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Mood Boards

Mood boards are used in fashion, photography, film, game design and much more. They help sell a design and aestetic that will flow throughout your design, letting your team understand the vision you are going for. Use mood boards in any way you find helpful. You might want to mood board every scene (where there is a distinct difference), or create separate ones for costuming, lighting, set design, etc.

StudioBinder's guide to movie mood boards: https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/how-to-make-a-film-mood-board/ 

How to make a film moodboard in 10 easy steps

A moodboard is the perfect way to explore the visual style you want for your film. It's also a fantastic reference for your team—from the director to the costume designer—it helps everyone visualize the end result.

Moodboards have come a long way since the days of attaching printouts to physical boards or creating static PDFs. Online moodboards can include video, images, links and color—unlocking a whole new world of creative possibilities.

In this guide, you'll learn the modern approach to creating a film moodboard using Milanote. Remember, the creative process is non-linear, so you may find yourself moving back and forth between the steps as you go.

1. Decide on the purpose of your moodboard

Moodboards can help you visualize any aspect of your film. You might want to focus on how the lighting or color could look. Or they could be centred around the set designs or the costumes you want to use. You can create a moodboard for each of these separately or mix them all into one board. There are no strict rules.

Remember, a moodboard is all about exploration, so don't get too attached to a particular direction. The process of creating a moodboard will help you refine your ideas and inspire new ones.

2. Collect existing material

Now that you've established the purpose of your moodboard, add any existing material you have—this could include stills from previous shoots, client references or images you've saved as inspiration. These might not make it into the final moodboard, but they're still a great place to start.

3. Add inspiring imagery

The imagery you bring into your moodboard is what helps you express the look and feel of your film. Images can define things like tone, cropping, lighting and color.

You can start by saving visual references from around the web. There are lots of fantastic sites where you can find great visual inspiration for free, like Film Grab, Instagram or Pinterest. Don't worry about organizing the images just yet, that step will come later.

Here are a few types of images you can include in your film moodboard:

• Film stills: Images from other films that capture the mood and aesthetic

• Concept art: Illustrations of key scenes, characters, or settings

• Location photos: Pictures of potential filming locations

• Character portraits: Pictures of actors or models portraying characters in the film

• Costume designs: Images showing the style and look of the characters' clothing

• Architecture & interiors: Photos of buildings and spaces that fit the film's setting

• Nature & landscapes: Pictures of landscapes, forests, beaches, etc.

• Props & objects: Significant props or objects that play a crucial role in the film

• Artwork & photography: Inspirational artwork that evokes the desired mood

• Lighting references: Photos that demonstrate the lighting style and mood you want

4. Add examples of motion & sound

With an online moodboard you can embed inspiring examples of movement, animation and sound. This is a great way to communicate the feel of a scene or collect sound references without having to record anything yourself.

Youtube and Vimeo are obvious places to start, but try Shotdeck to browse a massive collection of high quality scenes from over 1000 films.

5. Add color swatches

Color can be a great way to express a particular feel, personality or energy. As painter Johannes Itten said, “Color is life.”

Tools like Kuler can be a great starting point for finding colors that work well together. Another trick is to pick colors directly from the images and photos you've added to the board.

6. Transform your board from messy to organized

Once you have all your inspiration in one place, the next step is to arrange your ideas to create the perfect composition. Start by exploring composition and introducing hierarchy. Place a key element to anchor your board, and change the size and position of the remaining elements to indicate their importance and relationships to one another.

7. Remain open to inspiration, wherever you are

You never know where or when you'll find inspiration—it could strike you at 2am, or as you're strolling the isles of the grocery store. So make sure you have an easy way to capture new ideas on the go.

As creative director Grace Coddington said, "Always keep your eyes open. Keep watching. Because whatever you see can inspire you."

8. Explain your thinking

If you’re sharing your moodboard with a director or your team, it’s important to include some written notes about your thought process. This will help keep everyone on the same page. You might want explain how you'll use lighting or props to bring a scene to life. Or share your plans for technical aspects like focus, cropping and equipment.

9. Collaborate and build on your ideas

It always helps to bounce ideas off other people. As writer Louisa May Alcott said, "It takes two flints to make a fire." A digital moodboard is especially useful for this step as you can easily connect and collaborate online. Bringing everyone onto the same page (figuratively and literally!) in real-time allows you to collaborate on concepts, ensuring a consistent look and feel for your film.

10. Ask for feedback

With any creative technique or project, it’s important to be open to constructive criticism. Now that the first version of your moodboard is done it's time to ask for specific feedback on color, tone, mood, or framing. Make sure you stay open to suggestions and improvements and try not to take criticism personally.

Previsualization (previs)

This is a more modern technique where specialised software can be used to enable the director to see the set and plan the positioning of cameras around this virtual set. The benefits of this are that it's dynamic; it allows the heads of department to interact with the plan more visually than a storyboard (even though this substitutes for a storyboard).  It can even allow directors to visualise any VFX as part of the creative process. It isn't a cheap or quick process, but bigger budget films, as well as an increasing indie crowd, are starting to realise the benefits as the cost of the software comes down.

Screenskills article on Previs: https://www.screenskills.com/job-profiles/browse/visual-effects-vfx/pre-production/previsualisation-previs-artist/ 

Story Boards

This section will make more sense if you have already studied the concept of a shot, and the shot types, such as close-up, wide-angled, etc. 

Filmmaking is a complex process that involves various stages and meticulous planning. Among the important aspects of filmmaking is the pre-production stage, where planning and organization are done before the actual filming. One of the critical tasks in pre-production is creating a plan for the shots that will be taken. Filmmakers use either shot lists, storyboards or both to plan the visuals of their film. In this blog, we will explore the differences between a shot list vs storyboard and help you determine which is better for your next film project.

Storyboards act as a visual prompt to the action in each shot. They are mostly used in film, animation, comic books and computer games (for pre-cut sequences, etc).

What Is a Storyboard?

A storyboard is a visual outline of a film (be it a short film or feature film) or animation. It’s an important part of the preproduction process and consists of a series of images that show everything that’s going to happen in your finished piece.

Many storyboards are hand-drawn, but some creators or animators choose to use storyboarding software. The finished result resembles a comic book or a graphic novel.

Why Is Storyboarding Important?

If you’re working with a script, you already know the flow of your project. The key is to translate that flow and new ideas from word form to image form. Each image on your storyboard needs to include enough information that someone who has never read your script can look at it and know what’s going on. But it shouldn’t contain too much information, as that will crowd out the relevant details.

Think of the storyboard as the graphic novelization of your script, where each panel represents a new camera angle or a key moment in the action.

The aim of the storyboarding process is twofold: to ensure that you get all the coverage you need on set to craft a coherent and exciting story in the editing room, and to do so in an economical way, so as to avoid spending time filming unnecessary shots or lose money in video production or special effects.

Good storyboards can be supremely useful when directing big action sequences. Drawing out your shot list can be an organizing principle in the cacophony of producing complicated shoots. Storyboards become a precise map of what’s almost certain to be a hectic shoot day. You want to get this right.

How to Make a Storyboard in 4 Easy Steps

Follow these steps to create your first storyboard.

1. Make a shot list. Take a scene from your script and make a shot list. How can particular camera angles tell the story, or make a moment more impactful? What can you reveal about your characters and the story via camera angles? Draw a rough sketch of your shot list.

2. Sketch it out. Whether you’re working on a feature film or a short animation, choose one of the more complex sequences, and scope out a vision for the scene. List all of the shots that you anticipate needing as raw material, and then sketch them out in the squares of your storyboard, like a comic strip. If you’re not much of an artist, it’s fine to use basic shapes and stick figures on a piece of paper. But if you’re not getting the effect you want, you can work with a storyboard artist to make changes or map out a proposed sequence. If you need help finding an experienced and qualified artist, consider starting your search on Jorgen’s List, Upwork, or the public Facebook group “Frame Dump.”

3. Fill in details. Your storyboard has to contain the most important elements of each scene. But while it’s a static image, the end result will be a moving video or animation that follows the entire storyline. With that in mind, be sure to indicate motion in your storyboard. For example, you can indicate the direction a person is walking with arrows. You’ll also want to include any props that will be present in the final product, as well as the camera angles and framing of each shot. A good rule of thumb is to include a general outline of all of the relevant details of each shot, without going too deep into distracting details.

4. Add words. Once you’ve created the images, it might help to add additional words at the bottom of the images to give more context about what’s going on. This is a great place in the storyboard process to include anything that can’t be expressed in your simple drawings, like any voice over you plan to include.

Storyboard examples

Shot List

A shot list is a detailed list that outlines all the shots that will be filmed during production. It is usually created by the director, cinematographer, or assistant director in the pre-production stage to ensure a smooth filming process. The shot list often includes information about camera angles, movement, lenses, lighting, and more.

The primary purpose of a shot list is to breakdown the script into individual shots or visual components. The list can help the director coordinate and communicate with the cinematographer, camera operator, and other crew members about the required shots. Additionally, shot lists can be used as a reference during filming to ensure all required shots are captured before moving on to the next scene.

With so many moving parts, having a concrete document stating which shots demand what equipment, and how long shot setups will take, determine so much of the schedule and budget. 

How to make a shot list in StudioBinder 

Storyboard vs. shot list

These are two very similar concepts but aimed at different people.

• A storyboard is aimed at your key creative people, such as the production designer. It shoes your vision for each shot

• The shot list is a technical description of each shot, as part of a scene. A well-drafted storyboard can be used as a shot list if it shows the order in which each shot will be filmed (ordered by day and by camera setup). Studiobinder can create a shot list from your storyboard.

• Storyboards do NOT need shot numbers, but some people do like to use them to more easily link to a shot list.

• Storyboards should have some reference to dialogue, so you can easily follow which part of the script it belongs to