Is this the future of storyboarding in multimedia?

Storyboarding is an essential tool in the film making process. It provides direction, pre-visualization, an idea for flow and how the script will translate to the visual medium, and is extremely useful for keeping the various departments on the same path.

So, what is a storyboard?

Well, traditionally a storyboard is something that resembles a comic book (more on that in a moment) with a series a panels, sometimes hand drawn and sometimes rendered with various software solutions, that show how a scene will play out. Storyboarding is always seen from the point of view of the audience because each panel will represent how a scene will play out on the screen. You can say that a storyboard will be a comic book version of the script but without most of the dialogue.

The future of Storyboarding, in my opinion, is a combination of both the practical side of having a plan and the profitable side of perk based rewards. For example, in crowdfunding I’ve seen and recommended many high quality storyboards be offered to backers as perks and, as someone who really loves crowdfunding and behind the scenes information, I think that is a great perk if you’re invested in a film.

What I’ve done with my latest project called Svignaskaro, is I’m actually putting together a full 80 page graphic novel that will double as a detailed storyboard for how I’m going to shoot the film. This method serves multiple purposes and I’m extremely interested in how it is going to work for future projects.

The Comic Book Storyboard Method:

• Because the panels of the comic book are exactly the same as the storyboard for the film, I’m not wasting any time in creating the entire project in comic book form. It gives me a visual representation of my film (as storyboarding does) and lets me work out details in my script before hiring a crew.
• The comic book itself will be a fully fleshed out story, which gives me an additional product and selling point for my promotional efforts, effectively giving me a new stream of revenue and demographics to project potential success of the film.
• It’s an effective promotional tool for crowdfunding and finding investors because it gives potential backers/investors some visual representation and they, like my production crew, can use the graphic novel as a road map of how the actual film will go.
• Detailing every scene and shot will give potential investors the comfort they need to invest, knowing that a lot of time and effort has gone into the creation of the script, the storyboard, the product and all of the story elements of the film / comic book.

I’m not saying that this method is going to work, to be honest it’s a test platform for me as much as anything else, but after a lot of brain storming and ideas being thrown around, I honestly can’t see why it won’t help with publicity and promotion as well as (hopefully) drawing in some income for the comic book itself.

I hope you all join me in promoting this idea and if you’re interested in supporting me in this endeavor, please feel free to contact me here or on twitter @Film_Fervor!