I’ve been storyboarding and illustrating for quite a while. I started in London, did a few years in Hong Kong, then freelanced all over Los Angeles while also working remotely for clients in NY and elsewhere.
Storyboard-wise it’s been mostly tv commercial work for ad agencies and commercial directors, but also music videos, tv show episodes (action and fx scenes mostly), movies etc.
I’ve sat with more directors than I can remember (in person or virtually). Usually I do quick thumbnails of the shots in their head, or listen to them describe scenes and make very abbreviated notes for myself, and move on to the next scene, and rough them out while they go off and deal with other things. Once they’re happy with the roughs, if there’s time I re-work to a higher finish as well.
But in a time crunch, if thumbnails are legible enough to share with the crew, they can get the job done just fine.
I’ve also worked directly from scripts with little to no input to give directors a springboard to start from.
For some, they have to see something before they know where they want to go. Everyone is different, which makes doing it interesting and fun.