If you don’t have the artistic capabilities to draw a “Disney storyboard”, don’t despair. Technology has evolved to a point in which everyone can do something creative and qualitative for his /her activity, without fancy tools or “God-given” talents.

Therefore, smart people with big hearts have decided to ease others’ work, and have created tools for video-making amateurs. Don’t get us wrong, no one says amateurs can’t become geniuses along the way. But that’s another story. Meanwhile, let’s have a look over these amazingly helpful tools and methods to make a storyboard:

Sticky Notes

This is a fun and simple method to create a storyboard. Who doesn’t like completing puzzles? If you are serious about your activity and you are about to make a video in order to promote it, you will not be able to stop thinking about it all day long. Obsessing about it will pop great ideas into your head. Make sure you write these ideas on a sticky note, take pictures of what inspires you in your everyday life, write conversations that are interesting and relevant for what you are about to create.

Gather all these materials and put them on your working table or, if you are more tech-savvy, on a computer software that functions just like a working table (there are many out there, on the internet, available even for iPhones and Androids). Once you have gathered the materials you need in one place, the fun can start. Just start putting pieces together and work this puzzle up! The interesting part in this process is that you are not in any way constrained to use all the pieces. You can eliminate the ones you don’t find relevant, adjust materials so they fit in more interestingly, and also come up with new ideas along the way.

Animated storyboards

This is a more complicated process. It involves a team of people doing the same thing, sharing the ideas on the same platform, creating sketches to begin with. This means some talented people are involved in drawing the scenes for the video that is about to get done. The next step in this process is taking these sketches and digitizing them into a slide show that producers will have to agree upon. Animation requires an entire team of professionals working together either on, or offline, at the same storyboard.

Digital Storyboards

As the name says it, digital storyboards are all about computer software. This means you won’t have to do any on-paper writing or sketching. You will make a storyboard using software to mount your ideas and share them with your colleagues. This will enable you and your team to make instant fixes along the way, which in turn will permit the project to be completed much faster.

Some examples of storyboarding software :

http://beta.toonboom.com/professionals/storyboard-pro

http://www.powerproduction.com/storyboard-quick-software.html

http://www.storyboardthat.com/

There are a lot of options for storyboarding on ipads or mobile phones as well. The choice is yours.

Do keep in mind…

A storyboard for a video  can’t be an accumulation of visuals, images or slogans that have nothing in common. The storyboard is more like a document: it features the vision and the main ideas that should be clearly understood by all parties involved.

Picture via Duarte