A storyboard is simply a sketch of how you plan to organize your multimedia story. It doesn’t have to be high art. And it’s just a guide—not an iron-clad design.
On a piece of paper (or the digital tool of your choice), sketch out the main story page and the elements it will include.
- What’s the nut graf?
- What are the links to the other sections of the story?
- What’s the menu or navigation for accessing those sections?
- What multimedia elements do you want to include?
Then do the same for the “inside” pages. What’s the main element on each page, and what other information should be included there? What video, audio, photos or graphics would best tell this part of the story?
Try this: A good way to learn storyboarding is to take a print feature story and sketch out a storyboard of all the elements—including what you would want if it were more than print and how you might break it up into a nonlinear Web presentation.
Taken from Five Steps to Multimedia Storytelling, a self-directed course by Jane Stevens at Poynter NewsU.
