Storyboard Exercises Inspired by Henry Walsh’s ‘Imaginary Lives of Strangers’

Stop wasting shoot days on flat background action — learn to paint the life behind the frame

If your storyboards feel empty the moment the actor turns away from the camera, or your animatics can’t sell a shot because the background looks like set dressing, you’re not alone. Creating believable, extra-diegetic character backstory and background action is one of the fastest ways to deepen scenes and speed production — yet it’s a skill many creators skip. Inspired by Henry Walsh’s dense figurative canvases in Imaginary Lives of Strangers, this guide gives you practical storyboard exercises, prompts, and a four-week community challenge to turn backgrounds into storytelling engines.

The 2026 framing: why background action matters now

In late 2025 and early 2026, production workflows kept accelerating: remote shoots, cloud-based animatics, and AI-assisted asset generation shifted the bottleneck from tech to story. Directors expect storyboards to communicate not only shot-by-shot continuity but also the invisible lives that make a location feel lived-in on screen. Background characters — when thoughtfully designed and staged — supply micro-conflicts, motifs, and emotional texture that elevate every department, from art to VFX.

Extra-diegetic backstory is everything that exists around a filmed action but is not said out loud — gestures, routines, objects, and glances that imply history. Henry Walsh’s figures behave like people with unseen pasts; that’s what you want your backgrounds to do.

How to read Henry Walsh for storyboard practice

Walsh’s canvases are rich training material for storyboarders because they compress social complexity into a single frame: overlapping figures, domestic paraphernalia, multiple gazes, and ambiguous relationships. When you study his work, focus on three things:

• Density of detail: which items or gestures anchor a figure’s implied history?
• Gaze and relational lines: who looks at whom, who avoids eye contact, and what that implies?
• Foreground/midground/background choreography: how space separates or connects characters.

Core concept: design extra-diegetic beats

Think of extra-diegetic beats as invisible edits that happen off-camera but affect what we see. Plan them the same way you plan on-camera beats: name them, time them, and decide how they influence the visible action.

1. Name the beat: e.g., “Old man in plaid unwraps a parcel.”
2. Purpose: what does this beat reveal? (mood, contrast, foreshadowing)
3. Trigger: what starts it? (a line, a sound, an eye contact)
4. Camera relationship: is it revealed, implied, or cut away from?

10 storyboard prompts inspired by Henry Walsh’s Imaginary Lives of Strangers

Below are prompts designed to be used as single-frame studies, 8-panel thumbnails, or full animatics. Each prompt includes a quick exercise and blocking/composition suggestions.

1. The Waiting Room (Prompt)

Dense chairs, a coffee machine, three strangers: one reading a letter, one on their phone, one staring at the ceiling.

• Exercise: Create a 6-panel sequence where the letter-reader’s thumb reveals a line that changes the phone-user’s expression off-screen.
• Composition tip: Use foreground chairs to frame the letter-reader; place the phone-user slightly out-of-focus midground to suggest distance.

2. Seaside Boardwalk (Prompt)

Couples and lone figures, seagulls, a vendor packing up. One background vendor hides an object in their coat.

• Exercise: Storyboard the reveal of the hidden object through three background cuts that gradually bring it to camera.
• Camera: Start wide, then push in with a slow rack focus to the vendor’s hands.

3. Apartment Dinner (Prompt)

Two people eating, a neighbor visible in a window across the street, a framed photo glimpsed on the mantel.

• Exercise: Build an animatic showing a half-second reaction shot to the neighbor lighting a cigarette — the couple’s conversation changes tone.
• Staging tip: Use overlapping silhouettes through the window to create layered relationships.

4. Laundromat Ephemera (Prompt)

Coins, lint, a lost child’s toy. A background character folds a shirt methodically, hiding tremor in their hands.

• Exercise: Animate a 10-second loop of the folding rhythm, then cut to a close-up of the tremor expressed via the toy vibrating on a dryer.
• Editorial: Short repetitive beats in background can establish tempo for the scene.

5. Bus Stop Trade (Prompt)

Crowded stop; an exchange happens between two unseen individuals behind a panel, witnessed by an amused teenager.

• Exercise: Produce a 4-panel storyboard where the teenager’s smirk becomes key evidence later.
• Shot choices: Cutaways and insert shots emphasize what’s intentionally hidden.

6. The Barber Shop (Prompt)

Mirrors, multiple reflections, magazines on a table. One reflected figure adjusts their watch nervously.

• Exercise: Use mirrored compositions to stage parallel actions that the protagonist misses but the audience sees.
• Composition tip: Mirrors are perfect tools for extra-diegetic reveals without breaking the frame.

7. Night Bus — Silent Exchange (Prompt)

Two strangers sit opposite. A phrase scrawled on a matchbook acts like a prop-pulse across the sequence.

• Exercise: Design a 6-shot chronology where the matchbook moves from hand to hand, altering the perceived relationship.
• Animatic note: Use sound design cues (engine hum, brakes) to time subtle eyes and head turns.

8. Market Stall — Echoed Gesture (Prompt)

A woman waves to a child; another vendor wipes a tear. The gesture echoes later in a different space.

• Exercise: Create two parallel boards showing the same gesture in different contexts; use them as motif transitions.
• Visual storytelling: Motifs lend scenes emotional continuity without dialgoue.

9. Shared Stairwell (Prompt)

Posters on the wall, a broom propped up, a man pacing on the landing. The beat: footsteps that stop when a door opens.

• Exercise: Map the sound and sightlines across three floors; show how off-stage footsteps influence on-stage tension.
• Blocking tip: Use negative space to suggest eavesdropping.

10. Café Window — A Life in the Window Seat (Prompt)

Single table, many visitors; a background regular writes in a notebook, slowly building a portrait across several panels.

• Exercise: Create a 12-frame micro-arc for the regular; finish with an insert of a line that reframes the main action.
• Directing note: Small repeated actions can carry narrative weight when positioned correctly.

From prompt to production: a reproducible method

Turn these prompts into production-ready boards with a four-step, 60–90 minute workflow you can repeat during prep.

1. Scan: Look for the single strange detail in the scene (a cup, a limp poster, a scuffed shoe). Make it your anchor.
2. Name: Write a one-line extra-diegetic beat that explains that detail.
   • Example: "The cup is always empty because the owner gave it away last week."
3. Sketch thumbnails: 6–8 panels. Block foreground, midground, background. Place the anchor in different planes.
4. Annotate: Add timing, sound cues, and a one-sentence production note for set dressing or VFX needs.

Composition and staging cheat-sheet

• Foreground interest: Always include at least one foreground element to create depth.
• Overlapping silhouettes: Use them to suggest relationships — who dominates the space?
• Leading lines: Doors, counters, and railings guide the eye to hidden action.
• Color pops: A single saturated object can draw attention to off-camera beats.
• Silent sound cues: Sketch a thumbnail for the diegetic sound that will trigger off-screen events.

Sample 8-panel board: "The Tea Room Exchange"

Below is a simple shot-by-shot description you can paste into your storyboard frames.

1. Wide: Interior tea room. Two main characters at center table. Background: elderly woman reading a folded note.
2. Medium: Close on main pair’s conversation. Foreground: waiter’s arm carrying teapot — the teapot looks battered.
3. Cutaway: Elderly woman’s hands — she slides a photo into the book, thumb resting on an address.
4. Insert: Photo in her hand (close) — a younger version of one main character. The audience sees the connection.
5. Reaction: Main character glances toward window, a beat of recognition. No line yet.
6. Over-the-shoulder: View past main characters to the elderly woman folding the note into a paper plane.
7. Action: Paper plane sails across the room, landing at the main character’s napkin. Silent beat — the waiter looks away.
8. Close: Main character unfolds the note; the camera doesn’t read it. The expression tells the story — we’ve got motive.

Production notes: collaboration & modern tools (2026)

New tools in 2026 help you prototype these background actions faster, but human judgement is still essential.

• Generative asset assistance: Use multimodal AI to quickly iterate background characters and props. Treat AI outputs as starting points, and retouch them for accuracy and representation.
• Cloud animatics: Real-time rendering in the cloud lets directors and ADs review extra-diegetic beats at full sequence speed without local VFX builds.
• Live collaborative boards: Shared whiteboards let art directors drop notes (e.g., "make the sweater older") directly on thumbnails — conserve version history for continuity.
• Ethics & rights: In 2026 you must vet AI-generated assets for licensing and bias; document your source policy in the production dossier.
• Studio tools & pipelines: Connect your background characters and props design to robust asset pipelines so edits and color management stay consistent across departments.

Four-week community challenge: "Imaginary Lives of Strangers" (template)

Run this challenge in your creator community to build skills, assets, and a showreelable animatic.

1. Week 1 — Research & Thumbnailing: Pick a Walsh-inspired prompt. Produce 12 thumbnails and a one-line extra-diegetic beat for each.
2. Week 2 — Boarding: Expand your strongest thumbnail into an 8–12 panel storyboard with annotations and timing marks.
3. Week 3 — Animatic: Produce a 30–60 second animatic using rough motion and temp sound. Focus on how background beats shift the scene’s rhythm.
4. Week 4 — Feedback & Iteration: Submit for peer critique. Iterate based on 3 focused notes (composition, timing, clarity of extra-diegetic beat).

Judging criteria: clarity of off-screen beats, integration with main action, usefulness for production, and originality of background character design.

Case study: how a single background beat saved a scene

On a short commercial in late 2025, the creative team struggled with a line reading that felt unmotivated. Aboarded background — a poster in the office that repeatedly showed the product’s prototype — became the rationale for the line. The director moved a single board to reveal the poster at a key moment and the ad’s emotional logic locked. The extra-diegetic detail cut two reshoots and clarified the edit. That’s measurable return on craft.

Common pitfalls and how to avoid them

• Overclutter: Don’t try to explain everything with background action. Pick one strong beat per scene.
• Obviousness: Background beats should hint, not state. Let the audience do the work.
• Timing mismatch: Sync off-camera beats to camera moves and sound. Mark them clearly in the animatic.
• Unclear stakes: If a background character doesn’t change or influence the main action, simplify or remove them.

Advanced strategies for directors and showrunners

If you’re leading a creative team, institutionalize extra-diegetic design:

• Create a "background bible" with character notes and repeated motifs across episodes.
• Require a single extra-diegetic beat in every scene outline during the scripting stage.
• Use rehearsal to discover unconscious background chemistry before locking blocking.

Final takeaways

Henry Walsh’s work teaches us that every figure in a frame carries a life outside the frame. Translating that density into storyboards requires intention: name the beat, stage it, and show how it affects the on-camera action. In 2026 the tools make iteration fast — your discipline makes iteration meaningful.

Call to action

Ready to apply these prompts? Join the storyboard.top "Imaginary Lives" community challenge. Download the prompt pack, post your Week 1 thumbnails, and get peer feedback. Submit your final animatic for a chance to be featured in our 2026 showreel and win a mentorship review from a pro storyboard artist.

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