Some ideas for creating storyboards for the teaching and learning of computer animation

Law Tak-ming
Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education
Hong Kong SAR, China

Producing appealing storyboards is vital for effective movie clips as, without their support, the use of sophisticated computer animation techniques becomes pointless.

Various factors affect the outcomes of a storyboard, such as the overall tone, the nature of the characters and the ultimate goal of the movie clip. Movie clips have to be targeted at a particular area (e.g. for adults or children, and with a focus on history, romance, violence, etc.) to meet audience needs, and the designer clearly must understand the desires of the audience before drafting the storyboard. Entertaining ideas for storyboards can be drawn from personal experiences in our daily lives -- for instance, a humorous scene in a bus you took last week, or some unexpected event on an overseas trip. Also, excellent storyboards can be derived from adapting some existing stories to create new ones.

This paper explores various ideas which can be helpful in teaching students how to create high-quality storyboards for their computer animation projects.