This video offers advanced tips for digital storyboarding, emphasizing the creative freedom gained by moving beyond traditional templates. Shai, an AI-powered storyboard generator, can help quickly visualize scenes and accelerate the pre-production process.
Transcript Below
hi everyone i wanted to revisit
storyboarding today because although we
covered the basics in my last
storyboarding video which you might have
already watched there’s an awful lot of
advantages to taking the plunge to doing
them online so in this video i’m going
to show you how
now the first thing i’d like to say is
i’ve actually been sent a graphics
tablet by gauman now they’ve not
sponsored me to do this but they did
send me this so i thought i’d use it for
today’s video and let you know what i
think of it now you can use whatever
software you like for this i’m using
photoshop but basically anything that
you can draw on you can use and the
reason for that is
my number one tip for today is don’t use
a template
i know that’s completely against what i
said in the last video about kind of
user template that kind of fits your
need but i think the more confident the
more advanced you get with your
storyboarding the more you start to see
them sometimes as quite confining
so today we’re going to try and do it
without a template so i’m in photoshop
and i’m just going to go to create new
and i want a big workable area so i’m
just going to create a an a4 page
and here we go a completely blank
document
the reason for this is
we can now start to draw our our scenes
and then think about the framing later
and actually it means your storyboard
becomes very organic as long as it makes
sense to you and the cinematographer
that’s all that matters so let’s start
off with our first actual frame i’m
going to be making these up as i go but
i want to show you a couple things as i
go so for this first frame i just want
to do a normal over-the-shoulder shot
maybe in a conversation between a shot
reverse shot
as the director i know i wanted to be
over the shoulder but i’m not
necessarily sure how tight in i want it
to be so this is why i like the idea of
draw first frame later let me show you
what i mean
so just over on the side here i’m just
going to slowly i’m using the pressure
point of the pen really gently just to
slowly just mark out kind of like where
the the head and the shoulders might be
kind of where they are sat and then
just behind them again just very
friendly i’m going to draw the person
he’s speaking to
let’s get a couple trees because
obviously he’s going to be in the park
okay so there’s my there’s my scene how
on earth am i going to frame it with my
camera now this is one of the reasons i
love the idea
of working on a computer to do your
storyboards so
uh the first thing i’m going to do is
make a box now to do this i am going to
do it on a new layer so if i just add a
new layer
i’m just going to hold down the shift
key and i’m just going to draw a box
roughly where i want it to be so
by holding the shift kit makes your
lines absolutely straight i’m making it
widescreen as close as i can doesn’t
matter if i kind of go over the lines
ever so slightly
there we go i’ve got my frame and the
cool thing is now i can play around with
it so let’s move it around perhaps i
want it to be
slightly higher maybe i want to have my
lead character in a slightly open frame
or maybe a slightly closed frame almost
show here that there’s a little bit of
intimidation this guy in center frame is
actually putting a bit of pressure on
the guy in the background it’s amazing
how framing can really change something
you might even
want to resize it to like pull in make
it a little bit
more of a
a mid close-up over the shoulder so that
gives you a good demonstration here of
if you draw the scene then you can start
thinking about framing and clean up the
edges one of my favorite tips the other
thing that’s really good about this is
where i’ve been working on layers i can
now duplicate them so what i’m going to
do at the moment is i’m just going to
duplicate that frame that i just drew
move it down a little bit and maybe that
is also my second shot
so for the first one
we are at a mid-close-up but all the
while we’re very very slowly pulling out
into a wide shot so now i can make my
box a little bit bigger
and it shows that we’re just slowly
pulling out and like i said in the last
video don’t be afraid to use text
wherever you can so i’m just going to uh
grab my pen again
and show that we are
doing a slow pull back with the camera i
quite like that i think that’s a really
nice way of showing the camera movement
as well as playing around with the
framing okay my next tip is to look at
how we actually show um more complicated
movements such as pans and tilts and
again another one of the reasons why i
say get rid of the template is you can
just draw it however you like so here’s
an example i want to draw a scene where
we’ve got a character walking across a
room and the camera is going to pan with
them now if i was to draw this in a
traditional storyboard i’d have to draw
the character in the first frame and
then in the second frame i’d have to
draw them again in the third frame i’d
have to draw them again and it’s a lot
of work and it’s not very efficient
but because we’re working digitally we
can just draw the whole scene in one go
so i’m just going to draw my character
walking across the room
and then i’m going to draw my camera
frame and i’m going to duplicate that
frame and move it along with the
character so it shows that the camera is
panning with them and i can even add a
little arrow to show the direction of
the pan
so that’s a really quick and easy way of
showing a pan without having to draw the
character multiple times
now another thing that’s really useful
for digital storyboarding is showing
shot reverse shot conversations so if
you’ve got two characters talking to each
other and you’re going to be cutting
between them you don’t have to draw both
characters in every single frame you can
just draw the two main shots once
so i’m going to draw my first character
over the shoulder and then i’m going to
draw my second character over the
shoulder and then i’m going to draw a
diagonal line between the two frames to
show that we’re cutting between them
and that’s a really quick and easy way of
showing a shot reverse shot conversation
without having to draw the same thing
multiple times
now another thing that’s really useful
for digital storyboarding is using color
to differentiate between characters so if
you’ve got a scene with a lot of people
in it and you want to make it clear who’s
speaking you can just use different
colors for each character’s dialogue
bubbles or even for their outlines
so i’m just going to draw a couple of
characters here and i’m going to give
them different colored outlines so it’s
clear who’s who
and that’s a really quick and easy way of
making your storyboards more readable
now another thing that’s really useful
for digital storyboarding is using stock
photos for backgrounds so if you’ve got a
scene that’s set in a specific location
and you don’t want to draw the whole
background you can just find a stock photo
of that location and then draw your
characters on top
so i’m just going to find a stock photo
of a park and then i’m going to draw my
characters on top of it
and that’s a really quick and easy way of
saving time and making your storyboards
look more professional
now another thing that’s really useful
for digital storyboarding is using colored
boxes and text annotations to highlight
the focal point of a shot so if you’ve
got a shot where you want the viewer to
focus on a specific object or character
you can just draw a colored box around it
and then add a text annotation to explain
what it is
so i’m just going to draw a colored box
around my character’s face and then i’m
going to add a text annotation that says
“focal point”
and that’s a really quick and easy way of
making your storyboards more clear and
communicative
now another thing that’s really useful
for digital storyboarding is using simple
shorthand for editing transitions so if
you’ve got a scene where you want to show
a cut or a dissolve you can just use a
simple symbol to represent it
so i’m just going to draw an equals sign
to represent a cut and then i’m going to
draw a cross to represent a dissolve
and that’s a really quick and easy way of
making your storyboards more efficient
and finally another thing that’s really
useful for digital storyboarding is using
layers to organize your work so if you’ve
got a complex scene with a lot of
elements you can just put each element on
a separate layer so it’s easy to edit
and move around
so i’m just going to put my characters on
one layer my background on another layer
and my camera frames on a third layer
and that’s a really quick and easy way of
keeping your storyboards organized and
easy to work with
so there you have it a few advanced tips
for digital storyboarding i hope you find
them useful and i encourage you to try
them out for yourself
if you have any questions or comments
please leave them below and don’t forget
to subscribe for more media related
content
thanks for watching and i’ll see you in
the next video
WHAT ARE PEOPLE SAYING ABOUT THE VIDEO
Sample YouTube Comments for “How to storyboard without a template | Storyboarding tutorial tips”:
1. @CreativeFilmmaker: “This is exactly what I needed! The draw first, frame later approach is genius. Thanks for sharing!”
2. @StoryboardArtist23: “Great tutorial! I’ve been using templates for years but this organic approach makes so much more sense for complex scenes.”
3. @IndieDirector: “The tip about using different colors for characters is brilliant. Will definitely try this on my next project.”
4. @AnimationStudent: “Finally someone explains storyboarding in a way that makes sense! The Photoshop layers technique is a game changer.”
5. @FilmSchoolGrad: “Love the practical approach. Most tutorials are too theoretical but this shows real workflow.”
6. @DigitalArtist: “The camera movement visualization with the moving frame is so clever. Why didn’t I think of this before?”
7. @VideoProducer: “This method would save me hours on pre-production. Thanks for the detailed walkthrough!”
8. @ConceptArtist: “The background photo + character drawing tip is pure gold. Will use this for client presentations.”
9. @FilmStudent2024: “Best storyboarding tutorial I’ve seen. Clear, practical, and immediately applicable.”
10. @CreativeDirector: “The shot/reverse shot diagonal line technique is brilliant for dialogue scenes. Thanks!”