How to Storyboard a Movie

Video Transcript

"Ok. Storyboarding is a big thing you associate with features or shorts, especially if you have a lot of special effects or that type of thing, or like an action sequence. It helps to kind of plan it out. Storyboard is basically like a blueprint on how you're going to do something. Some people need the storyboard. They have it all in their mind. They write the storyboard down, and they follow it exactly when they're doing the movie. But with low-budget production, you got to have a lot of flexibility because, let's say your location falls through at the last minute, or an actor gets sick, or... One time I was videotaping something in a feature, and an actress was supposed to have more action scenes, and a lot of running around and a lot of physical things she was supposed to do. But, unfortunately, that-the night before, she pulled out her back, and so she was like stiff, and she really couldn't move at all. But I still had to shoot within a certain amount of days because that's only when she was available. And if I didn't get it, she wouldn't be able to do it. So, I kind of threw away my storyboards and just kind of improvised and changed the script around a little bit. So, it just kind of depends how flexible you are, if you really need that storyboard, that blueprint. For documentaries, for example, you generally have no storyboard. I mean, if anything, any structure you have would be a script or just all those questions you want answered in the documentaries. So, a storyboard isn't necessary. It just kind of depends on what type of filmmaker you are."