The Storyboard (page 2)

Make 'Em Move

You can make storyboards do lots of things, but if the storyboard consists of pictures pasted to a board, there's one thing it won't do...move. Using a caption, you can tell the person looking at the board that the camera is panning or dollying, but you are once again expecting the viewer to be able to "see" things the same way you do. There are other methods.

"A series of pictures will do that," says Eagle, "because it looks like some frames that have been pulled out of an animation. So there would be implied movement from picture to picture. If it's one picture and I want to say 'the logo flies down here' I would put a couple of trails to imply movement, even though they wouldn't show up in the actual piece." To add movement to a storyboard, Napoleon Videographics takes the pictures and transfers them to videotape. Then they use a process called Animatics which uses "loose pieces" to convey movement. For example, say there was a cartoon man in one of the storyboard's scenes and this man needed to wave at the camera. The cartoon man's arm would be a loose piece-a graphic arm not attached to the picture of the man. Then when you shoot the man, you could move the loose arm back and forth as if he were waving.

Two other examples:

1) A character's entire body, which you move toward the camera, and

2) Several different versions of a character's head, with each head wearing a different expression.

"Advertising agencies use Animatics a lot with testing," Carter says, referring to test marketing where groups view rough animated commercials to see how the audiences will react.

"They use Animatics in these focus groups because it's a lot less expensive this way. If an agency has ten ideas, it's a lot more cost effective to do it in Animatic form and to test it in the focus groups around the United States then to make ten finished commercials. Then after testing they look at the results, and the storyboard with the highest scores becomes a real spot."

The Ever-Changing Storyboard

In the professional world, storyboards are just a part of the process-not an end in themselves. That's why artists aren't upset when clients ask for changes.

"They're always making changes," says Eagle. "Generally, it's understood that the storyboard is not a device for nailing down every last detail. Rather, it's a generalized look and we let them know that it's just an approximation of what they'll be getting on the 3-D system. If they come in and say, 'The storyboard is fine but the fifth or sixth picture isn't right' it's no problem, we'll do it over. Everything's still in the system. We call adjust them or even redo them from scratch.

"Storyboards are designed to be rough approximations of what will be produced. Some are real rough and some are pretty finished, but generally it's wise to look at them as a guide to what you're going to see. That's the point of the storyboard. Whether you're selling the job initially or you've got the job already, you're just trying to establish what exactly is going to happen. It's still only the initial rough step."

If you think all this preparation seems unnecessary, think again.

"There are a lot of people who don't think visually," says Eagle. "Even between artists, words don't really convey pictures. Two artists can sit there, and one artist can describe something and can write it down and get as verbal as you want with it, and the other will be listening and getting a visual image in his head, and it won't be the same image. It will be real different.

The only way to find out is for one artist to make some kind of rough work, a quick sketch, and show the second artist. It's not always sufficient to describe something in words. You really need to look at a picture. Then you can say, 'this color needs to be that color or this needs to be bigger over here.' Those are the kind of details no amount of words can convey."

Software to the Rescue

If you have an irrational fear of drawing (a phobia traced to that unfortunate incident in your third grade art class), there's still hope. There are a couple of software packages available for the Macintosh that can get you started on the road to storyboard happiness.

The first is the Storyboarder from American Intelliware. At just under $500, it boasts some professional power. Through a series of menus, you can customize your storyboard layout for a variety of formats.

You can add SMPTE time code (where each frame of video has its own unique ID number, such as 11:22:33:01), the duration times for each picture in your storyboard and even transitional effects between pictures like wipes or dissolves. If you work in other media, Storyboarder lets you set the aspect ratio to match those of motion pictures or HDTV.

You'll find an abundance of subjects for your pictures in the program's library. Or, if you recover from that art phobia, you can produce images using MacPaint. You can also import pictures by digitizing items from videotape or by scanning flat artwork.

Another program for storyboarding is the $430 Showscape from Lake Compuframes. Available for either Macintosh or IBM platforms, it integrates hand-drawn or scanned images into WordPerfect.

Any paint package can function as a basic storyboard generator. Simply make a standard template, then utilize your software's paint tools to flesh out your brilliant vision.

Electronic Arts' Deluxe Paint TV for the Amiga is a good storyboarding solution, and even offers 2D and simulated 3D animation.

It's a Wrap

Using a storyboard will give you communication powers you cannot acquire any other way.

Your clients will understand your bizarre concepts immediately, showering you with money to carry them out. Your camera operator will pick up on your subtle imagery, helping you bring forth hidden meanings and subtexts in your compositions even you didn't know were there.

And your actors will have a better than fifty-fifty chance of facing in the right direction during their scenes.

Obviously, storyboards can be very important to a video production. But what's more important is that I never used the phrase, "a storyboard is worth a thousand words" in this article.

At least, not until now.