Why is Storyboarding important?

A Storyboard is vital to allow the director to visualise the flow of camera shots through means of a graphical representation using captions to describe the basic details. It is as a planning tool to give the directors a clear understanding of what shots they need to shoot on the day, we have used this as a key element in our planning of our music video for example inside the club we sketched out the shots we wanted, a mid two shot, and drew them into the set which was further explained in the details. This allowed us to have a clear pictorial guide on what our shot would look like and how it would relate to the other shots in a rough sketch. The Storyboard then allowed us to discuss with regards to how the video would be directed and the direction of photography within the video. This is a vital tool in the music video process, particularly for the shots that we plan on editing back into through use of a green screen or special effects so that we know exactly what shot we need from the day of shooting to edit into to get the end shot we want.
Storyboards are used in each element of production. In Pre-Production storyboards are used to plan the feel and overall mood of the video by planning out the costumes and set and seeing how all the elements of each shot works without the added details of lighting, camera movement and action yet.
During Production copies of the storyboards are handed out to every member of the crew so that everyone has the same idea of what shots need to be created on the shoot day.

In Post Production the storybaord is used as a visual reminder of what shots were filmed and in what order, it is particularly important in the editing of videos that use special effects.