Storyboarding is an oft-forgotten module of pre-production that many businesses partially explore or completely disregard. After all, it’s all about the ends and not the means, right? You might be thinking:
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Why put another step in the process? I’m busy enough as is. Let me just film something.
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Why spend more time, money, and effort for some “cartoons” on a poster board?
We understand your concerns, especially those of you hustling as solopreneurs and very small businesses with even tinier video marketing budgets. Consider storyboards to be investments in your production process. Yes, they require time and effort to create. However, the benefits impact your content operations in the long run as you integrate video marketing into your capabilities.
Understanding Your Goal
Even the best script, complete with the best imagery, the best descriptions, the best dialogue, and the best pacing, may lose something in translation. It is easy for the author to picture the destination. However, communicating that ideal with a production team is another story.
Storyboarding brings life to your words. You are taking your first palpable steps towards crafting your video by matching pictures to text. They might not be perfect and they might be re-worked several times but you are building the production infrastructure while clarifying important details.
Navigating Flow / Rhythm
Storyboarding pays off long-term; you will gain a greater understanding of storytelling and a greater dexterity in presenting different narrative styles. Unfortunately, this breakthrough may take a while to develop.
Storyboarding lays out every scene, sequence, and section of your work in front of you. Here, you will be able to visualize beats, tonal shifts, and the general flow of a project. Comprehensive diagramming reveals clunky transitions, awkward mismatches, and other incongruities while giving you a general sense of timing and pace.
With repeat exposure and critical reflection, you will soon anticipate audience reactions and expectations to the setups and payoffs you have orchestrated. Think back to all the incredible thrillers you have seen. The author gives you just enough rope to hold on while remaining ahead of the curve.
Knowing your audiences – their problems, paths, expectations, and reactions – allows you to create highly-customized content that genuinely delights them while moving them further along the conversion cycle.
Working Efficiently
Storyboards provide direction for the production team. Team members understand which shots to setup and what resources (e.g. props, extras, locations) are necessary to achieve the desired outcome. Here, you are able to avoid a meltdown by fully utilizing the resources available to you in meaningful ways.
There is a place and time for “winging it” or improvising. However, you risk spending tons of time, effort, and money when determining the look and feel of your video as you’re filming it. Your final product may not align with your vision when it is being determined on the fly.
Storyboards streamline your workflow. As you storyboard more and more, you’re able to forecast the scope of each video project based on the intended styles and setups. Projecting scope directly impacts your budget and timelines allowing you to ascertain each video’s footprint in your marketing strategy.
Laying everything out sequentially is also a godsend to your editing team. Nothing is more frustrating than trying your best to thread together a pile of mismatched shots, angles, and clips that lack any rhyme or reason.
Where Do I Look?
Well, Mr. Fancy Pants storyboard guy, what do I do if I don’t have a talented illustrator in my organization?
Use your surprisingly versatile smart phone (or any type of camera) to approximate the experience. You might not get every angle you would like but at least you are planning for checkpoints. Take lots of photos and arrange them in a slideshow, a Pinterest album, or another mosaic/collage program as a placeholder.
Another option may be utilizing existing material to cobble together a look. One client – excited but unsure of how to proceed – would email us various clips and YouTube videos he had found to be helpful references. The footage was taken from music videos, memorable movie scenes, you name it. Each video would be queued to the correct timestamp that summarized the aesthetic design and choreography he envisioned for corresponding scenes in his organization’s next work.
If you lack the internal resources or time, consider hiring a dedicated designer or outsourcing to a freelancer or production company. There are several industry-related sites to find freelancers or companies. Check LinkedIn for individuals, companies, or groups containing illustrators. Many of these artists will have expansive portfolios featuring B2B and B2C storyboarding samples.
On the other hand, you might think to forego storyboarding small, quick items (e.g. Vine) while springing for commissioned work on a more complex scenario. You may not have bountiful budgets but you are willing to commit cash when the situation calls.
Regardless of who you hire, consider storyboarding to be a wise investment that ultimately saves time, anguish, and money as you achieve greater fluency in video production.