From the General to the Specific
When you sit down to begin storyboarding your film, start with very broad strokes and work on the forest before focusing on each tree. See if you can fit most, if not all, of your story onto a single piece of paper filled with very small, loose, rough thumbnails, each one clearly representing the main action of each plot point (see Figure 15).

Consider each story action in your written script. Then close your eyes and try to imagine the clearest and most appropriate way of presenting that action visually. Whose point of view will best deliver the message of the given scene? Should the entire action take place within the space of one continuous point of view, or should it cut to different camera angles as the action continues? If your protagonist is scolding his dog, should you look over the owner’s shoulder to see the dog’s sullen expression and tucked-in tail, or would it be better to look up from the dog’s point of view to see the owner’s angry face? Or maybe you should cut back and forth between the two perspectives. If an action occurs where clumsy Clarence falls out of his bed in the middle of the night, you might:

[Figure 15] Your first thumbnail pass should be fast and loose.

• Stage a fairly wide point of view where the viewer can see the entire motion of Clarence’s fall from a single perspective.

• Zoom in a bit closer on Clarence and then track him or tilt down as he falls.

• Center on Clarence and let him fall out of frame. Then cut or pan down to see his inadvertent destination.

• Look up from his future destination and let him fall onto the camera lens.

Work with simple shapes and stick figures and don’t worry too much about cinematic staging issues just yet. The idea here is to see your entire story as a whole before you focus on the details of any one particular scene or action. Work fast and loose. Cross out, erase and redraw as much as needed. You might even find it advantageous to start over from the beginning with a fresh piece of paper a few times. Don’t feel you have to get it right the first time; just try to get an overall feel for the flow of your entire storyline in visual terms. And make sure that no matter how rough your sketches are, they are clear enough to effectively describe the corresponding action that is taking place. Explore, have fun and revisit the ever-popular “why” technique of editing. Apply this questioning word to each story point, making sure that its existence is absolutely necessary for your efficient and economic narrative flow.

Once you can see the flow of your story as a whole, start focusing on the individual actions of your narrative with an eye toward cinematic staging. Start thinking about the best way to present each story action and draw as many rough images as it takes to describe them effectively. Often a single panel will suffice, but a particularly complex conversation, fight scene, journey or chase might require quite a few. Use the minimum number of drawings to describe the action sufficiently. Stay fairly loose, and work on several panels on a single page. Review these images objectively, asking yourself whether each drawing or series represents the most effective and dramatic way of expressing the action of the story beat at hand.

Once you’re happy with the overall flow of each action in your story, begin refining your boards and focusing a bit more attention on your ideas regarding cinematic specifics, such as composition, object and character placement, point of view and camera movement.