Larry Latham.

Just about everybody thinks they can do storyboards. I once had a secretary tell me that she, with no drawing or film experience, could do that!

As a producer and director with more than two decades of experience [hundreds of boards to his credit], I can tell you that storyboarding requires a unique set of skills and talent.

Board people gained more respect over the last five or 10 years, mostly from the increased awareness given to the use of storyboards in live action. But there are some big differences between the two mediums, the most obvious being that live action (unless it is heavily special effects laden) can be made without boards, whereas boards are absolutely essential to animation. Everyone knows this, yet training for storyboards is still hard to come by. I recently gave thought to the specialized knowledge board artists need to do their jobs. Here is what I think every good board artist needs to know.

Strong composition combined with simple animation can be more effective than lots of pencil mileage. From Lovecraft is Missing © 2004 Larry Latham.

Drawing
I put this first because it's the most obvious, but it is a long way from the most important, a fact many terrific draftsmen fail to grasp. I have held many beautifully rendered boards in my hand that were, from a production standpoint, totally unusable, both dramatically and mechanically. And I have seen, in moments of deadline panic, fantastic, expressive, workable boards done with stick figures. As in animation, gesture and expression are far more important than beautiful technique. Board artists in television deal with short deadlines. Drawing quickly and efficiently are pluses, but none of it matters if the artist can't stage or edit or tell a story. A well-staged board with so-so drawing can still work. Terrific animation on a well-drawn but badly staged board is a waste of time and money.

The best way to improve your drawing is to draw... a lot! That's something you will be doing already if you are currently doing boards. Make that time spent at the drawing table do double duty, and use it to constantly improve your draftsmanship.

Staging
If I had to pick the most important element of boarding, this would be it. Gags fail and dramas crumble because of inept staging. This is where the board person becomes the equivalent of a live-action or theatrical director. It involves the meaningful arrangement of people and objects in space, and their movement through that space in a clear manner that is always in the service of the story, as well as the judicious use of resources. There's the old joke about the writer talking to the board artist, saying, “and when I say a thousand screaming Bedouins come riding up over the sand dunes, I mean three!”

Of course, computers have made scenes like this not only possible but commonplace in features, but in television, the writer still generally means three. But you may use clever staging and editing to give the impression of a thousand. (I am reminded of the Confederate general that kept marching his limited troops around in a circle so that they would pass the clearing that was visible to his Union counterpart in an uninterrupted line. This actually worked and the Union general withdrew. That Confederate general might have had a career in theater if he had pursued it.)