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Storyboard's can provide a way to remember what you need to do during the chaos of the shoot. They are a picture book of the shots, a plan prepared in pre-production. They are a tool for the director to explain what he wants the shot to look like to his crew, and to develop the look of the film away from the pressure of the set. They also allow the DP, lighting crew and production designers to prepare the shot without the need for the director looking over their shoulder.
Few films need to be storyboarded from start to finish, it is usually only complicated scenes such as action sequences that need to be put down on paper first. Storyboards don't need to look as good as they are in "Making Of..." books, stick figures are fine as long as it's clear what is happening in the shot.
An A4 sheet with eight rectangular boxes and a space under each for notes is all you need. Show the parts of the shot that are important, and illustrate movement with arrows. With complicated shots and sequences, it can also be helpful to draw floor plans showing the positions and movement of cameras, actors and objects.
If you want to approach it from a different angle, there are a few other options. Most simply, you can use all the white space in your screenplay to jot down how you want to shot it and provide some visual falir. You can also use those 12-inch mannequins you find in art shops as actors and use a camera to compose and capture your shots, before pasting them onto card to make your storyboards. Finally, there is the method favoured by James Cameron; using a camcorder to shoot a rough version of the film. Having stand-ins read from the script and shooting in chronological order will give you an idea of how the shots flow together, even if the sound and acting is terrible.
Storyboard's can be very useful, helping speed up and retore order to your shoot, but you don't have to stick to every detail you put down on paper, be flexible.
Drawing up a plan at the same time as constructing the storyboard, can also be a great help. A bird's-eye view of where everything (camera, actors props) is going to be allows you to work out what the image will look like, and will help with the practical side of the shoot. That way your storyboard will probably look more convincing and will be easier to construct. Even though the screen is only 2D, the events in front of the camera take place in
3 dimensions, and the storyboard will look more realistic and usually better, if you think in 3D, then convert it to the screen, rather than starting from 2 dimensions, which often produces a flat-looking image.
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A Short History of Film
Pt. 1: Silent Cinema 1895-1927
Pt. 2: Studio System 1927-1945
Pt. 3: Post-War 1945-1959
Pt. 4: New Waves 1959-1975
Pt. 5: Blockbusters 1975-2002
