The power of a well-crafted storyboard is undeniable when it comes to video production. It acts as the guiding map for your digital video production, ensuring your creative vision stays intact. Whether you’re a seasoned filmmaker or an aspiring content creator, mastering the art of creating an effective video storyboard is crucial.
Imagine being able to visualise your entire video before hitting record. This is what storyboarding allows you to do, and with video productions becoming an essential part of digital marketing, they can help to streamline production and enhance your final product.
In this guide, we’ll explore the key elements of a successful storyboard, various types, and the step-by-step process to create one that suits your creative vision. Whether you’re producing a short film, an ad, a YouTube video, or any visual content, the principles of effective storyboarding apply universally.
What is a storyboard?
First up, what is a storyboard? Simply put, a storyboard is a collection of individual sketches that detail different shots and scenes throughout a video. They are most commonly associated with the pre-production phase of movies, but they’re also very handy tools for marketing videos, too.
Storyboards are most likened to a comic strip, showing a range of different, individual shots to demonstrate how a scene will play out. It helps plan every shot, sequence, and transition to bring your story to life.
Having a storyboard can also help to avoid problems on a video shoot, allowing video production companies to have a clear understanding of how each shot should look and pan out.
How to structure a marketing video
Before we begin looking at how to treat your own storyboard, we’re going to cover the basic structure of a marketing video. It’s important to first understand how these videos are structured as you can use this to create your storyboard.
Hook
The hook, or opener of your video intends to grab the viewer’s attention immediately. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for people to put more focus and attention in the latter parts of their video, with the opening sometimes not being given enough care and attention.
We’re here to tell you that the hook plays a vital role in the success of your video content, as it needs to engage audiences and keep them intrigued. The opening is what will set the tone for the rest of the video, so make sure it’s both engaging and attention-grabbing.
Think about it: you know exactly what the rest of your video contains and what it intends to achieve, but for a first time viewer, they’ve no idea.
Problem
The next part of your video should speak to the problem that the viewer is currently facing. Ask yourself the question ‘what problem is my product or service designed to solve?’. By weaving this and addressing his problem directly, your marketing video can then speak to the customer themselves.
To be able to successfully address the problem, it’s important to have a solid grasp of who your specific audience is. When you understand your target audience, you can create a more well-rounded video that resonates and connects with them.
Solution
Once we’ve got the problem established, the natural next step is to present the solution. You’ve hooked your audience with a great opener, you’ve spoken to them by identifying their problem, now it’s time to seal the deal with the solution.
This is the part where you’ll want to go into detail about how your product or service will solve their problem, and it provides a great opportunity to get creative.
For example, you can show people using your product to demonstrate exactly what it looks like and what it does, leaving nothing to the imagination. This way, you show the audience exactly how it works and in turn, how it solves their problem.
You could also show shots of the product from different angles, or even use animation to show what is inside the product to demonstrate exactly how it works with a voiceover to explain the inner workings.
This is all about speaking directly to the customer’s pain points, and how it helps to fix them.
Call to action
You’ve provided the audience with the answer to their problems, great! What are they supposed to do with this information? This is where the call to action comes in.
The call to action is an essential part of video marketing, where it tells the viewer what to do next; be it signing up to a form, contacting our company via email or phoning a number or providing the link to your website.
This essentially tells the viewers where to go in order to get this product that can help to solve their pesky problem.
How to create a storyboard
Now we’ve covered the basic structure of a marketing video, we’re going to take a look at how to create a storyboard and how it can benefit video marketers.
Plan your video
Before you begin creating your storyboard, it’s important to first plan out your video. Begin by identifying the objective of your video content and what you want it to achieve. This will help you to lay the foundations of the video, and allow you to better identify what scenes you want and why.
Whether it’s a video to increase brand awareness or a video demonstrating how to use your product, understanding the goal of your video will help to create a clearer vision for the video content.
The length of your video should also be decided at this stage as it helps to inform your creative process and decision making. There is a big difference between short videos lasting just 30 seconds compared to longer, 3 minute videos and what can be achieved in each.
Consider what social media platforms the video will be used for
A key part of digital marketing is using social media platforms to leverage your voice and boost brand awareness. Every successful digital marketing strategy needs to consider the social media that their brand is looking to target, which will depend on where the majority of their target audience spends their time.
This is an important step in planning and creating your video content as it will help to better inform your story board and structure of your video.
Some social media platforms require different formats, video lengths and tones. For example, Tik Tok videos should also be filmed vertically whereas a video on your Facebook can be either vertical or horizontal.
Decide what video style you want use
The style you use can also reflect your brand personality, with different styles helping to convey different tones and feelings. For example, animated video projects can offer a different feel to explainer videos that use live-action to get across its message.
Establish the key scenes and characters
Now you’ve planned the length, goal and style of your video, you want to begin thinking about the key scenes. To do this, you need to decide on the characters you want included throughout the video. Along with this, think about any props you might have for your characters and why.
It’s also important to establish the setting in this stage. You can’t begin creating a storyboard without knowing where these characters are going to be presenting.
These scenes can be used to demonstrate your product, establish your brand values or a powerful opening shot.
Begin visualising these scenes with the storyboard
After you’ve established the key scenes, character and setting, it’s time to start visualising the video through a storyboard.
Not everybody works the same, and there is no set way to do things. Some people prefer writing the script before beginning their storyboard, and some people like to start sketching ideas down to help inform their script. Sometimes, they work synonymously with each other.
Whichever way works best, this is the part where you can start sketching out the scenes. You want to consider how best to create an emotional connection with these shots, and you can note down
Under each shot you can note down the script, including relevant keywords that you want to be used in each shot.
Conclusion
Storyboards are a great way to help video marketers zoom out and see how their video content is going to play out. It provides a visual representation of the video in the early stages, allowing them to work out exactly what should be included. These can be useful in a wide range of different videos, from explainer videos and video ads to crowdfunding videos.
We’re a video production company that will help you with every step of the way. We understand the importance of digital marketing in forging a brand that you’re proud of. Storyboards are a big part of everything we create here at Perspective Pictures, helping us to bring your vision to life.
For more information, contact us today and we can get started on your next video production!
