Storyboards Books

Prepare to Board! Creating Story and Characters for Animated Features and Shorts - does what it says.
This book will help you create a story and the characters within. I've read other books on storyboarding, but this book should be the one to start with. Then move on to Ron Bluth's - Art of Storyboard & Wendy Tumminello's - Exploring Storyboarding

Ms. Beiman's book is exceptional; it not only discusses storyboarding, but also the entire pre-production process, from character design to art direction to using cinematic lighting and camera angles. I'm never boarding without using tonal drawings again!

I'm going to be the Teaching Assistant for the Storyboarding class at UCLA's MFA Animation Workshop in the fall, and I'm going to tell all the newbies to GET THIS BOOK!!!

This is a truly wonderful book filled with practical, concrete knowledge about how to plan for an animated production.

In the past, I have seen a few somewhat superficial treatments of similar topics, and I was initially a little bit skeptical of this book. Suffice it to say that my expectations were vastly exceeded. Storyboarding is a central part of animated movie production, and it has finally gotten a definitive treatment in book form. This book is highly entertaining, beautifully illustrated, and really packed with information.

Many readers of my own book Introducing Character Animation with Blender are interested in creating animated movies. I highly recommend that they take a look at this inspiring and informative book to ensure that they get off to a good start.

Well written and well organized, "Prepare to Board!" is a wonderful source for learning the ins' and outs of animation boarding.

Nary a step in the process is glossed over or a stone left unturned. I'm quite impressed with the book all around, and have learned a lot about the inner workings of animation.

A definite recommendation.

Nancy Beiman's book "Prepare to Board" is a must-have for animators. If you're serious about working in the industry then this book is for you.

The quick little lessons are excellent tools for practice and improving skills. This books helps to increase creativity and really gives great advice. No other animation book has achieved what "Prepare to Board" has.

Nancy Beiman knows the ins and outs of the animation world and you can tell why she's worked on so many great projects - she's the best at what she's talking about. Nancy Beiman is a professional and this book will help you along your path to a career.

If you're not lucky enough to know her and have her as a Professor (or even if you do), then it goes without saying BUY THIS BOOK!

This is a very informative book about the history of Disney's story department staff and the storyboards they created. I learned a lot. I would have liked to have seen more information about their art techniques, but the information about their careers and the vast amount of images made up for it. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on Carl Barks, which shed more light on the man behind the works I've read since I was a kid.

I have most of the 'Art of' books and, though this is a little more pricey than the others, it is worth every cent. It is refreshingly reassuring to finally have a Disney art book NOT written by a Disney staffer, but by a film academic. It was great to read about the men who worked alongside Walt and knew him for all his faults as well rather than the godhead he has become to the company. This book, while showing page after page of behind-the-scenes miniature masterpieces that went into making the classic early features, also describes the not-so-happy endings that such chemistry produced among Disney and his storymen sometimes. It also covers the latter-day storyboard masters like Chris Sanders and the Brizzi twins. I have ambitions of being a Disney storyboard artist someday and this book is perfect inspiration. More than worth it.

Too often in animation titles, the storyboard element is relegated to a minor footnote. This book presents a wonderful insight to the creative process of animation film making. Many animators and students collect resource material from feature films, and storyboard examples are rare and treasured items. As a storyboarder myself, I was in awe of the beauty and clarity of these works, many I was seeing for the first time. However, anybody with an interest in art or animation will enjoy this book. It is an amazing and definitive collection.

This book shows off the (oddly enough) unsung heros of the Disney Animation Department, the Story Artists. Like his previous book on Disney Inspirational artists, John Canemaker piles on the rarely seen outside of Disney pre-production sketches that form the basis of all to follow. GREAT reproductions--and great to see the subject and the studio treated not only with great respect, but a healthy amount of constructive criticism, too. Beautiful job. I'm waiting for a companion volume featuring unedited complete storyboards for ALL the features(!).

If the Disney American Animated Film has one stigma, is the belief that it is made for childern. Mr.Canemaker's book disproves that notion by recounting stories by those lucky few that got to meet Walt,work with him and put his "Dreams" on "Paper" before they were made a reality on film. We are privy in the world of Walt Disney and the people who put his ideas on paper only to have Walt think that they could be better than that.The book is filled with instances of Walt cursing-four letter words and all,when his Soryman ideas did not cut the mustard. Why should they since Walt "was his own best storyman." We get to meet the men that were up to par with Walt-T.Hee and Bill Peet. But these man could be considered Lucifer to Walt's Christian God-those who wish to be better than him or take his place would end in Hell, which in a sense they did. Finally, lets not forget the geniuses Walt himself dealt with-Salvador Dali and Orson Welles. If there was anyone that could top Disney himself ,it was Orson,as described by Walt Himself.

In this cute kipper book, Kipper and Tiger try to out-do the other with silly little tricks they can do. Poor pig, he can't do any of those things...BUT he can do one thing well, he can do what Kipper and Tiger could NOT do..."he could stand on his head for ages and ages". This cute little book shows that everyone has some kind of talent and everyone is special. Cute, simple and a hit for little ones. Kipper is a star in this home!!

What a wonderful surprise to see the type of swing that Kipper and Tiger will use. It is simple and lends itself to all the amazing things they will do. It is written in a very creative manner teaching us that whatever we do is special because we are special. The children in my Pre K class loved this book.

This book has everything you could want in a children's storybook. It has a plot with humour and suspense and has beautiful artwook to go with it. Moreover, it makes excellent use of English at just the right comprehension level. It provides excellent examples of sentence construction while holding interest from page to page. My daughter and I love reading this book in the evening just before bed.

If you are a novice artist approaching storyboarding for the first time, or a long-run professional, you will benefit greatly from this book.
Giuseppe's international experience and intuitions flow from this book to the reader with humor and elegance. I enjoyed very much reading this book, and my skills and knowledge of storyboarding increased. I also added an interesting point of view to my approach to film making.
I warmly reccomend this book to anybody who works in storyboarding, but also to film-makers and communication professionals.
thumbs up for Giuseppe

I am biased, as I'm the Series Editor, but every title in the series has lots of factual and conceptual background information for each topic, two sample six-week teaching schemes and teaching tips (and downloadable photocopiable worksheets and web notes from [...]) as well as 3-5 detailed case studies, full glossary and suggestions for further research.

Every writer is an experienced teacher and/or examiner and most titles (with the exception of ones with 'British' in the title) have a fairly international perspective.

More titles on the way...

I used this book to help teach a class. It has more than enough for a semester class to absorb, and all of the information is relevant, real-world and useful

All of what this book says could have been said in 5 or 6 pages. There are a few basic concepts the book covers that are worthwhile, but I found it to be heavily padded and very basic. A much better book is Profores' Film Directing Fundamentals, which comes at storyboarding and other visualization tools from a director's viewpoint, rather than an illustrator's.

I found this book an excellent read and a great tool. I write screenplays, so my characters have specific duties. This book helps me determine what the camera shots should look like (without having to direct the director, which is a big no-no in screen writing).

I found the book invaluable as it gives a great insight into the real world of storyboarding. I am a 3d previz artist trying to establish an economical previz solution to productions of smaller budgets.
I believe the traditional storyboard artist and illustrators are an integral part of the process of previz, all my 3d previz begin with boards all sketches.

I think this book is excellent for anyone wanting to tune their skills towards a professional storyboarding career.
tony
[...]

Very informative and interested. The best book I have read on storyboarding. This book is a page turner with funny, real-life experienced stories at the end of each chapter. It explained clearly, in full detail how stoyboards are done and even got into perspective and technique. I learned a lot of important information that got me thinking about filmmaking on a whole new level. I have used what is detailed in this book for my short film. I highly recommend reading it before making a film or if you are going to be doing storyboards.

I enjoyed much of the information that was given in the book. It was helpful to see the type of renderings were being done and to see how other professionals have been able to accomplish given tasks.

First of all, since my work is represented in the book, this could be seen as a biased review. It is not though. What Mark has put together for the 3rd Edition is so diverse and advanced, and in such great quantity, that a comparison to his previous book isn't really fair. Full color printing, samples of art at all stages from scribble to digital rendering, and a wide variety of artists' styles with a fair amount of work from each really make this the most comprehensive book available on the subject. There isn't an area of application I can think of that isn't addressed. I was taken aback by the size of this edition, and very pleased to see all the effort that went into it. This book has a dual focus of art technique and business that stays on message throughout, just like Mark does. It's a great book.

I've never seen a book that covers half of what this book covers on storyboards. I had no idea there was this much to doing storyboards. The new 3rd edition is also beautiful with tons of great sample art.

Plus, the information is well written and easy to understand. I've been struggling to find an easy way to color my digital boards and this book quickly showed me how.

You won't believe how big this book is. I can't believe it costs less than the last edition, and this one is in full color. I've always been interested in storyboarding, and now I feel it's something I can tackle.

This is my new bible on storyboarding.

I was impressed by the amount of information they were able to cram into this book. I don't think that there was one aspect of storyboarding that was left out. It covers the techniques, tools, and methods artistically as well as how to approach it from a business stand point. This book has an overwhelming amount of examples(most of which are full color) of storyboard panels, useable forms, and reference. The recource section is invaluable to anyone in the field. It covers literally every aspect that I had a question about. I highly recommend this book!

I thought Mark's second edition storyboard book was a great resource for every aspect of the storyboarding business, but the third edition is even more complete at 400+ pages and has hundreds of storyboard examples. The examples are instructional as well as an opportunity to appreciate really great art from numerous talented artists.

Plus in the 3rd edition there is lots of instruction on how to draw and color storyboards. No other storyboard book comes close to what this book offers.

I bought my daughter's books through Amazon, instead of the campus book store. This book was one of five. I saved 50% by doing this. I would recommend Amazon to any student buying books.

The book is written in textbook style with questions at the end of each chapter. I found it a fun read. There are a few good short interview pages from professionals working in the field. The author offers great references to other books for drawing and anatomy, as this book deals more with the how and why storyboards are used and like the title says Exploring Storyboarding.

I teach a digital video class and use parts of the book to talk about principles of composition and defining different types of shots. IT is pretty general but uses lots of visual examples to explain concepts.

I was looking for a specific "how to" storyboard book. I wanted to know the formatting rules and tips but this book is more about story telling and theory than practical application. I was looking for a book that I could quickly reference if I needed to know how to accurately storyboard something and this is just not that book.

This book teaches you important aspects about storyboarding for movies/cartoons/etc. It covers everything you can think of and gives good examples and explanations. This is good for anyone thinking about directing or storyboarding.

"Don Bluth's Art Of Storyboard" is a great "crash-course" for those interested in storyboarding. I loved the references to musical tempo as well as the commentary on the boards of past Bluth films.

The storyboards for "The Secret Of NIMH" are covered in detail, and are among the most beautifully staged boards I've seen! Bluth (and crew) used pen and grey markers to convincingly portray texture, perspective, and relatively sophisticated lighting (personally, markers and I never got along, so I can appreciate the difficulty level). Many cinematography and acting cues seen in other, more technical books are cleverly and entertainingly utilized in the storyboards of films like "NIMH", "All Dogs Go To Heaven" and "Anastasia".

Overall I'd say this is an excellent tool for beginners. It can also be a great gift for the experienced story artist who just happens to be a Don Bluth fan...

Very helpful book on stroyboarding from the master himself Don Bluth. Really enjoyable and fast read.

I think this is a decent overview of the storyboarding process. OF course each of his subjects could require a college-level class and large book to seriously cover, but I appreciate Bluth's perspective on what he views as the signficant elements of the workflow and his explanation of why they are important.