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How to Write a Basic Storyboard

The backbone of any competently constructed movie or television show is pre-production. Famed director Alfred Hitchcock planned his movies so exactly during pre-production that he had the luxury of taking naps during shoots. One of the most basic steps in planning a production is the storyboard, a sequence of drawings illustrating how a director wants the script to look on screen. Creating the bridge from script to screen requires little more than imagination and rudimentary artistic skill.

Things You'll Need

  • Screenplay
  • Paper
  • Pencil
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Instructions

    • 1

      Read the screenplay, visualizing how it looks in your imagination. As you do, block off each section of dialogue that you imagine as its own scene. Write notes in the margins describing what you see, if it differs from any visual instructions that are already written in the body of the script.

    • 2

      Take out a sheet of paper for each blocked-off scene. Write a short description of each scene at the bottom of the sheets.

    • 3

      Sketch each scene as you visualize it, adhering to the description that you've written. Mark movements of the camera with arrows -- pointing right or left for a pan, up or down for a tilt, and inward or outward from the corners for a zoom in or zoom out, respectively.

Film Production

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