Storyboarding

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part of Design · tier 2 · Image · 0 pieces of work carry it · 3 crafts it is confused with

The craft, and who hires it

Bought in pre-production for commercials, animation, and live-action: agencies and studios commission boards to sell the idea, lock shots, and de-risk shoot day before production spend commits.

Drawing sequential frames that pre-plan a film or animation — story flow, framing, and camera angles — before production. The deliverable is the board itself: panels in shot order, often with camera notes and motion arrows.

Tag it when…

Tag when the item IS a storyboard or board frames: sequential drawn panels with shot framing, panel order, and typically camera/action annotations. The sequence-planning purpose must be visible in the artifact.

Never tag it when…

Never tag the finished film a board planned — that item carries Video Production/Animation craft (that goes to those branches). Non-sequential look-development images go to Concept Art; polished standalone drawn art goes to Illustration; a timed, animated board (animatic) is Animation craft.

Easily mistaken for 3 other crafts

Every other page suggests neighbours by similarity. This one navigates by difference: each line names the craft this is confused with, and the rule for telling them apart.

• design concept art — Concept Art explores WHAT things look like; Storyboarding plans the SEQUENCE of shots — panels-in-order vs exploratory frames
• design illustration — Illustration is finished drawn art as the deliverable; a storyboard is a planning artifact whose drawing quality is instrumental
• disc animation — Once the panels are timed and move (animatic/boardomatic), the craft is Animation; static boards stay here

At what size it applies

ASSET tag when the piece IS the board itself. A storyboard glimpsed inside a behind-the-scenes or making-of film is a MOMENT; the film keeps its own craft.

Where to look next

• The whole services tree — the services index.
• Every other vocabulary — the vocabulary index.
• How work gets credited to a craft — the entities chapter.