Read about Alfred Hitchcock and you’ll know that he was famous for extensive storyboarding that went down to the finest detail of production. Precisely crafting the scenes in the head, he understood the need to understand the language of storyboarding, a means that translates the rich language of cinema into figures.

Let’s understand this from an animation perspective – post agreeing on the story, the animation team gathers in a room and takes blank pieces of A-4 paper, where they write a short 10-word description of a scene on top of the page and produce a rough 15sec sketch to outline the animation sequence that could go in the movie.

Shortly speaking, they produce nearly 30 to 120 A4 pages, stick them on the wall so that everyone follows the story.

What’s the result? The animation team debates the story and their messaging without any expensive animation work, which changes as the story alters. 

Understanding storyboards

Storyboards envision a video in advance – a variety of range from crude sketches to nearly comic book-level detailing, all compared to the corresponding clips from the finished production.

Telling a story means to build credibility for yourself and the ideas. Planning a video or a sequence doesn’t come second nature to most people. Serious preparations are needed. Be it a shoot or a sequence, it requires serious visual effects work. Even when a camera should make the needed move to advance the actions, storyboards remain indispensable.

Benefits in storyboarding

Light-hearted storyboards ‘still’ the key health and safety messages. To deliver effective health and safety should be pondered over and with animation, one can work with the brand colour palette and unique creative ideas can bring the characters, environments and situations to life in such a way that the learner or the one who visualizes enjoys and retains far longer.

All storyboards contain three common elements, that is:

• a specific scenario,
• visuals,
• and explanatory captions.

When it comes to presenting ideas, storyboard matters because useful insights mean very little unless they can be woven into a compelling story. Critical insights fail to gain the required traction, when they aren’t presented in the story format.

Some important questions that pose a discussion when a storyboard is developed are –

• Will the concept work? Aids the client validate whether the concept is working or not, so that one can determine the direction the course can take.
• Can the action thrive? Notes remain present to the developers such as what media should be used, what elements get effectively synced with the narratives. Serves as a blueprint for the one who has envisioned the whole module screen-by-screen
• Error identification at an early stage Saves time, effort and required costs that is capable to disrupt the entire production phase

Whether the motto remains creating a storyboard for animation or eLearning, one cannot deny the fact that it sets up to create the required content every single time. How? 

It eliminates the tendency to jump straight into creating a course – in fact, focusses on investing time in planning the overall structure to deliver efficient, effective learning messages. 

The takeaway

Firstly, it will enable you to make changes in the direction to be made with little to no cost. Lose nothing by scrapping an asset at the storyboard stage, as the investment in the creation has not yet been made.

Secondly, it’s a tool helpful to map out how much each element costs and prevents from going over budget. One should be able to –

• Define overall structure before commencing
• Keen focus on learning objectives
• Track the required assets

So, it helps you not make gross mistakes, which will eventually help you save money. You can analyse the course of events, modify and improve the projects, and so on.