The Principles and Methods of Storyboarding - Get Started!

1. Welcome To The Class!: The principles of storyboarding. Storyboarding is the art, imagination, imaging the shots before the big blaze, imagining the camera movements before they occur. When it comes to expensive movie production or expensive ad production , animations, or even Skillshare classes. Storyboarding is a skill needed to save resources. Resources like time, like effort, like money, even resources like peace of mind. Storyboarding is the art of drawing the scenes needed to be captured to communicate to the viewer of your storyboard how a a shot will take place. Whether he is in that scene, or even if he was just setting-up the camera equipment for that particular scene. Storyboarding is a tool used to minimize mistakes and miscommunication. In this class we are going to cover mostly the principle of the storyboarding the science behind the terminology used by professionals in the field. We will cover topics like camera movements, camera angles, frame sizes, display systems, arrows, and much, much more related to storyboarding. That's it. And i will see you in the next lesson where we are going to actually cover a really important topic, which is camera angles. 2. The Basics: Now I'll give you a little example and you have to imagine how the camera movement, how are* the camera angles will play out, like let's imagine, 00:00:08.250--> 00:00:11.205 a seven-year-old kid just waking up from his bed, then he starts looking for his phone, then he grabs his phone and he starts playing like pubg on his phone. That little short story I just told, you have imagined it in a way. I did not imagine, your point of view will be different than mine will be different than the director's point of view. and that's why we need to have a clear line of communication. You might have imagined doom as a tool kit, you might have imagined them as a short kit. You might have imagined him in a poor household. You might have imagined him in a rich household. And that's why we need to establish a clear description of that kid's background, of the location where that kid is. Now we storyboarding, you don't have to be the best artist. You don't have to draw the perfect human being. All you have to do is just to try your best. Now, there is no specific software that you should use. You can just go with the default to paint software that comes with your operating system. Or you can go with something more advanced, like Photoshop. And even if you don't have any device to sketch on, you can always go back to an ordinary sketch paper and just start storyboarding, you don't need the best software, you don't need the best design and art skills, all you have to do is just to start. And I have included this storyboard templates that has nine scenes for you to download, in the material part of this class. So let's imagine, a tall building. That building is an average household, which with lots of satellites on top of that building. And in all the windows, there is like laundry getting dried out in the hot air, the camera will start zooming in. So we will use our arrows to explain what zoom-in is until we are zoomed in at a particular window. That window, for example, is the window where were the mark of the zooming in. First of all, resides. so that The camera can enter Ali's window. Now that we're at the window, we have found a little bird standing on that window and all the camera banned that little bird. That little bird, started to fly outside the frame. Now that the camera inter Ali's room, the camera seems a bit far away. and Ali sleeping on that bed, then Ali roughly wakes up from his bed, and opens his eyes while he is sleeping, as you are seeing right now, then we're going to take a shot of Ali jumps* inside the frame, looking in front of him when he got out of bed and started searching for his phone until he found it over here on that desk, so he reaches down and grabs his phone and we take a shot of Ali's hand while it's taking the phone from that desk, then we bend the camera back on the bed where Ali is sitting and playing Pubg on his phone. We make sure to capture Ali's happiness and detect the sound of the game that he is playing, what just happened with the (Dramatic Sequence) which explain everything that happened individually. For me to probably make a dramatic sequence, I have to have a broader knowledge of when the camera inters and where it looks at of something jump in inside the frame or outside the frame, we need to know what arrows are and how to use them. And do we also need to differentiate the types of shots we get, so that the viewer doesn't get bored-out. Now we can see the first shot of the building is from the outside, which is still the first shot, but we're gonna call it shot a, because the shot is continuous, the camera doesn't cut. Then the first one is a, and after we do Zoom, now it's B. We have reached the window and the bird just flew away. Shot number two is the one where Ali is sleeping on his bed. But I'm getting the frame from far away. You might ask, when do I know if it's shot one shot two? You can know that when the frame changes without camera movement. Now we call that a new shot. Now after that in shot three, Ali sleeping on his bed. Shot number four is clear frame and the Ali jumps in, shot number five is Ali entering* the frame and finds his phone. Shot number six is Ali reaches out and gets his phone. Shot number seven is Ali entering* the shot again and sit down on his bid to play Pubg, we have established a clear sequence of storyboards. We don't need to do that much explain it during the shooting process. That's it. And I will see you in the next lesson. 3. The Different Types Of Shots: The frame size is basically the size of each object inside the frame of the storyboard I'm drawing, like the size of the talent compared to the background. That's why we need to know the name of the size of the frame we are working with. And there are lots of different frame sizes. inside a movie or even a short movie. So,that the movie doesn't feel dull and boring. So, I need to understand very well which frame size I'm working with in this shot. I'm drawing this basically the size of the frame. The size of the frame is basically like the TV screen or computer screen or whatever display screen are using. Let's say I have the talent is standing inside the screen on a mountain, but far away within a flag as the camera basically. And these too far away that you can tell the exact features of his face, but we can know for sure, that there is someone standing there, waving with a flag in that exact size. that shot is called extreme long shot or extreme wide shot, you can call it long or wide they are the same thing. Now let's say there was someone standing in the frame and we are capture in him all the way from head to toe. And we can clearly tell who that person is. Now, it's called a long shot or wide shot. Now, let's say that the camera is coming a bit closer to that person and it's getting him all the way from his head to his ankle. Some people call that a medium long shot, and some people call it an American shot. let's say that's the talent who standing in and the camera was getting him from his head to his torso. Now we call that a medium shot. If we come a bit closer to that talent and we started to get his head to his shoulders now can call that a close shot. And if you come a bit closer to his face, now it's called an extreme close shot. And some people call it a very close shot, some people even call it a big close shot, and they are all just names to identify this type of shot. Now let's say that the talent standing with back to the camera. And the camera is over the shoulder of that talent. And pointing at another talent that is in front of the camera. That standing in the medium frame Size, now is called an over shoulder shot, and sometimes we call that shot a Morth. And we can even increase the frame Size of the person standing in front of the camera. And it can be an over shoulder long shot. It depends on the shot you need to take. when you see two people standing in the same frame with a medium-size. We call that medium two because we have two tunnels in the same size inside the frame. Now let's say we have a particular story, when The talent is looking away in the distance, let's say in the middle of the shot, it was looking at a clock or something. Now we back the camera to the left to look at that clock that he was looking at. and the shot of that clock is also, another type of frame. Now, let's say that I have a clock hanging on the wall and I'm looking at it, now that's a Pov shot or a point of view shot. Pov is me point at the camera that the talent is looking at it, and that's mainly all frame sizes we might use now have noticed there are many different frame sizes. Just the viewer doesn't get bored watching the content we are provided. We always try to play on the curiosity gap of the viewer. Like, if you are looking at a clock or something. the viewer would be curious to look at that clock. Like let's say you looked at that object then you looked, at the camera again then you looked back 00:03:21.770 --> 00:03:23.270 at another object, the viewer would be intrigued to find what caught your eye, and that's why we need a story bored to get those specific shot because if we didn't the movie or the project we are working on is going to be extremely dull. That's it. And I will see you in the next lesson. 4. Camera Angles & Camera Equipment: The first thing we need to learn about on jumping into cinematography is camera angles. Now let's say, I was designing a room and making a storyboard over, let's say, says that room, I wanted to draw, I wanted to draw using a top view camera angle. Let's say it was a bedroom, let's say there was a bed over here. Let's say there was a cupboard over here. And let's even say that was the main door of the room. Maybe a chair here, maybe a chair over there. What I'm basically doing is just draw cubes. In vision how the location looks like, this drawing you are seeing right now is basically, a top vision of the location. What's important about a top view is that you can learn where to place the camera and where is placeable. And to learn about placement of the camera, we have first to go through learning about camera angles. Let's say I had a camera, that looked horizontal, and this is what sees and the talent is standing in front of the camera in this place right here. And we call that a normal camera? A normal camera is basically on the eyesight level of the talent, but if we raised the camera a bit higher up now it's called a high angle camera. If we moved the camera a bit down and angled it so that it looks at the talent. Now it's called a low angle camera. this is basically, All the main camera angles that we depend on in cinematography. And there are a few other camera angles we can learn about like the top camera angle, if there is a lot of people that are walking by, we can get a top camera angle for that. We can even get a down camera angle basically if there is like a glass floor and the people are dancing over it, we can get the camera underneath the glass floor and pointed up so that we can get the feet of the people don't think we can even get a moving camera angle. Like if there is a camera guy that is holding the camera on his shoulder and walking by with it. And he is filming the talent all around. Now we call that a free cam. A free cam doesn't have any specific angles. he can just be recordings the talent on the eye level, you can even go and sit down so that he gets him from another angle. So, if you've got something from that, is that there are lots of camera angles is up comes into play when we are storyboarding, but I just declared it up for you. The main camera angles we normally use to get a shot of the storyboard. Now you might be wondering what are the tools we are using to adjust the camera angles. Like let's say we had a talent standing in the center of the screen. And if I had for example a camera on the same eye level as him. A tripod is basically a camera holder with three legs. A tripod can have many uses, like we can get the tripod and install wheels to it. So, that the camera is moving all around the location, a tripod with wheels is basically called a Dolly. A Dolly is a moving camera that can move all around the location. Another thing we can use in the camera angles is a track dolly a track dolly basically has the same iron bars that the train walks over and it gets installed in certain locations. Where is the floor is uneven. Like let's say you were filming in the desert and the ground is not stable enough, then I can't use a dolly and I have to use a track dolly. So, that we can get all the shots we need, even slow mood or in any different angles we need to get. We can have a straight track dolly. We can have a circular track dolly, which is basically like the bars of the train, But circling around talent. If I want to get a shot, that is circling around him. Another camera angles you might have seen before is a steady cam. A steady cam is basically a camera that has been installed to a special vest that the talent is wearing. We mostly use steady cam in action scenes when there is a lot of movement and the camera man can't keep up with all the movements that is happening in the scene. That's when we use the steady cam so that we can have stability in the shots we get through that. It doesn't have much shaking or innocent or any of that from the action scenes. Sometimes we might use a special camera angle, which is basically the camera man is holding very long bar with a camera attached to it, which is called a crane. We use it when we are in big locations. Or if you want to take a special camera effects, or camera, is travelling a huge distance to the talant is that creen is the same bar and it has a place for the camera man to sit with the camera. And the camera man can control the camera using a lots of tools that he can use. and there is a lot more camera angles and camera tools we are using and we are discovering each single day. And that's it for camera angles. And we are going to move on to the second part of cinematography. 5. Camera Movements : Now we're going to move on to the second part of cinematography. In the previous part, we had already studied camera angles. Now we are going to move on to camera movement when you are shooting a movie and add an animation or any of the other stuff, we must have a storyboard to save resources. Storyboards capture camera movement if the camera is moving towards the talent end, or if it's moving away from him, or even if the camera is circled around the talent, all of that is different camera movements. And now we are going to live in depth into them. We have the same talent standing in the same location. We always have. standing in the location and plain his part. There are lots of camera movement that is happening. We can have the camera standing still. in a sit place standing on a tripod and the tripod is standing steady. And then we had the camera man breaches, for the camera lens and starts to zoom in on the talent when you zoom in the size of the talent increases and if you did the reverse, to zoom out the size of the talent decreases. Using those two basic movements, we can zoom in or zoom out on the talent And if we had the same tripod, but with wheels now it's a dolly and if the dolly moves towards the talent. Now it's called a dolly in. And if it moves away from the talent, now it's called a dolly out. Now a question on your mind, what is the difference between a using a dolly in and a dolly out and zooming in and zooming out, zooming in, it changes the depth of the background behind the talent. When we zoom in, we feel that the background is stuck to the talent But if we use a dolly in their camera stuck to the dolly in starts to recalibrate. It calculates the distance and using that it assigns the depth and from that. We can learn that the dolly in is better than zoom in because they keep the depth. of the background behinds the talent. And now let's say we have a talent or basically like just a building or just a normal guy standing still, and that camera is pointing towards the building and he starts to tilt that camera up that he scans the building up. What we just did was Tilted up the camera and you can even do the reverse and tilted down the camera to scan the building from top to bottom. And those were the main basic camera movements that you might have seen used in movies ,animations or even ads. Now we're going to move on to the second important part of camera movement, which is the camera itself. and if there is a car bus in by, in front of the camera, in that way the camera is getting it and it starts tilting towards the car. While the car is busing By decided what just happened. with cold band or a pan aroma Now we're bringing the camera left or right, depending on the movement of the camera from right to left or from left to right. We have been through Ban in the camera tilting it up, tilting in down in zooming, in, zooming out. Another important thing we also do is that let's say is there is a building and there is someone fallen from that building. or he just jumped Like superman for example in that way we use a camera is that is moving down with them or moving up with him, when the camera is moving down with him or moving up with him, that is called tracking. Tracking is basically when the camera is following a particular object or a particular thing and moving with it in the same movement, let's say is there was a race and there was a horse moving in front of the camera. We can just stick a camera to a car that is moving with the same speed that the horse is moving at. And we can call that a track camp. That was camera movements that we know really fast 00:03:32.060 --> 00:03:33.620 and that we need to learn when to use those camera movements. Because each of those camera movements has a particular use in the storyboard. The last type of cam we are going to mention is free cam the free cam is basically like just a camera man holding a camera on his shoulder and just moving randomly trying to get the best shots he can we can't call that just tilting it, tilting the camera or banning the camera because it's moving that is tracken someone or something. And the free cam can circle around the talent and the move in any direction the camera man would like to get a shut off. Another thing we can move on to is multi-cam. a multi-cam is basically, when you have organized camera movements, like when you are zooming in and ban in right at the same time. That's what we like. to call multi-cam that you are doing 2 camera movements at the same time. We just covered camera movements which we very need in a storyboard. because when we storyboard, we need to capture all the camera movements so that the camera man understands exactly what shots to take if the camera is standing still and they, you need to take as zoom in or zoom out shot or if it's a moving camera and they need to take a dolly in or a dolly out. Maybe they need to take at tilt up, or tilt down shot, maybe even a ban right or a ban left shot. Maybe they need to track the moving object so that the camera moves along with him. Maybe we need to use a free cam or even a multi-cam for that specific shot. That's it. And I'll see you in the next lesson. 6. The Usage Of Arrows: Now let's start. that I am in the sea and there is a glass bottle then a shot of the island far away and nothing from, with no special details sticking out. then the camera starts zooming in to that island. Now I'm going to tell you how to go there using the arrows that we are in the island, I find that person with a long beard and with lots of messy hair all over his body setting in the island very skinny then from the back of that person. I started to look at the scene front of me. And in the sea that glass bottle stars approach in that person. So, he reaches his arm inside the frame to grab that glass bottle out of the water. And he finds inside the glass bottle a message. And he gets that message out of the glass bottle and holds it with both of his hands like you are seeing right now. And after that, he grabs that message and grabs it was both of these ends like you're seeing right now. I'm just trying to draw quickly, the storyboard that we understand how the sizes of the frame will be then we find that he got the message with both of his hands. Then he walked away a bit and just looked at the message. And he will be surprised from the content 00:01:01.135 --> 00:01:02.630 of that message. So, we do an extremely close shot of his face. Then we take a shot, of his back while he is standing, looking at the message and the content inside it the sequence, we just story boarded of the guy setting in the island and grabbing the bottle is a very clear dramatic sequence of the guy grabbing the bottle with his left hand, and showing in the frame that is grabbing it with his left hand to avoid any racore, And then he sticked out in the frame for an entire sequence until we reached the end where he read the message. And all of those special shots come together to create a dramatic sequence a full scene. Now we're going to move on to how to use arrows to explain our frames. first, we are going to start changing the color of the brush we are using. Like if I want to draw with a different color then I have the bottle that is floating in the water. I will draw like lots of arrows over here. The glass bottle is floating coming up and down inside of the water. And if I looked at the frame, I will find it pretty obvious that it's floating. And if I want to zoom in on the island then I draw an arrow, like if I want to zoom in on that island, I will draw an arrow that is tilted into the frame. so that It's pretty obvious that I'm zooming in on that island. or the camera is moving towards the island. Here we can draw it so that we can tell that the person is coming from outside the frame, into the frame so that he figures out what is happening for the bottle if we drew an arrow over here and arrow over here. this is obvious that you are coming close to sure that person his hand just went inside the frame. So, we draw an arrow of the direction of the hand, communing inside of the frame. And then he grabs the bottle, gets it out of the water. So, we'll draw an arrow in the direction of the bottle. Common outside the frame so is pretty obvious for anyone who are readings the story reward how it happens the scene exactly that the hand will follow that arrow common size a frame, and follow the other arrow coming outside the frame. Here you will find that there is no movement. But we can do a zoom in after he takes a bottle for zooming in, the arrows are the same size as the frame, as you can see right now on the screen. And then the hand with the letter comes inside the frame and the person hides, and read the message. Besides the arrows I just drew, I put the description, which is a glass bottle that is floating inside the water with a message inside of it to a camera that is moving towards the shore of the island really fast, three a person jumps inside the frame and look surprised. That is the description, of course, and the numbering of the scene, like here, the shot number one. Now we move on to shot number two. this shot number three, this is four and there's five, and so on and so on, of course. we don't forget that I write down over here the name of the work. I'm working with, and here I'm writing down number of the scene. If there is lots of scenes and at the end, I can write it directed by So that we know who's the director we are working with. And over here, we must not forget to put the page number because 00:03:52.520 --> 00:03:54.350 the storyboard can be like 1 page, 2 pages, or like even 100 pages, depending on the scene who are working with depending on the work, who are working with, if it's an ad, if it's a long movie, in all of those words, we need a storyboard. With storyboards, we tried to the best of our abilities to make the viewer live inside of the scene. So, when we make our storyboards, we need to figure out exactly each scene we are drawing, where it's filmed, what are the accessories that is in the scene? The type of the camera is used, the type of camera angle is used as a camera movements used when exactly those each shot end. so, we need to be extreme focus to the storyboard we are drawing. We need to know what racore means. Do we need to know what dramatic sequence means? That's it. And I will see you in the next lesson. 7. Final Thoughts : That's it. Hopefully you enjoyed the course. I would love and I would really appreciate it for you to go down and deliver a view on this course. Just say honestly, what you felt like. Did you get valuable information of the course? What bars do you think, we should improve on next. And for the class project, just leave the storyboard you just draw share them with other students who are watching this course to get inspire started working on their own storyboard. that's it make sure you leave a follow because I will see you on the next course.