Storyboard Drawing and Visualization for Film, Animation, and Interactive Media

This course focuses on the art of storyboard construction as the pre-production stage for graphics, film/video, and animation. Students will be introduced to storyboard strategies, exploring visual concepts such as shot types, continuity, pacing, transitions, and sequencing into visual communication. Both classical and experimental techniques for creating storyboards will be covered, with emphasis placed on production of storyboard drawings—both by hand and digitally—to negotiate sequential image development and establish shot-by-shot progression, staging, frame composition, editing, and continuity in film and other media. Instruction will concentrate primarily on drawing from thumbnail sketches through final presentation storyboards and animatics. The final project for this class will be the production by each student of a full presentation storyboard and a low-res animatic in a combined visual, audio, and text presentation format. Knowledge of storyboards and animatics from this class can be used for idea development and presentation of your project to collaborators, pitching projects, professional agencies, and, most importantly for you, the maker. Storyboard Pro®, Photoshop® and Final Cut Pro X® software will be taught and used throughout this course. Other software, such as After Effects®, Illustrator®, and Flash® software may be used by students in the development of storyboards and animatics, based on the student’s own knowledge level of the software.