This occupation is found in the creative media industries. Storyboard artists will typically be employed by a range of small to large production companies working within the British and International animation, film, television, visual effects, games and advertising industries. A storyboard is a series of sequential art that conveys the story and character in a visual media such as film, television or games. Its purpose is to communicate the visual story to colleagues, clients and stakeholders.
The Storyboard Artist is a highly skilled and creative individual who is required during the first phase of production, called pre-production; storyboards are sequences from script/brief/screenplays translated into a series of illustrations. The broad purpose of the occupation is to use storyboards to visualise the narrative, planning shots and drawing panels to demonstrate the staging/action, and maintain continuity between scenes of a production. An employee in this occupation will be responsible for preparing storyboards for production, including indications of dialogue, character performance and camera moves, and they could be asked to produce their work either as rough drawing or cleaned-up (more defined) drawings. Traditionally storyboards are drawn on paper from pen or pencil, however, with the integration of computers these may be created digitally; with either method the Storyboard Artist has to conceptualise and imagine the scenes to be drawn.
A key duty of the role is presenting the drawings and storyboards to colleagues, clients and stakeholders. The presentation of a storyboard is part of the overall pre-production process, it is used to demonstrate the film or content before signed off to proceed to the next stage of production; and it moves through the workflow from pre-production to production.
Storyboard Artists need to know and understand how the camera moves, how to frame the subject, types of shot such as wide, extreme close up and worms eye view. They also need to know and understand the key errors to avoid, such as dead centre compositions, tilted oblique angles and splitting the screen in half with horizontal lines.
In their daily work, an employee in this occupation interacts with the Director and, possibly, with the scriptwriter, Producer, client or Storyboard Supervisor, to visualise and tell the story. They are usually based in either an office environment, or work remotely from their own offices/place of work working on commercials, television series, games, short form work and feature films.
This role may include out of hours or irregular working patterns when collaborating on international projects.
Duties
Manage story board work on designated projects
Interpret a creative brief or script to create storyboards
Visualise the story and convey this in drawings
Prepare drawings for storyboards or other preparatory visualisations
Present storyboards to colleagues and clients
Work effectively with creative colleagues and clients
Manage own working practices in the creative industries
Manage the media content/assets created
Manage and market yourself and your services to productions
Manage own development Summary of Standard https://www.instituteforapprenticeships.org/apprenticeship-standards/storyboard-artist/ Full Standard https://www.instituteforapprenticeships.org/media/3684/st0489_storyboard-artist-l7_ap-for-publication_23112019.pdf
