Preparation is vital in completing a storyboard series in a sane manner. It’s easy enough to just start sketching from a blank page, but unless you’ve gone through the scene line-by-line (on your own, as well as along with the director), gathered your reference material, know your sets and locations, I guarantee — from experience — that you’re gonna get stuck.
Equally important is knowing what your end result will be. Is the project yet to be financed and needing investors? Is the project already underway and in need of a breakdown by the line producer and first A.D.? Or is the film already shooting and the crew desperately needs to know what to shoot in the coming days? Whatever stage you happen to be at will not only dictate what the final product will look like, but how much time you should realistically spend putting in putting it together.
Types of Storyboards
Storyboards can generally fall anywhere from very crude sketches to accurately rendered frames, to anything in between (sometimes all on the same page, depending on what stage the production is in).
Very nicely-rendered frames without too much technical information are sometimes really good for getting investors (especially those unfamiliar with film) 100% behind a project because sometimes the words on the page can only go so far in describing what the final result will be. A screenplay, in the hands of a good director can often become something entirely different once they’ve put their stamp on it, and if the director is part of the whole package, it’s not a bad idea to show what he or she is going to bring to it.
Below are some example frames from an unproduced film called “The Wretched” which were intended to show investors what kind of movie they’d be getting for their money. As you can see, I’ve included an impossibly wide frame (bottom) that just wouldn’t cut it as a technical guide, but did serve to subtly show the scope the director wanted to bring to the script. Additionally, I’ve colored it in a comic book palette, as the film was intended to be like a Spaghetti Western, and that seemed to be the most appropriate style.
It would, however, probably take you the rest of your life if you were to ‘board the whole film out in this manner. It’s good for a demo scene, but not practical for a full feature.
Below are some example frames from a sequence in “GallowWalker” as the film was close to shooting. As you can see, not a whole lot of effort was put into rendering, but the action is contained within frames in the intended environment of the shoot. In this example, a complicated camera move has even been mapped out. With ‘boards of this detail, Art Department, A.D.’s and the D.O.P. can look at these frames and get a rough idea what is required for each shot.
Then, as the production progresses, you start getting a mix; the example to the right — once again from “GallowWalker” — shows frames from a sequence where some fairly rendered shots are mixed with last-minute revisions from the director, which can range anywhere from a detailed line sketch (the first two frames) to nearly stick figures (the fourth and fifth frames).
Lastly comes on-set storyboards. The example here is a page from my very quick second unit storyboards (alongside frames from the shoot) which were simply sketched in my notebook on the day of the shoot (we were under some time pressures and this was an additional scene) in order to explain to the crew what I wanted to shoot toward that day. It is not uncommon, on a larger shoot, to have the director get you to quickly sketch out some idea that he has, (i) to see if it will work without wasting everyone’s time, and (ii) to explain it easily to the rest of the crew in order to save a lot of talking.
Going Through the Script
We’ll work through an actual example for this series of tutorials, this being a couple of pages from an old screenplay of mine, “Resurrection City” which is more or less a standard zombies vs. people movie.
This scene involves two of our main characters, Ashley and Cody, trying to escape from an apartment that has just become infested with unwanted zombies. Cody has had the wonderful idea that they should go for the window ...
EXT. CODY’S APARTMENT - LATE AFTERNOON
ASHLEY drops from the window onto the fire escape below. CODY piles out after her. They scramble down the metal steps.
Uh. Ash ...
ASHLEY doesn’t answer.
Ashley! Slow up! Look down.
Ashley gives Cody a “huh?” look, then looks down.
Ashley's POV - Quite a few PEOPLE have gathered below the fire escape. They just stand there, looking and waiting for them.
I don’t think they’re waiting there to help us.
Ashley looks around. They’re stranded, halfway down the fire escape.
Well, what do we do?
No response from Cody.
WHAT DO WE DO?!?!
Above them, the THREE FIGURES have managed to make their way out of the window. They slowly start to make their way down.
Guess we keep -- going.
Reluctantly, the two of them continue their way down the fire escape toward the waiting PEOPLE. The end of the steps - only the thin extension ladder to go. Ashley is first. She pauses. Looks down.
Pale, rotting faces and exposed teeth grin up at her.
She can’t go down there.
Cody is starting to move down close to her. If she doesn’t keep moving, then he can’t keep moving.
Ashley ... you’ve got to keep going.
Ashley shakes her head.
Cody looks up.
The three figures are making their way down.
Ashley!! Move!!
Ashley shakes her head. She’s starting to lose it.
I -- CAN’T!
Ashley, move your ass! Now!
No!
Cody looks up.
The FIGURES ARE CLOSER.
Ashley -- !
Ashley looks up. Ashley looks down. She gulps, takes a deep breath, then starts down the ladder.
Exposed, earth-encrusted, gnarled hands reach up toward ...
Ashley as she continues downward.
Ashley, climbing down, starting to sob uncontrollably.
Cody follows her.
Attagirl.
Ashley, really crying now, moving downwards, into the mob.
Black fingernails and decaying, fleshy arms now grabbing at her legs, pulling her closer.
Cody looking up, the figures getting closer.
Ashley at the bottom rung.
A sea of arms pull her from the ladder.
She screams a guttural scream.
On the ground... figures close in around her.
Cody at the end of the fire escape, jumps the last few feet, into the CROWD, kicking and punching.
He falls onto the pavement.
A few of the creatures split from their ranks and start grabbing at him. He shoves and pushes and finally manages to get to his feet.
Ashley's still screaming.
Cody pushes his way into the crowd. Ashley on the ground, her face wet with tears, screaming. ONE OF THE CREATURES has her by the arm, pulling her up. Cody grabs her other arm and pulls her toward him.
Tug-of-war. Cody yanks really hard and manages to get Ashley free. She falls to the ground and he keeps dragging her. Creatures grab at his shoulders, closing around him.
He lets go. Ashley rolls over and scrambles through the legs of the creatures. Stands, pulls at Cody's collar and yanks him back.
They run off down the side street, the MOB of CREATURES in slow pursuit.
Okay, so on the first read-through, we gather the elements that make up the scene, namely: Ashley and Cody, an apartment building with a fire escape, three main zombies and a gang of zombies on the street below.
Before even starting a single frame, we need to establish what Ashley and Cody will look like. If you just start drawing a guy and a girl, chances are, by the time you get to the end of the sequence, you’re going to have a different guy and girl than you’ve started with, because you’ve had some time to develop them over the course of the scene. All we need is our own self-made reference for what these characters look like. This is just for you, you don’t need to share it with anyone else.
You don’t need to spend a lot of time on them. I spent about 20 minutes on the above. It’s just going to be a guide for you that will maybe save you a bit of head-scratching later on.
It’s good to remember at this point that each of your characters should look different, and you should go for vastly different looks. If you happen to be feeling tired or lazy one day, Cody might end up looking like another one of the characters if you’ve designed two that look similar and that might lead to some huge (and possibly costly) misunderstandings down the road. If you’ve got two guys who look alike, give one of them a beard, so at least if there’s some confusion, whoever’s having problems can at least say, “Oh, that guy’s got a beard.”
For our example, I’m going to throw caution to the wind as far as the zombies are concerned. I know what zombies look like (I’ve drawn enough of them over the years) and none of the ones in our sample scene ever appear again in the story, so, I’m gonna wing it when the time comes.
The next most important thing to reference out before you begin is the location. In this case, it’s the exterior of an apartment building with a fire escape. I can’t stress how important this step is. Unless you happen to have an incredibly analytical and logical mind, if you’re just working from your imagination, the layout may look different from each angle you draw, which is going to be hard when it comes to actually plotting out the action.
If you have the actual location or set at your disposal, that’s an incredible benefit, but in most cases, you will not. Google Images is a great tool for sourcing this stuff. A couple of quick clicks and I found the image below, which is exactly what I had in mind. You can’t see the ground from this shot, so I did another search for “alley” and came up with another picture, so, combining the two, we have our location.
Next
So we’ve laid the groundwork for what comes next, which is breaking the scene down into shots. In the real world, as mentioned previously, you will sit down with the director and they’ll tell you exactly what they want. It’s not a bad idea to do your homework though, reading and re-reading the scene in advance, coming up with your own ideas and sketches for the way the scene will unfold. It becomes more of an intellectual process this way, no matter what the script, rather than just a job.
Next time we’ll start plotting out the shots for the first page of actual storyboards.
