The underappreciated art of storyboarding strikes back in Milan

A new exhibition at Fondazione Prada Osservatorio gives back dignity and relevance to an underrated art, yet essential to making cinema. “Storyboards are cinema before it exists,” storyboard artist Pablo Buratti explained to Domus.

"Cinema is an art form that brings together all the other arts," said the great French director Jean-Luc Godard. It's an obvious statement, one that we take for granted. Cinema could not exist without photography, costumes, writing, scenography, music, acting, direction, and more arts. Festivals and world-renowned prizes celebrate these disciplines—Oscars, Emmys, the David di Donatello in Italy, the César in France. But there’s one art that remains in the shadows, despite being integral to how movies are imagined: the storyboard.

“The value of the storyboard isn’t in its aesthetics, but in the narrative and technical decisions intrinsic to the shot” says Pablo Buratti, a storyboard artist whose work has worked with such directors as Pedro Almodóvar, Terry Gilliam, and Álex de la Iglesia. We meet him at Fondazione Prada Osservatorio, where the new exhibition “A Kind of Language” sheds light on the overlooked craft of storyboarding. “Take Saul Bass’ work for the shower sequence in Psycho”, Buratti explains, “every shot, every cut, the rhythm of the scene, it’s all there in the drawings. That’s pure art.”

Anujman, diretto da Muzaffar Ali, 1986. Storyboard di Muzaffar Ali, 1985. Per gentile concessione del Muzaffar Ali Museum & Archives of Film & Arts

Mapping the Invisible

Curated by Melissa Harris, “A Kind of Language” owes its title to a phrase of David Byrne, the Talking Heads frontman and eclectic artist. The exhibition explores the ways in which storyboards and other pre-production materials shape the visual and emotional grammar of cinema. “Storyboarding is about process, about collaboration,” Harris explains. “It’s something that happens behind the scenes, an in-between space where the film begins to take shape.”

Unlike screenplays or finished films, storyboards were never meant to be preserved. “They were mailed, faxed, stepped on, tossed aside,” Harris says. “Most of what we have are copies, because the originals were never considered valuable.” Finding them, reconstructing the history of this art, became an exercise in detective work. “In some cases, even the directors didn’t know where they were stored.”

Storyboards conceived by Pablo Buratti for the exhibition “A Kind of Language: Storyboards and Other Renderings for Cinema” at Osservatorio Fondazione Prada, 2024

The exhibition reveals how different filmmakers approach visualization. Wim Wenders took photographs of statues of angels with the background of Berlin’s sky before shooting its masterpiece Wings of Desire. Sofia Coppola sketched out key scenes of The Virgin Suicides herself. And Saul Bass’ boards for Psycho—forty-eight frames for a forty-five-second sequence—are a masterclass in tension.

But “A Kind of Language” also goes beyond cinema, exploring how the principles of storyboarding extend to dance, contemporary art, and animation. Matthew Barney’s mixed-media drawings for his Cremaster series, for example, serve as both storyboards and conceptual blueprints. Merce Cunningham’s choreographic notes translate movement into a visual language. Even experimental filmmakers like Jean-Luc Godard turned to collage and diagrammatic storytelling, revealing a shared impulse to structure images before they become motion.

Storyboarding is about process, about collaboration. It’s something that happens behind the scenes, an in-between space where the film begins to take shape.

Melissa Harris

Melissa Harris and Andrea Faraguna. Photo Patrick Toomey Neri

Drawing in Space

Translating storyboards into an exhibition is a challenge—otherwise, it’s just a lot of sheets of paper pinned to walls. Berlin-based architecture firm Sub’s Andrea Faraguna tackled this by designing an immersive, work-in-progress environment. Old-fashioned drawing tables, tilted at precise angles, evoke the traditional tools of the storyboard artist. Overhead, a mirrored installation reflects and multiplies the sketches, suggesting the sequential nature of a film reel. “We wanted to frame things, to highlight the precision of the hand, the moment when an idea first takes form,” says Faraguna.

Dune, directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1973-1977 (unproduced film). Storyboard by Max Douy © Institut Jean Vigo (Fonds Max et Jacques Douy)

The art behind the art

For Buratti, storyboarding wasn’t the plan. “I studied cinema. I could have been a producer, but at one point, I took a leap of faith and tried storyboarding. Now it’s what I do.” Three of his works are featured in the exhibition: Almodovar’s Julieta (2016), Gilliam’s The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2018), and the HBO series 30 Coins (2020-23). He also designed the exhibition’s key image.

Buratti was introduced to Domus by Apple and his process is a blend of old and new. “I used to work on paper, but now I use an iPad,” he says. “I shoot reference videos on my iPhone during rehearsals, AirDrop them to the iPad, and sketch directly over the frames. It makes the process faster and more accurate.” Technology, he notes, has revolutionized storyboarding. “In Hollywood, entire departments create animatics for a film before it’s even shot. In Europe, we still tend to use storyboarding for specific sequences—action scenes, CGI-heavy shots, complex logistics.”

We wanted to frame things, to highlight the precision of the hand, the moment when an idea first takes form.

Andrea Faraguna

Wings of Desire, directed by Wim Wenders, 1987 Poster drawing by Henri Alekans, 1987. Courtesy of Wim Wenders Stiftung

And what about AI? “It’s already here,” he acknowledges. “It should be a tool, a starting point, not the final result. I use AI to generate reference images when I’m stuck, but the real work—the storytelling, the framing, the decisions—that’s still human.”

Every film was born on paper

Buratti's influences range from the precise visual compositions of Saul Bass and Alex Tavoularis to the cinematic worlds of Fellini, Hitchcock, and Tati. He finds inspiration in the rich visual storytelling of Moebius and the atmospheric precision of concept artists like Alan Lee and John Howe. Though he has worked on a diverse array of films, there are projects he wishes he could have storyboarded—John Carpenter’s The Thing and Sergio Leone’s Per un Pugno di Dollari being among them.

The storyboard artist Pablo Buratti

As we wrap up, Buratti reflects on the medium itself. “People think storyboards are just sketches, but they’re not. They’re cinema before it exists. The first time a film is seen, it’s on paper”, he points out.

“A Kind of Language makes that visible”. And, finally, gives it the recognition it deserves.

Opening image: Wings of Desire, directed by Wim Wenders, 1987 Poster drawing by Henri Alekans, 1987. Courtesy of Wim Wenders Stiftung

Latest on Art

Latest on Domus

Read more
China Germany India Mexico, Central America and Caribbean Sri Lanka Korea icon-camera close icon-comments icon-down-sm icon-download icon-facebook icon-heart icon-heart icon-next-sm icon-next icon-pinterest icon-play icon-plus icon-prev-sm icon-prev Search icon-twitter icon-views icon-instagram