Storyboard

Creating the Storyboard is the second level of making a television commercial (TVC). Storyboard is a series of visuals which convey the story or the idea behind the commercial. Once the concept behind a TVC is ideated, presented to the client, approved and researched, the storyboard artist is called upon to present the ideas visually with a brief from the creative department. In Advertising, these visuals are usually hand-drawn. The artist is given a detailed description on the commercial viz. Socio-economic profile of the protagonists , their age group, their costumes, the place / location where the TVC is set in and so on. The artist then presents his interpretation of the commercial in visuals as various shots conceived by the creative team. The dialogues / lyrics of the jingle are written against each corresponding visual. This storyboard is in turn forwarded to the producer /director of the TVC.

After the initial discussions on the TVC with the creative, the director then takes over the mantle and in consultation with the director of photography, visualizes the entire film shot by shot. His interpretation of the commercial is again presented by a storyboard artist as various shots, locales, look of the models etc on a storyboard but this time in a more detailed version.

To explain the concept of Storyboard, let me give you an example. Remember Amar chitra katha? How did you like reading the stories of Ganesha and Krishna presented visually in those comics as opposed to reading them on another book?Amar chitra Katha is the perfect example of a story board. You have your visuals and the dialogues. Even epics like the Mahabharata and Ramayana have been given as simple, well etched out visuals, in these comics.

For a TVC, a storyboard makes things easier for all parties involved. It makes the director's job much easier once he has his well-defined visual representation. The Director of photography too, with the help of a storyboard knows his shots and the angles much in advance and this helps his planning with the kind of equipment, lenses , the lighting technique which could be used to make the frames look interesting. The editor, even before the film gets shot, gets a fair idea on the editing pattern, thanks to the storyboard. From the advertising agency's perspective, the director's storyboard helps them understand what exactly the director's visualization is, of their script.

Take a look at this storyboard

And now the TVC version of the storyboard

A lot of advertising film-makers have turned feature film directors - Rajiv Menon, Rakeysh OmPrakash Mehra [Rang De Basanti], Rajkumar Hirani [Munnabhai series], Pradeep Sarkar [Parineeta] to name a few. Pradeep Sarkar, for his soon-to-be-released film 'Laga Chunari Mein Daag' came up with an Audioboard for the entire film where, along with the visual representation, were the film's dialogues in audio format, dubbed by professional dubbing artistes.

Here's an interesting website on Storyboards if you would like to know more on this.

The dynamic duo of Illusion films, Mumbai - Aniruddha Sen and Shantanu Bagchi tell you how they came up with the TVS tyres TVC. Take a look at their storyboard

Gotta script and want to do your own storyboard? Go ahead ...

A mini Ad quiz:

Do you see this image on my blog? It is from the storyboard of a famous commercial that made, is making waves at advertising awards in India and abroad, this year. Identify the commercial.
C'mon pal, doesn't it look familiar? I can see a biiiig smile on your face...Go for it!
Update: Ok Ok people, if that image was a tough one to crack, here's another image from the same storyboard.. Now, smile and crack it!