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Storyboarding

What the storyboard is useful for

Types of storyboards

Conceptual storyboard

Animatic storyboard

TV storyboard

Animatic storyboard

The title of this storyboard should give it away - an animatic storyboard contains animation in it! They are also known as previsualisations. They are a more advanced version of a normal storyboard - they take the storyboard stills and bring them to life through animation and sound.

Animatics are not full-motion animations. Often large chunks of the picture that don’t really matter aren’t animated properly, or even animated at all. But the crucial parts of the image are animated. For instance, for planning a scene where a missile chases after a fighter jet, a previsualisation might show the plane and missile moving against a static background. In the final movie, the background itself would be changing, as well as the position of the camera tracking the jet’s and missile’s path through the air.

Animatics can be very mixed-up in terms of their content. One part of an animatic might be entirely made up of a cartoon depiction of a scene. Another part might use a film shot of real actors going through swordfight actions, but without any background props. Still images of certain objects may be animated simply by moving that image around in a scene, but without properly animating the object itself.

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