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A storyboard is a graphic organizer that consists of simple or displayed in sequence for the purpose of Previsualization a film, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence. The storyboarding process, in the form it is known today, was developed at Walt Disney Productions during the early 1930s, after several years of similar processes being in use at Walt Disney and other animation studios.
According to Christopher Finch in The Art of Walt Disney (1995), Disney credited animator Webb Smith with creating the idea of drawing scenes on separate sheets of paper and pinning them up on a bulletin board to tell a story in sequence, thus creating the first storyboard. According to Pete Docter and Don Peri in Directing at Disney (2024), Dick Huemer credited Ted Sears with first inventing the storyboard while he was working at Fleischer Studios, but that studio was uninterested. Sears then switched to working for Walt Disney Productions and introduced the storyboard to Walt Disney, who promptly understood its importance.
Either way, it was Walt Disney who first recognized the necessity for studios to maintain a separate "story department" with specialized storyboard artists (that is, a new occupation distinct from ), as he had realized that audiences would not watch a film unless its story gave them a reason to care about the characters. (2025). 9781461421016, Springer Science+Business Media. ISBN 9781461421016 (2025). 9780313358302, Greenwood. ISBN 9780313358302 (2025). 9780679757474, Vintage Books. ISBN 9780679757474 The second studio to switch from "story sketches" to storyboards was Walter Lantz Productions in early 1935;1936 documentary Cartoonland Mysteries by 1936 Harman-Ising and Leon Schlesinger Productions also followed suit. By 1937 or 1938, all American animation studios were using storyboards.
Gone with the Wind (1939) was one of the first live-action films to be completely storyboarded. William Cameron Menzies, the film's production designer, was hired by producer David O. Selznick to design every shot of the film.
Storyboarding became popular in live-action film production during the early 1940s and grew into a standard medium for the previsualization of films. Pace Gallery curator Annette Micheloson, writing of the exhibition Drawing into Film: Director's Drawings, considered the 1940s to 1990s to be the period in which "production design was largely characterized by the adoption of the storyboard". Storyboards are now an essential part of the creative process.
In creating a motion picture with any degree of fidelity to a screenplay, a storyboard provides a visual layout of events as they are to be seen through the camera lens. In the case of interactive media, it is the layout and sequence in which the user or viewer sees the content or information. In the storyboarding process, most technical details involved in crafting a film or interactive media project can be efficiently described either in a picture or in additional text.
During principal photography for live-action films, scenes are rarely shot in the sequence in which they occur in the script. It is also sometimes necessary to film individual shots within a scene out of order and on different days, which can be very confusing. (The reasons for this are explained at length in the production board article.) In the latter scenario, directors can use storyboards on set to quickly refresh their memory as to the desired effect when those shots are later edited together in the correct order. This is more efficient than having to reread the script for each shot (with cast and crew waiting) to refresh their memory as to how they originally visualized they would film that shot.
This allows the and film director to work out any screenplay, camera positioning, shot list, and timing issues that may exist with the current storyboard. The storyboard and soundtrack are amended if necessary, and a new animatic may be created and reviewed by the production staff until the storyboard is finalized. Editing at the animatic stage can help a production avoid wasting time and resources on the animation of scenes that would otherwise be edited out of the film at a later stage. A few minutes of screen time in traditional animation usually equates to months of work for a team of traditional animators, who must painstakingly draw and paint countless frames, meaning that all that labor (and salaries already paid) will have to be written off if the finished scene simply does not work in the film's final cut. In the context of computer animation, storyboarding helps minimize the construction of unnecessary scene components and models, just as it helps live-action filmmakers evaluate what portions of sets need not be constructed because they will never come into the frame.
Often storyboards are animated with simple zooms and pans to simulate camera movement (using non-linear editing software). These animations can be combined with available animatics, sound effects, and dialog to create a presentation of how a film could be shot and cut together. Some feature film DVD special features include production animatics, which may have or may even feature vocals from the actual cast (usually where the scene was cut after the vocal recording phase but before the animation production phase).
Animatics are also used by advertising agencies to create inexpensive test commercials. A variation, the "rip-o-matic", is made from scenes of existing movies, television programs or commercials, to simulate the look and feel of the proposed commercial. Rip, in this sense, refers to ripping-off an original work to create a new one.
The photomatic is usually a research tool, similar to an animatic, in that it represents the work to a test audience so that the commissioners of the work can gauge its effectiveness.
Originally, photographs were taken using a color negative film. A selection would be made from contact sheets and prints made. The prints would be placed on a rostrum and recorded to videotape using a standard video camera. Any moves, pans or zooms would have to be made in-camera. The captured scenes could then be edited.
Digital photography, web access to stock photography and non-linear editing programs have had a marked impact on this way of filmmaking also leading to the term 'digimatic'. Images can be shot and edited very quickly to allow important creative decisions to be made 'live'. Photo composite animations can build intricate scenes that would normally be beyond many test film budgets.
Photomatix was also the trademarked name of many of the booths found in public places which took photographs by coin operation. The Photomatic brand of the booths was manufactured by the International Mutoscope Reel Company of New York City. Earlier versions took only one photo per coin, and later versions of the booths took a series of photos. Many of the booths would produce a strip of four photos in exchange for a coin (or coins).
In manga, the word is used for rough manga storyboards.
Some consulting firms teach the technique to their staff to use during the development of client presentations, frequently employing the "brown paper technique" of taping presentation slides (in sequential versions as changes are made) to a large piece of kraft paper which can be rolled up for easy transport. The initial storyboard may be as simple as slide titles on Post-It notes, which are then replaced with draft presentation slides as they are created.
Storyboards also exist in accounting in the ABC System activity-based costing (ABC) to develop a detailed process flowchart which visually shows all activities and the relationships among activities. They are used in this way to measure the cost of resources consumed, identify and eliminate non-value-added costs, determine the efficiency and effectiveness of all major activities, and identify and evaluate new activities that can improve future performance.
A "quality storyboard" is a tool to help facilitate the introduction of a quality improvement process into an organization.
"Design comics" are a type of storyboard used to include a customer or other characters into a narrative. Design comics are most often used in designing websites or illustrating product-use scenarios during design. Design comics were popularized by Kevin Cheng and Jane Jao in 2006. 2006 Information Architecture Summit wrapup, boxesandarrows.com, 19 April 2006
An example is the Storyboards system for designing GUI apps for iOS and macOS. Another example is Boords, an online storyboarding software used for planning video projects.
Another benefit of storyboarding is that the production can plan the movie in advance. In this step, things like the type of camera shot, angle, and blocking of characters are decided.
The process of visual thinking and planning allows a group of people to brainstorm together, placing their ideas on storyboards and then arranging the storyboards on the wall. This fosters more ideas and generates consensus inside the group. Modern digital storyboard tools also streamline this process by allowing teams to collaborate remotely, automatically organize panels, and even generate visuals using AI.
If drawing by hand, the first step is to create or download a storyboard template. These look much like a blank comic strip, with space for comments and dialogue. Then sketch a "thumbnail" storyboard. Some directors sketch thumbnails directly in the script margins. These storyboards get their name because they are rough sketches not bigger than a thumbnail. For some motion pictures, thumbnail storyboards are sufficient.
However, some filmmakers rely heavily on the storyboarding process. If a director or producer wishes, more detailed and elaborate storyboard images are created. These can be created by professional storyboard artists by hand on paper or digitally by using 2D storyboarding programs. Some software applications even supply a stable of storyboard-specific images making it possible to quickly create shots that express the director's intent for the story. These boards tend to contain more detailed information than thumbnail storyboards and convey more of the mood for the scene. These are then presented to the project's cinematographer who achieves the director's vision.
Finally, if needed, 3D storyboards are created (called 'technical previsualization'). The advantage of 3D storyboards is they show exactly what the film camera will see using the lenses the film camera will use. The disadvantage of 3D is the amount of time it takes to build and construct the shots. 3D storyboards can be constructed using 3D animation programs or digital puppets within 3D programs. Some programs have a collection of low-resolution 3D figures which can aid in the process. Some 3D applications allow cinematographers to create "technical" storyboards which are optically-correct shots and frames.
While technical storyboards can be helpful, optically-correct storyboards may limit the director's creativity. In classic motion pictures such as Orson Welles' Citizen Kane and Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest, the director created storyboards that were initially thought by cinematographers to be impossible to film. Such innovative and dramatic shots had "impossible" depth of field and angles where there was "no room for the camera" – at least not until creative solutions were found to achieve the ground-breaking shots that the director had envisioned.
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