Steven Spielberg admits he can’t draw much more than stick figures—but that doesn’t stop the legendary director from storyboarding. Both an important planning tool and its own unique art form, storyboards allow you to envision your film from start to finish before ever calling “action.” Here’s everything you need to know.
A storyboard is an ordered collection of illustrations or images that represent what a film will look like. It’s a helpful preproduction tool for picturing things such as framing, angles, and camera movements before shooting starts. Storyboarding is a form of “previsualization,” or “pre-viz.”
To get an idea of the process, check out these storyboards for Joel and Ethan Coen’s feature debut, “Blood Simple” (1984), which cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld described as a “floor plan that showed where the camera and the actors were for each single shot.”
According to “Alfred Hitchcock’s Storyboards” author Tony Lee Moral, the iconic director storyboarded each scene of his movies, likening them to the notes on a sheet of music being conducted by an orchestra. “Hitchcock was a very technical director and was keen to manipulate the audience’s emotions, the highs and lows, and storyboards were central to his practice,” said Moral in an interview with the Film Stage.
Ridley Scott (“Alien,” “Gladiator”) draws his own complex and detailed storyboards. “You can go down the board and see the film,” the director said. “The storyboard starts in my mind as I am reading the script. I start to thumbnail scribble things, so when you hit the set, you have a target.”
What does a storyboard include?
If you see enough storyboard examples, you’ll notice they can be as detailed or as simple as the director needs. James Gunn, for instance, shared this rough sketch he used to visualize a shot in the DC Studios film “Superman” (2025).
Sometimes, however, filmmakers (often with the help of professional artists) create far more fleshed-out storyboards closer to the panels of a comic book. Check out these images created by artist Mark Sexton for George Miller’s “Mad Max: Fury Road” (2015)—a film that was famously planned out more in storyboards than in a script.
While folks are enjoying catching up with Furiosa on VOD, here's some storyboards from the "Rotoraider" sequence in Fury Road - the primitive blueprint for the wonderful "Mortiflyer Attack" sequence in Furiosa, thankfully cut so we could have this cinematic glory 9 years later! pic.twitter.com/L272apyoir
— Mark Sexton (@Mark_H_Sexton) June 25, 2024
If you’re really a planner, your storyboards can also include elements such as camera movements, character actions, blocking, and framing. Take a look at Spielberg’s storyboards for “Jaws” (1975), which include notes like: “[Camera] stops move back, starts to Dan. We see strange ripple start to move toward Christine.”
1. Finish the script: It might go without saying, but it’s difficult to storyboard a project before the screenplay is complete. Whether you’re writing your own or taking on someone else’s, get the script into great shape. Then, carefully go through your pages. How does the narrative play out in your head? Take notes on how many and what kind of shots are necessary for each scene.
2. Decide on the details: Or lack thereof! Are you someone who simply needs a quick sketch to imagine a scene? Or does it make sense for your process (and budget) to work with a professional storyboard artist who can bring your early notes to vivid life?
3. Draft your storyboards: Whether you’re using a good old No. 2 pencil or a storyboarding software such as Boords, the process involves breaking scenes down into individual frames or boxes. Each box is a different shot; include any necessary visual components such as characters, props, and setting.
4. Add notes: As necessary, include details that cannot be conveyed in a still image, such as camera movement, bits of dialogue, choreography, blocking, and ideal music cues.
5. Revise: The beauty of storyboarding is that it gives you the full picture before rolling a single camera. It’s far easier (and less expensive) to fix inconsistencies or additions during this stage than during filming or in the editing room.