Learn from storyboard examples,
then make your own storyboard.

No. Professional storyboards are often stick figures with arrows and a scribbled note, because a board records decisions rather than being looked at. What matters is that a reader can tell how big the subject is in frame, roughly where the camera is, and what moves. A box with a stick figure labelled wide, push in, four seconds tells a crew enough. The exception is a board a client must approve, where the drawing does a selling job.

As long as the shot count, because a working storyboard has one frame per shot. A frame per story beat produces a comic rather than a plan, which is the most common beginner mistake. A sixty second commercial with twelve setups has twelve frames, and a conventionally covered dialogue scene might have eight. Add a frame when a move needs two positions drawn. Three frames for a three minute video usually means the shots have not been decided yet.

Shot size, camera notes, action, dialogue or voiceover, sound, and duration. Shot size matters because a drawing is ambiguous about it and the rhythm depends on it. Camera notes carry lens, height, and movement; action covers what happens within the shot. Dialogue and sound matter because the board is often the only document a composer or sound designer sees, and duration is what lets you time, budget, and cut against it.

No. They hold the same decisions in two forms. A storyboard shows them visually, which is better for judging composition, continuity, and rhythm, and for getting a client or crew to see the intent. A shot list is a table the crew works from on the day, sorted by location and setup. Most productions need both, and building them on the same canvas removes the transcription step where they drift apart.

No. For live action, board the sequences where deciding in advance saves money or prevents a mistake: effects, stunts, crowds, animals, children, a complicated camera move, or a location you only have for two hours. Board anything someone else has to approve. Skip ordinary dialogue coverage, which a director can decide on the day with the actors. Animation is the exception, because nothing exists until it is built and the board is the construction document.

Not yet. Storyflow is paid-only during early access, with plans from $7.99 a month billed annually ($9.99 monthly). A free plan launches before the end of 2026, and anyone a paid member invites to a board joins free. For a free first pass today, paper and a pencil work. What Storyflow adds is the whole sequence in one view, AI that lays out coverage from a script, and a link a client opens without an account.

Yes, in two separate ways. Storyflow's AI can lay out coverage: take a scene and propose the shots it needs, at what sizes and in what order, with notes, which catches what an inexperienced crew leaves out. On Pro and Max it can also generate the images inside the frames, which gives you something to react to even when it is not what you meant. It proposes and arranges; the shots stay the director's call.

When pacing has to be tested: an animatic is a storyboard timed out, with frames playing at their intended durations, usually with scratch dialogue and temporary sound. A sequence that reads well as static frames can run twenty seconds too long once it plays. Animation builds one before anything is animated, commercials use one for client sign-off with the voiceover in place, and live action uses one for sequences whose rhythm is the point.

Look for published production boards rather than polished tutorial examples. Boards from animated features show the most detailed kind. Director commentaries and behind-the-scenes material for live action films often include boards for effects and action sequences, which is where boarding actually happens. Advertising boards are easy to find and least representative, because they are drawn to sell. The most instructive comparison is a rough board beside the finished sequence.

Use photographs, generated images, or labelled empty frames. Photographs are common on small productions: shoot rough stand-ins on a phone, or pull film stills and references that show the framing you want. An AI-generated image, on Storyflow's Pro and Max plans, is a placeholder to react to. A frame with no image, carrying a shot size, a camera note, and a duration, is a functional board entry a crew can shoot from.

Yes. Send a view-only link and the client opens the whole sequence in a browser with no account and no download. A client who signs in can comment on a specific frame while the board stays read-only, so a note about the third frame lands on the third frame. For a formal approval or a production pack, export the board as a high-quality PDF, which is still what most crews want to print.