At Outboardz, we take the art of storyboarding very seriously. We understand that there is no more profound moment in the creation of visual media than when ideas are first rendered into concrete images. A talented storyboard artist can suggest rich new imagery, dramatic camera angles, dynamic blocking, and much more; adding a vital contribution to the document that becomes the visual blueprint for the production.

A Brief History of Storyboarding

The general consensus is that Leonardo Da Vinci provided us with the first examples of proper storyboarding in his detailed, step-by-step illustrations of his ideas. But there is much more to storyboarding than illustrating a concept through time. Great storyboards capture the essence of a story, its emotion and drama, in just a few simple frames. This isn´t to say that Leonardo´s frames were not storyboards, but rather that storyboarding may even pre-date Da Vinci by tens of thousands of years.

Might not one purpose of the cave paintings of the Paleolithic or Neolithic eras have been as pre-visualizations intended to help plan hunts or ceremonies? After all, a picture has always been worth a thousand words, especially when human vocabulary consisted of fewer than that!

The modern practice of storyboarding for film was first implemented on a large scale by Walt Disney in the early 1930´s and the practice soon became widespread at all the major Hollywood studios. Disney was said to have cast particular storyboard artists for their particular ability on certain types of scenes; and he knew that if the boards didn´t work, the movie wouldn´t work as well.

Now, storyboards are used in a wide variety of fields from business to theater. Some of the uses of storyboards are outlined below:

Use of Storyboards

• Pre-visualization for Media and the Arts

Commercials
Film
Animation
TV
Games
Websites
Events

• Business

Product Design and Development
Corporate Media Kits
Corporate Events
Project Design and Development
Websites