Story Boreds

See what we’ve done there…

But the truth is, we find storyboards are often misunderstood.

In theory, their purpose is to plot out every shot for the film – or at least key sequences. For large crews they help everyone understand exactly what shot is to be achieved and also how many shots are planned on any particular day.

In the pre-production phase though it’s often not necessary to literally board every shot.

In most cases we use them to give the client or even our team a sense of how the film will flow and to give an overview of the story structure and maybe a sense of how some more specific shots will work… but that’s it.

And for that reason they can often be just sketches – sometimes even stick men. Anything else is frankly just show, and an unnecessary expense.

The last thing we want to do is give our clients dozens and dozens of full coloured, detailed boards when all we need to know is how the story works. It sort of feels like you’re selling the sizzle because you know the steak might not be what it should be.

It’s a waste of their money and frankly thumbing through every single shot can just get… boring, which ultimately detracts from the one thing those storyboards should be doing – giving us an overview of our film.