Storyboarding in 360°

create world, not frames

A difficult aspect of 360° film is project planning, as there are no established presentation tools readily available. In conventional film projects - affectionately called 'flatties' in the 360° film community - a storyboard is often created during the design stage. Each individual shot is drawn and provided with additional information on staging, movement and dialogue. The storyboard provides all the important information for the film crew, such as the lens sizes or which actor/actress should be in the shot and how. Similar to a comic strip, a chronological sequence not only describes the film's plot, but can also provide information about the film's dramaturgy or mood. The storyboard serves as an important means for communication and can be used as the latest updated working tool for the draft, the template for the shoot as well as for planning the edit of the final film.

Unlike conventional films, 360° films do not consist of shot sequences, but instead are single 360° spatial representations or a series of spaces. As a result, the traditional storyboard format cannot be adopted. The representation should include spatial aspects. But how should these spatial drawings look like?
Another difficulty is that the shot duration in 360° film is much longer than those in conventional film. A description of the activities with all the relevant additional information in one frame is not feasible. For this reason a standard design representation suitable for 360° film has not yet emerged. The question also arises as to whether the term "storyboard" can be retained or whether it would be better to speak of "worldboards" or "sphereboards". However, since the narrative, i.e. the sequence of actions in a context, is still the decisive component, the term storyboard is not entirely wrong. The following examples show different approaches which are similar to the classic storyboard methods, but these examples also address the specific conditions for 360° film.

In terms of storytelling, one strength of 360° film is that one can immerse oneself in worlds and discover different facets. The viewer can make an individual selection from various visual offers and thus find his or her own way through the film. The viewer can even become part of this virtual 'world'. For the planning, therefore, no frames or settings, but the complete 360° space has to be described in the storyboard.

From the field: In Films Inspector Crazy (SRF360, 2018), when shooting the final scene, there were various actions in the first scene that the actors and the director had to rehearse in advance. However, there was little rehearsal time available. Therefore, a suitable visualisation method had to be found to effectively communicate the scene.

In the case of «Inspector Crazy», the first attempt was to draw the entire scene from a bird's eye view, so that an action-related overview of the entire scene could be created. With the help of this representation, the movement sequences could be explained to the actors. The approaches ofAndrew Leicht and Jessica Brillhart were helpful here. However, this prototypical representation was not self-explanatory and required additional explanations.
Within the framework of the research project, possibilities for representation were sought that require less additional information. Forms that allow wide shots and several actions to be displayed in the same frame. A representation from the storyboard for a James Bond film by Syd Cain (2015) served as a reference. Cain used it to plan an action scene in which he drew the individual steps in one large frame. This allowed the stunt people, for example, to get an idea of how the scene was intended.

The combination of the two approaches finally led to the following result:

It is also possible to create several superimposed layers using the isometric template with transparent paper. In this way the director can record how the play is to be conceived, where to place the props or the techniques needed. A layer for editing can also be defined, explaining where the focus of attention should be at the beginning and end of the shot.

Filmmaker Sina Dolati has developed a variant for 360° storyboards that shows what plays in the field of view, as well as what should be below and above the camera.

Storyboarding with digital Support
As an alternative, software can also be used for storyboarding in 360°. For example, the ShotPro application. With the help of already created 3D objects and animations, scenes can be depicted quickly and efficiently. A very wide-angle camera is then placed in the scene and the camera direction is reversed (see illustration below). The camera can, of course, also assume an isometric perspective if required. Thus, one quickly obtains a spatial overview of a scene.

In principle, VR Software can also be used to create storyboards for 360° productions: for example AnimVR, Quill or Tvori.

Further Information

• Storyboarding Strategies for VR (by Sarah Redohl, 2018)

• In Free Fire, a long scene was recreated in Minecraft

• VR technologies for planning settings in the case of Ready Player One