It's not necessary for any movie, but it's a good idea.

It can really speed up the shooting, and allows you to have a general idea of what shots you want. Storyboards shouldn't be followed relgiously, but if you have time, it's a good idea. If nothing else it gets the ideas flowing for framing and shot composition during the shoot.

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There's daggers in mens' smiles

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Originally posted by rizzo

It can really speed up the shooting, and allows you to have a general idea of what shots you want. Storyboards shouldn't be followed relgiously, but if you have time, it's a good idea. If nothing else it gets the ideas flowing for framing and shot composition during the shoot.

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How many storyboards do you all typically make for short films? E.g. do you all do a sketch for each and every camera shot, or one for each general scene? Or just maybe a couple per page to give an idea of the mood? Do you do storyboard pictures even when a change is done from a medium to a close up, etc? What method do you all use for storyboarding-- quick stick figures? color illustrations? photographic images? commercial storyboard 3D virtual images/scenes?

Independent Filmmaking
http://borealpictures.com

I like using storyboards. Ive used them on music vids and corporate videos for some complicated sequences.

Im storyboarding parts of a short that starts shooting next week. It will speed up the process for me. Remember there isn't much point in storyboarding unless you've checked out your location and you know where the camera is going to be. For a short, I just do rough drawings with stickmen and arrows showing camera or people movement.

They aren't necessary, but some filmmakers like using them. I'd be in that category.

For me, I always get frustrated because of all the work that goes into it, and it feels like there is no return. A good rule of thumb is if you're working with a crew where your not the one doing everything, i.e. you have a gaffer, cinematographer, camera men, co-director, whatever, then you should either storyboard, or all sit down together and walk through the whole script and what you want to do, writing it down. However, I never felt the need when I was doing everything myself. I worked with a crew where they had a really great way of storyboarding. We did the whole thing taking pictures of ourselves on a hotel lobby floor, and we then took them all into a macbook pro, and used happy comic, which is comic production software, to show the pictures in sequence with the scene info, included characters, props, locations, dialogue, and a description along with any notes we wanted to include underneath them. This helped us to think out what we wanted to do together when we took the pictures, then rethink it when we edited our first draft. We then sat through the whole storyboard and made revisions till we had what we wanted. This allowed us to count shoot time down to one day and make sure our common vision was ensured. However, this 10 scene 8 minute short took us I forget how long to photograph for, and 2 1/2 hours to edit, with 3 macbook pros and 10 people working on it non-stop. If you had a tablet PC to work on, then that would be a great way to draw a rough diagram of your shots. As a whole, do it if you want to cut down on shoot time, look more professional in front of your actors, and/or figure out your shots with your crew.

"We all have the potential to be great. It is our inability to do so that makes us miserable." C.S.Lewis