Storyboarding: A Critical History

This study provides the first book-length critical history of storyboarding. With roots in pre-cinematic experiments in the moving image, the form rapidly developed alongside animation, culminating in Disney's feature-length Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. William Cameron Menzies similarly advanced the use of storyboarding for live-action cinema, although it was just one of his methods of production design for Gone with the Wind, often mistakenly described as a completely storyboarded film. Equally controversial is Alfred Hitchcock's use of storyboards, as for the notoriously problematic shower scene in Psycho. The form came to greater attention in the late 1970s in the 'cinema of effects' of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas; and with the emergence of today's new digital technologies, storyboarding has never been more prominent. This book examines all of these developments and more, drawing on archival research and illustrated with images from the beginnings of cinema to the present day.