Storyboarding & Scriptwriting Software Guide & Review

Thanks to the ubiquitous DVD extras on most major discs, the pre-production comic book-like art known as "storyboards" has become widely known. Studios pre-plan each scene meticulously, sometimes with dozens or hundreds of frames per sequence. This leaves the director and cinematographer with the relatively easy task of matching the live-action elements to the storyboard on set. It couldn't be easier. Except, of course, for the fact that most people can't create images like that at all.

Just because you're not a big studio mogul or, heck, even a graphic artist, doesn't mean that storyboards are beyond you. Now, with powerful new software packages on the market, creating professional-looking pre-visualizations has become easier than ever.

There are two major misconceptions about storyboards that scare a lot of directors away:

• I Can't Draw
• Storyboarding Every Shot is a Lot of Work

Let's address each point separately.

I Can't Draw. Not planning a sequence because you're worried about how pretty your storyboards will look is like turning down a ride on the space shuttle because you don't look good in orange. Storyboards are a tool to help make your production run more smoothly. It doesn't matter if all you can do is scribble stick figures in the margins of your script. All that matters is that you actively plan your shots in advance.

Storyboarding Every Shot Is a Lot of Work. You're right, it is. That's why you don't have to storyboard absolutely every shot. How much of your project to storyboard is up to you and your professional comfort level.

Allow me to explain. Let's say you've shot dozens of two-person conversations. You know the drill: Master shot. Shot over Actor A's shoulder. Shot over Actor B's shoulder. Mix in editing and let render for five minutes. Voilà. Now, is there any reason at all to storyboard that sequence? Probably not.

By contrast, let's say you're shooting the climax of your big high school comedy. The bad guys have strapped a rocket onto the back of a turtle, which they've then duct-taped onto a rocket-powered skateboard. The script has this hapless reptile careening through the halls of a high school, terrifying Jock, Nerd, Cheerleader and the like. Chances are you've never shot a sequence quite like that before. In this case, storyboarding each and every shot will save you a lot of headaches on the day of the shoot.

So you're sold on the idea of creating storyboards for key sequences of your project. You want them to look good, but you're not a natural artist. How can that be accomplished?

A very common practice is to hire a graphic designer to re-work your scribbles into better artwork. That's what Peter Jackson did on The Lord of the Rings. But what if you can't afford to pay an artist, and don't know any that will work on the cheap? Are you forever limited to the realm of Stick Figure Theater?

Fortunately, no. Thanks to packages like Frame Forge 3D, Storyboard Pro, Storyboard Lite and others, you can create some very professional-looking storyboards all by yourself... no artist required. These packages offer libraries of "actors," common objects and even powerful 3D design tools to create the locations you'll work with. Most importantly, these programs address the biggest limitation of any storyboard: those things just don't move.

As thrilling as it is to see a movie take shape in the visual medium of a storyboard, it still amounts to nothing more than a series of static images. Critical elements like timing for comedic or action sequences have to wait until an honest-to-goodness moving picture is available for review.

This lack of motion and energy in storyboards bothered one director so much that, as the story goes, in the mid-1970s he decided they weren't up to the task. Instead of storyboards, he had his editors cut World War II dogfight footage into key action sequences of his big science fiction film. Once it was assembled, he showed the sequence to his special effects crew, so they would have a better idea of what he was looking for from the final footage.

The technique was a resounding success. The film - a little picture called Star Wars - blew the doors off the box office, due in no small part to its abundance of dynamic and exciting special effects sequences. This dynamic storyboarding technique - dubbed "pre-visualization" - has become the norm for bigger action sequences in Hollywood. But what if you're not shooting a massive action epic? How could pre-visualization help you?

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