Best Professional Workflow for Storyboarding?

Question

Hi, I'm new to FCP: after drawing storyboards in Photoshop...
Would it be best to import each Photoshop file into Motion, to animate pans and zooms and such, then, import into FCP the entire storyboard segment created in Motion as one layer?
Then combine the next storyboard segment/scene imported from Motion as another layer...and so on?
Or should each scene/storyboard segment be a separate clip but placed in the same layer as other storyboard segments?
Is the Photoshop > Motion > FCP workflow most common?
Thanks

Answer 1

That's what I'm here for, generating interesting takes.
rarely provide enhancements. Unless the operators are capable of realizing the potential of advanced technologies they just get in the way. As an example, replicators in Motion are so obtuse they don't really exist for me. How many of you can use the table of contents and footnoting features of Word? Or would use the drawing functions in Word to produce the elements for a storyboard project?
The original post was about workflow, not opinions about creation of the elements. I must apologize for the distraction.
Would it be best to import each Photoshop file into Motion, to animate pans and zooms and such,
then, import into FCP the entire storyboard segment created in Motion as one layer?
Probably not. But this depends on your need for editing the storyboards.
I don't think your "storyboards" require Motion although they may need motion tab effects in FCP. If you are doing more advanced animatics that includes simulating effects and parallax in camera moves, then, yes, you want to work up your layers in Motion. Then you get into the fact that your production must have a (usually overly complex) naming convention to keep track of the massive changes enabled in electronic editing. Storyboarding, as opposed to animatics, is traditionally fairly static. One reason the portmanteau contains "board" is the individual drawings were pinned to a bulletin board and could be easily shuffled around. But there is no movement.
Or should each scene/storyboard segment be a separate clip but placed in the same layer as other
storyboard segments?
If you are carrying the historical storyboard paradigm into the present, you want each of your storyboard scenes available as separate clips, fully rendered media, carefully identified with superimposed text. This is unbelievably useful when things start to change.
Let's say your scene consists of five shots and the shots have been created by a combination of twenty or more individual, but reusable, clipart elements. You compose each shot in Motion by carefully layering the diverse foreground and background elements, moving them, lighting them, and simulating focus, framing, and camera movement. You have carefully named each of the shots according to the script you were handed. Your director decides to alter the sequence and to add two new shots. Now, how do you reconcile your clip names with the new order of the shots?
That's why naming conventions are necessary. They're not supposed to indicate the order in which they appear in the finished product, they merely uniquely identify each clip.
bogiesan