Storyboards...What's the benefit?

[ABZ18]

Hi all,

I've done storyboards for an indie in the past and I have a few screenplays of my own now. I'm unrep'd and with no writing prod credits to speak of. What benefit would it have for me to work up one of my scripts into a storyboard?

The reason I ask is because I've been seeing an increasing amount of storyboard and comic books services offering to turn your script into one format or the other. The truth I can't see a benefit for it (especially not in my case). Am I wrong. Any comments?

Thanks ABZ18

[Deus Ex Machine]

Some writers like to use story boards when they pitch. Most directors like to use them when they are working out the shots.

I personally think they are a waste of time and money for a writer.

When I direct I do story board the shots which makes communicating my intentions to the cast and crew much easier.

[Fortean]

The director, rather than the screenwriter, benefits most by using storyboards.

For example, the screenwriter may write:
INT. MARY IN SHOWER

Over the bar on which hangs the shower curtain, we can see
the bathroom door, not entirely closed. For a moment we watch
Mary as she washes and soaps herself.

There is still a small worry in her eyes, but generally she
looks somewhat relieved.

Now we see the bathroom door being pushed slowly open.

The noise of the shower drowns out any sound. The door is
then slowly and carefully closed.

And we see the shadow of a woman fall across the shower
curtain. Mary's back is turned to the curtain. The white
brightness of the bathroom is almost blinding.

Suddenly we see the hand reach up, grasp the shower curtain,
rip it aside.

CUT TO:

MARY - ECU

As she turns in response to the feel and SOUND of the shower
curtain being torn aside. A look of pure horror erupts in
her face. A low terrible groan begins to rise up out of her
throat. A hand comes into the shot. The hand holds an enormous
bread knife. The flint of the blade shatters the screen to
an almost total, silver blankness.

THE SLASHING

An impression of a knife slashing, as if tearing at the very
screen, ripping the film. Over it the brief gulps of
screaming. And then silence. And then the dreadful thump as
Mary's body falls in the tub.

REVERSE ANGLE

The blank whiteness, the blur of the shower water, the hand
pulling the shower curtain back. We catch one flicker of a
glimpse of the murderer. A woman, her face contorted with
madness, her head wild with hair, as if she were wearing a
fright-wig. And then we see only the curtain, closed across
the tub, and hear the rush of the shower water. Above the
shower-bar we see the bathroom door open again and after a
moment we HEAR the SOUND of the front door slamming.

CUT TO:

THE DEAD BODY

Lying half in, half out of the tub, the head tumbled over,
touching the floor, the hair wet, one eye wide open as if
popped, one arm lying limp and wet along the tile floor.

Coming down the side of the tub, running thick and dark along
the porcelain, we see many small threads of blood. CAMERA
FOLLOWS away from the body, travels slowly across the
bathroom, past the toilet, out into the bedroom. As CAMERA
approaches the bed, we see the folded newspaper as Mary placed
it on the bedside table.
The director may decide to shoot and edit it differently.
"The film was storyboarded; camera angles were mapped out, as well as the movement of the camera, which is why some actors sometimes had difficulty with that because Hitchcock's camera was absolute. People in a Hitchcock movie move in a precise way. They hold their heads in a certain way, their shoulders in a certain way." ~ Jeffrey K. Howard and Dave Neil (http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/departments/04_28_99/film_psycho.html)

[Queen Uhuru]

The only benefit for storyboarding that I've found is to help me as I write to visualize or block something out. I would do it myself and only for my own eyes, for my benefit alone.

I think a new writer trying to get representation for their first spec script would be making a mistake to present storyboards along with the script - it sort of implies the writer has a "vision" for how the movie should look and that's the director's job. Plus, a reader will want to be unfettered by too much control when it comes to visual matters, being allowed to let their own imagination go to work as they read.

It would be a different matter if you were coming on board not only as the writer but also in some other capacity that involved sculpting the look of the film.