How about exploring a new place without having a map in hand?  This is similar to start your movie without a storyboard. Be it short-films, feature films or animation movies, storyboarding is very important. It is the perfect showcase of your pre-plan that can guide you throughout the movie development and ensure smooth and perfect execution as conceived. It is the tool that can drive you and your team towards one single goal, and save money and time.

As storyboarding is the most important step towards best movie-making, it has to be designed right for assured quality product. Here we present you with simple tips and techniques to get your storyboard right.

• Create a storyboard template or use a standard one that gives you way to put down the scene sketch, camera angles and movements, the type of transition between each shot and other details that would be referred in the production stage.
• Avoid flat images without a 3D perspective.
• Give a sense of space and position of characters in a scene by putting down grids.
• Give the sense of depth by penning down the foreground, background and even far background elements in a scene. You should also offset the background to add depth.
• When you have multiple characters, name them.
• Do not crowd every part of a frame, just to fill it. Give respect to empty space.
• Clearly mention the angles to show the physical characteristics and behaviour of characters.
• Show the motivation for cuts through written sound effects, heads turning, movements, etc.
• Define character actions, including where they see.
• Have over-the-shoulder shots to give a sense of intimacy or hostility.
• Keep the storyboard simple with stick figures and simple sketch of background elements. Remember that you need not sketch all the elements of the scene. Crucial ones would do.
• If you are not comfortable at manual sketching, you may get the help of digital medium.
• You may add the dialogue of each scene, for better understanding.
• You can create each frame of your storyboard in separate cards, so that it will be easy to circulate among the team members. In this case, remember to number the cards.

Courtesy: https://www.premiumbeat.com/