Blank Storyboard Template

Step 1

1. Ready your template

Before all the fun of bringing your narrative vision to life can begin, you’ll have to tailor your blank storyboard template to all your narrative needs. Once you start up a new storyboard project in StudioBinder, you’ll be taken through some basic customization setup prompts, which can also be readjusted at any time throughout the process. Afterwards, your free blank storyboard template will look something like this:

The settings bar is where you can customize the field bars below each of your blank panels. After you’ve determined the optimal amount of space required for your description fields, just click and write in all important information below each frame.

Step 2

2. Add images

Adding images to blank storyboards is where you get to really let your creative imagination run wild. At this point, you’ve determined the basic idea of what you want your images to showcase, so now comes the fun of giving life to those images.

Whether you’re using your own hand drawn or digital storyboard sketches, or even pulling reference images from the internet, all you have to do to include images in your free blank storyboard template is click the upload button on any empty frame.

Of course, filling your storyboard with images means your narrative structure is going to really start revealing itself. Since you’re likely building your storyboard with a collaborative team, you’ll want to get their take on your progress. Initiate a conversation over the strengths and weaknesses of your visual sequence through the comments tab on the right.

Step 3

3. Include storyboard arrows

Perhaps your creative collaborator, client, or executive producer suggests helping them better understand the intended shot movement in a particular frame. This comment then makes you realize that the image itself doesn’t quite capture the energy you meant to convey. For a dilemma such as this, StudioBinder’s image editing feature has the perfect tool for the job: arrows.

The storyboard arrows tab gives you a number of arrow shapes and sizes to take advantage of. You can also customize each arrow’s size, as well as add text to help communicate your arrow’s purpose. In our storyboard example, we used one of the fade arrows to capture our intended energy.

Once you’ve added arrows and further edited your image to better convey its essence, simply clicking save will automatically apply your customized image to your blank storyboard template.

Step 4

4. Collaborate with your team

Whether you’re a professional storyboard artist or it’s your first time visualizing any kind of narrative, chances are you’re not working in complete solitude. You won’t just require feedback from business collaborators, you’ll also want to let your creative colleagues have access to your storyboard to make their own adjustments.

With StudioBinder, you can send a view-only link to anyone who you just want to share the look of your storyboard with. But when it comes to a collaborator who needs to utilize interactive features, you can select between giving them any of three permissions: viewer, commenter, or editor.

Step 5

5. Export your storyboard PDF

Now that you’ve collaborated, incorporated notes, and fully completed the storyboarding process, you’ll want to cement all that hard work by turning your storyboard into a PDF document. You may need a PDF of your storyboard to print or send digitally, but either way, you can tailor the look of your document based on the specific person or production department you’re sending it to.

StudioBinder’s Generate PDF Page provides a bundle of customizable options. Take the style tab for example, which lets you customize the overall presentation of your PDF with options like color and font size.

Want to keep your storyboard PDF from ending up in the wrong hands? You can include a custom title, and even a watermark to ensure your storyboard copies stay with the intended person or department.

Now just click Download PDF, and with that, your storyboard is ready to print and your journey has come to an end!

Conclusion

Done!

After completing all these vital steps for building a blank storyboard template from the ground up, you should feel confident about bringing life to whatever creative narrative ideas you want to get out of your head and onto a screen.

But blank storyboards aren’t the only creative templates StudioBinder offers. Check out our storyboard templates and consider all the possibilities we have to offer!