence. Disney soon realized he could use this concept to plan a business and began using storyboards as a brainstorming tool.

After the arrival of Mike Vance, who also served as Dean of Disney University, the storyboard process evolved into a full-fledged planning process. Vance took it beyond brainstorming by adding action planning and communication development pieces. It is reported that by using the storyboard process, the Disney folks created the plans for Disney World in Florida in ten days. The initial storyboard was used as a management tool to develop the new amusement megaplex, which was completed ahead of time and under budget.

Throughout the years others have added to the process and it is now widely used by companies and organizations throughout the world.