Students who are concerned about not meeting the prerequisites for this course are encouraged to contact the course coordinator before registering.
Overview
COMP 230: Storyboard Design and Development introduces you to professional storytelling and storyboarding techniques, particularly for live action and animation sequences. It guides you through steps involved in storytelling, leading you to techniques of drawing and other media for motion and emotion. It then discusses specific aspects of directing a storyboard such as visual clarity, depth, semiotics, semantics, and dramatic irony.
The overall goal of this course is to guide you through the textbook, engage you to study individual storyboarding elements, enable you to practice these elements in the right context. There are assignments and a project to test your progress and storyboarding competence. There is no final exam since your learning experience cannot be measured in a 3-hour written exam.
Storyboards typically result in pictures. You could use a paper and draw on it, or you could use a software such as SketchUp. You are also welcome to use any other software of your choice. We also encourage you to use freeware such as Celtx to prepare your scripts.
Outline
Week 1: Chapter 1. The Goal: Why Do We Watch?
Week 2: Chapter 2. Common Beginner Problems
Week 3: Chapter 3. The Beginning Basics
Week 4: Chapter 4. How to Draw for Storyboarding: motion and emotion
Week 5: Chapter 5. Structural Approach: tactics to reach the goal
Week 6: Chapter 6. What Do Directors Direct?
Week 7: Chapter 7. How to Direct the Eyes
Week 8: Chapter 8. Directing the Eyes Deeper in Space and Time
Week 9 Chapter 9. How to Make Images Speak: the hidden power of images
Week 10: Chapter 10. How to Convey and Suggest Meaning
Week 11: Chapter 11. Dramatic Irony
Week 12: Chapter 12. The Big Picture: Story Structures
Week 13: Chapter 13. Aiming for the Heart
Week 14: Chapters 14, 15, and 16
Week 15: Project Preparation
Week 16: Project Presentation
Learning outcomes
Upon completion of COMP 230, you should have a deep understanding of storyboarding and storytelling concepts, methods, practices, and strategies, as well as the ability to create storyboards using powerful storytelling ideas. More specifically, you should be able to:
disseminate the events of the story
define the threshold of awareness in the story
create the structural level of the story for clarity and dramatic presentation
guide the audience’s attention to narrative questions and metaphors that drive the story forward
direct the viewer's eyes and ears with composition and perspective
signify meaning and associations through semiotics
construct meaning with respect to continuity and causality
evoke emotional response and measure it using thematic analysis
evolve and sustain the story using storytelling ideas enacted through software
Objectives
The objective of this course is to provide undergraduate students with the comprehensive, hands-on, and in-depth knowledge of Storyboarding and Storytelling concepts, methods, practices, and strategies using a learning-by-doing approach to learning.
Evaluation
To receive credit for COMP 230, you must achieve a course composite grade of at least D (50 percent) and a grade of at least 50 percent on each assignment and 50 percent on the final project. The weighting of the composite grade is as follows:
Activity
Weight
Assignment 1
5%
Assignment 2
5%
Assignment 3
5%
Assignment 4
10%
Assignment 5
10%
Assignment 6
10%
Assignment 7
5%
Assignment 8
5%
Assignment 9
5%
Assignment 10
5%
Project
35%
Total
100%
To learn more about assignments and examinations, please refer to Athabasca University's online Calendar.
Materials
Glebas, F. (2012). Directing the Story: Professional Storytelling and Storyboarding Techniques for Live Action and Animation. Routledge. (eBook)
Other Materials
SketchUp – a free 3D modeling program for storyboarding
Celtx – a free scripting program for storyboarding
Special Course Features
CIS courses at Athabasca University require that students use computer mediated communications. We expect students to have access to computer equipment with certain requirements.
The course work in COMP 230 requires students to have a storyboarding software and a storyboarding scripting program installed in their computer.
Special Instructional Features
Delivery of COMP 230 (contacting the tutor, submitting assignments) is dependent on computer mediated communications. Students are required to have access to the World Wide Web.
Challenge for credit
Overview
The Challenge for credit process allows you to demonstrate that you have acquired a command of the general subject matter, knowledge, intellectual and/or other skills that would normally be found in a university-level course.
Full information about Challenge for credit can be found in the Undergraduate Calendar.
Evaluation
To receive credit for the COMP 230 challenge registration, you must achieve a grade of at least D (50 percent) on the examination.
Athabasca University reserves the right to amend course outlines occasionally and without notice. Courses offered by other delivery methods may vary from their individualized study counterparts.
Opened in Revision 1, May 30, 2014
Updated July 15, 2021, by Student & Academic Services