High School & College TV: Teaching Storyboarding DVby Connie FillippelliPublished on Dec 29, 2002 12:00 AM 
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It’s two days after Christmas, I’m sitting in my green leather chair watching the sun create patterns on my wall in the living room, MTV’s playing in the back ground. Bocelli, my parakeet, is unusually silent. To my left is a cache of video CD’s from my students I will return when school starts next year. There’s a tripod to my right with my Alaris webcam attached. A blue canvas bag stuffed with my Titanium G4, cell phone, Palm Pilot and my VCD’s sit at my feet. Across the room, a bag on wheels contains my Club Mac external hard drive, Oxygen 8 Midi Keyboard Controller, Canon ZR 40 Camcorder, microphone, Midiman sound card, and more CD’s. I am a portable video studio.
Yesterday, I spent the day with my filmmaker friends Zeke Gonzalez & new staff writer Vinson Watson discussing film, camera techniques and storyboarding. What better column to be my first then to write about Storyboarding.
Who am I? Connie Fillippelli, college instructor in the Chicago area, writer, digital video filmmaker and multimedia artist. Trained in classical fine art by spending a year in Italy studying the MASTERS. Did a 91/2 year gig as a medical illustrator, (producing a multimedia presentation about that) photographer and medical educational video editor. I left the med profession to dabble in television and film. Returned to school to get a BA and MFA from Columbia College in Writing. Whew! That’s who I am, now, what am I doing here? I hope to share some of my knowledge in this column and learn something from you in the process.
Let’s get started. I’m a DIF (Digital Independent Filmmaker). If you are reading this column and have a story to tell with DV you’re a DIF. Who needs storyboards? Everyone who deals with visuals and visuals/sound needs to storyboard. Storyboards are to a DIF as blueprints are to the carpenter. Could you build a house without blue prints? Of course not. Storyboards allow us to sketch our ideas, messages and style in a cohesive, organized, visual arrangement.
Storyboards had been a problem in my classroom. Mostly, because my students where afraid their sketches were not good enough and they would be embarrassed. Not until I showed my stick finger storyboards and convinced them that the sketch is merely a representation and not a full rendered drawing did my students come down.
Next challenge- Paper or Digital Storyboard:
Pages torn from loose leaf folders and excuses where what I usually received. So, to give the students more structure in storyboarding I copied pages that I had created in QuarkXPress, MS Word and handed them out to the students. This created more work because the constant need for the templates. Then, I copied storyboard panels I had puchased in the art supply store and even used Blue Line Art Products’ comic book panels. Same problem. It was not until I found Gardner’s storyboard Sketchbook and redesigned the storyboard part of my course that the problem disappeared.
In the first few pages of the book there are samples of storyboards, production and camera angle terminology. This is great reference for students taking my video course which runs 10 weeks and covers editing with Adobe Premiere, compositing with After Effects, lighting, sound, basic camera techniques, motion graphics, scriptwriting and viewing dozens of short films. In the ten week period students produce about nine QuickTime movies using stills, video clips, music, sound effects, and original footage from their own video cameras. The school has a Canon XL, lights, JVC Capture stations and a green screen they can also use to produce their videos. Yes, I am a slave driver. The work is remarkably good for these new editors. The volume of work necessitates time management skills. Only through storyboarding can all this work be accomplished.
Storyboarding: the process:
If you are making your own storyboard panels keep your boxes at a 3-4 aspect ratio. If you have Photoshop go to make a border lined box, go to Image>Image Size make sure you change the image size to pixels and type in 640 x480. Then paste this image in your favorite layout program. Not more than 4 panels per page. Make sure you create a few lines for text, panel numbers, and page numbers. Without page numbers you will be sorry. Drop 20 pages of storyboards and try to match them up. You can also use 11 x 17 each paper to design your panels if you need more work room. I like using Blue Line Comic Book Panels for my last project because they provided me 6 lines for my narration track and three large panels.
Other methods you can use are large index cards. Like to purchase both the white and color index cards. I can separate my scenes into different colors making it very easy to find the right place. I punch a hole in the upper left corner of each card and attach a key ring. This way everything is together and nothing gets lost. You can buy a bulletin board and push pins to set up your storyboard via Hollywood style. If you’re rolling in cash buy a magnetic board and magnets.
But I can Do It In My Head:
A storyboard gives direction to the crew on what the director needs for everyone to do to get the story told. It is key for the cameraperson. And if you are like me a crew of one, writing your vision down will make the process much easier. I have seen students struggle to create a movie without a storyboard. That is why I require students to have all their projects signed by me before starting the project.
One of the policies at my school is not to accept projects without thumbnails or storyboards. Since I have been using Gardner’s Storyboard sketchbook and our graphic design departmental policy I have seen more successful projects. In addition, the storyboards are longer and more detailed. Students ask, how long should storyboards be. I tell them as long as it takes to tell a story. Some students may hand in a few storyboard panels. After I give them several suggests on how they might improve their work, they take back their panels and keep working. I try to always give them a positive way of looking at a project even if I reject the storyboards.
Images and text:
You can sketch in a book, use presentation software to organize images and text ala Powerpoint, Photoshop, QuarkXpress, Flash, Director or your editing software. If you are using editing software you can organize your digital images or video in the program. I use Adobe Premiere storyboarding. Go to File>New>Storyboard. Drag your clips from the bin to the Storyboard window. You can rearrange at will how you sequence your clips.
Then click on the button at the bottom right of the window that says Automate to Timeline when you rollover it. Click on this and you will see your video/still clips automatically go to the timeline. Between each clip is a cross dissolve transition. If you still resist drawing don’t worry help is out there. There is storyboard software out there to come to the rescue some pricey, others free. Boardmaster, Shotmaster. StoryboardQuick v.4, Springboard (free), Atomic Storyboard (free). Most programs run on both Windows and Mac format.
Finally, I do quite a bit of test shots with my Canon ZR 40. I create my storyboards in Premiere and print out the results. The digital storyboard programs can do the same thing but what they have are libraries of images to pull into the program. So you can quickly put something together for yourself or a client without using a pen, camera or scanner. I’ll be reviewing these later. Remember, a storyboard is never complete. It is an ongoing process until the production is finished.
Sun is going down. Bocelli’s tweeting wildly. I’m off to visit with a friend and hear the latest about the company Christmas party where everybody got sick on buffalo meat. I think there’s a story there. I’m taking my ZR 40 a.k.a. Sneakycam. Ciao, Ciao.
Window INSERT
Storyboard basic production directions
Establishing Shot or Master Shot – the first shot you see on the screen like an aerial city
shot or outside of the house
LS=long shot takes in the whole scene
MS=medium shot - framing a person from the waist up in the scene.
CU=close up -this is framing from the top of the shoulders to top of the head
ECU=extreme close up –your eye, hand, gears in a machine
SFX=sound effects