ART 234 Storyboarding - Final Project Highlight

University of Advancing Technology's (UAT) Storyboarding class is described in the UAT Course Catalog as a course that unveils the art of visual storytelling. Storyboarding is an important skill for beginning directors to develop, to pre-visualize shots and sets. It is also a critical skill in creating animation sequences and is important to the multimedia developer in planning the needs of a project. Students apply storyboarding techniques to scripts by accurately showing camera angles, placement of the actors, etc. Emphasis is placed on accuracy and presentation.

Storyboarding is a foundational course in four of the degrees UAT offers, including Advertising Art, Digital Video, Game Art & Animation and Human Computer Interaction, but any student can enroll in this class as an elective.

In the Fall 2024 Semester, students spent the entire course building their skills while building their final projects. They wrote scripts, created story panels, and turned them into videos with music, text, sounds, and speech. The final project description required students to create a series of rough sketches representing each key moment in their script. They collect their digitally created storyboard panels and assemble them into video format that emphasizes timing, camera movements, transitions, and audio.

This most recent class was so successful Professor Jorge Portillo stated "I’ve been teaching this course for over a decade and when I saw the number of students enrolled, I was a bit concerned. I prefer having a smaller class where I can provide one-on-one instruction and feedback. Students took the lead by motivating each other, applying feedback during class critiques, and pushing each other to the finish line. I was impressed by their hard work and confirmed why creative freedom rules! This was one of the best, if not the best storyboarding classes I have ever taught. My students are Jedi Masters!"

Below you can see their creative works come to life.