Storyboards – Dazzle with your creativity

Are you having trouble clinching deals? Are your students at class not taking your subject seriously? Do you have an upcoming presentation at college and absolutely need to impress the visiting company personnel to get that dream job of yours? The solution to all these problems are one and it is really simple. Story boards. All you need is a little colour, a board and a story to display. And voila! You’ve got yourself a really interesting method to perk up the sleeping audience, to make them see and not just look. To achieve something new, you have got to do something new. Be brave and take the first step towards taking a risk, it just might turn out to be your first step towards success.

Storyboards are pictorial representations of a sequence of events that form a story-line. The scenes are arranged in a logical way to make sense and the audience get a more comprehensive and efficient understanding of the subject under discussion. Although it is common knowledge that the concept of story boards started in the 1930s by Walt Disney Studios to visualise their cartoons and storylines easily. But their usefulness has made a mark in all forms of fields that require a person presenting ideas in front of a host of others. Storyboard artist are the real talent behind the success of this novel method. If it were not for their talent putting perfection and creativity into boards, this field would have met extinction.

Uses

Story boards have made their presence felt in the entertainment industry, newsrooms, and all kinds of media houses that produce films, TV series, cartoons, newspaper illustrations, comic books, animated flicks, ad films etc. but this is the usual application, today offices, classrooms, boardrooms, college fairs, social acts, theatre and drama groups and the list goes on, all have felt the need to use storyboards. The methodology is tested and proven over time and is nowadays used as a tool to make presentations interesting and add a little panache to them.

Dos and Don’ts

If you are in the need of story boards then you can easily find a service which will easily cater to your needs but before that you need to know how to find the correct service provider for this. Once you have shortlisted a couple of firms, check their experience in the field, costing, kind of clientele they have served in the past etc. Other important things to look out for is communication between you and the firm, creative taste of the artist storyboard is created by and whether it suits your needs. You must keep in mind that you need to communicate your expectations and ideas very clearly to the storyboard artist so as to get them on the board exactly as you imagine.

The great advancements in technology has made it possible to design these art boards even with the help of softwares that have easy user interfaces and can use your ideas to turn them into an interesting storyboard in a jiffy!

Future prospects as a storyboard artist

If you are confused about whether to take up storyboard designing as a profession or not then you are not alone. A large number of artists who love to make storyboards often get through this dilemma. The reason why individuals fear to take up this as their career is that it is an offbeat career option. However, after knowing about the future prospects of this profession all your confusions would be wiped out from your mind. If you are good at artistic skills or have an innovative mind but never heard of the term ‘storyboard’ then also you can go through this write up, just in case you might think that the profession will be a suitable one for you.

What is a storyboard?

So, if you are not yet aware about what a storyboard is then this paragraph goes for you. A storyboard is a kind of graphic organizer in which images or illustrations are shown sequentially for pre-visualization of a motion graphic, animation, motion picture or interactive media sequence. Its origin can be traced back to 1930s when Walt Disney Studio used it for the first time. Thereafter, its usage became popular in their as well as many other studios.

Who are the storyboard artists?

Storyboard artists are the ones who design the storyboards. They generally work as assistants of directors. Art directors appoint them for specific reasons. The job done by storyboard artists is a highly responsible one. For submission of their projects they have strict deadlines which they need to meet.Artist storyboard designers generally have to handle a project in a single handed fashion and therefore, they need to have both accuracy and speed. However, they are paid quite handsomely and that is what makes the work challenging and at the same time rewarding.

What do storyboard artists work with?

A storyboard designer needs to have a highly imaginative mind. They need to think of themes or plots depending upon the topic given to them and put them on a piece of paper. They need to draw graphics and therefore, drawing should be one of the mandatory skills of any storyboard artist. The techniques that were previously used by the storyboard designers were pencil sketching and weapon sketching. However, with advent of computers software for storyboard designing is being used. Popular software used by the storyboard artists includes flash participators and Adobe Photoshop.

Career prospects with storyboard designing

This is one of the fastest growing professions and large numbers of students are pursuing story board creation courses after their high school education. Some of the sectors where there is a high demand for storyboard artists are film industry, advertising industry, television and print media, animation industry, etc. In the film industry they work as assistants to directors and help them by splitting up the entire script of the movie into modules or slots. This almost reduces the work of directors by 50%. Similarly, in advertising and media the need for storyboard designers is huge. More new avenues are going to be opened for storyboard designers.