CHAPTER 10
Storyboard for Writers
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The Way It Was
For many years in animation there were no scripts. U.S. artists took a general idea and devel-
oped the story visually. These artists were storymen or story sketch artists. Often storymen
had been animators who had a special talent for developing stories. When television arrived,
the artists continued to work in the same manner as they had worked in features or shorts.
But since TV budgets were even slimmer, any savings that could be made in time and work
were incorporated into the production process. The storymen began to work out their stories
visually on a template that was the storyboard. They were called storyboard men.
Feature Visual Development
The treatment or script for a feature is merely the springboard for months of development.
Major changes are made to the story by the story sketch or visual development people.
Viewers can see much more detail on the big screen. Something that is boarded for a
theatrical feature may use subtleties in facial expression and emotion that would never be
picked up on a small-screen TV or computer. Features demand more scope.
Direct-to-video or DVD is a hybrid of feature animation and television animation.
Studios like Disney might go into production without any script. In cases like that, the sto-
ryboard artists may even write some of the dialogue. The process again varies from studio
to studio.
Television and Other Small-Screen Storyboarding
Today the longer television stories in the United States start with scripts, but some of the
shorter, more gag-driven cartoons still skip a script entirely. A creator or writer/artist may
board the episode essentially as it’s being created. She might start with a kernel of an idea