Professional Storyboard Template

Step 1

1. Customize your template

Starting a new professional storyboard template project is all about finding the storyboard display settings that work best for you. If you’re storyboarding for a physical shoot, three panels per column is typical, whereas a professional animation storyboard template tends to stick to the standard of one, sometimes two, panels per column. When you start a new project in StudioBinder, you’re automatically prompted to customize some of these panel and column details. When you’re done, your professional storyboard will look something like this:

Depending on where you’re at with writing a script for your project, you may want to start filling out your panel descriptions before applying images. With the Shot Tagger tool, you can simply click on any text in your script, and create new Frames with the description automatically populating.

Step 2

2. Upload images

You’re not officially working with a professional storyboard until you start jumping into the fun of adding images. It’s a common misconception to think you have to be an industry expert storyboard artist to create a legible storyboard, but even pulling images from the internet can be an art in and of itself. It’s more about having an eye for what speaks to your vision and creating a distinct tone and flow with your images.

When you’re ready to include images in your professional storyboard template, just click the upload button.

Step 3

3. Apply arrows

For our professional animation storyboard template, we ran into a common issue that you may come across as well. Our animation storyboard building was going great until we realized our big villain reveal shot wasn’t as visually intimidating as we hoped. That is until someone suggested turning it into a zoom shot to increase the intensity. Instead of returning to the drawing board to convey this, we decided to insert storyboard arrows.

You can use StudioBinder’s professional storyboard software to quickly add and customize arrows. Just go into the image editor and choose from a long list of arrow types.

After we intensified the villainous Sheriff Prickles reveal with some arrows to indicate a zoom shot, we then clicked save and our touched up image was added right into our professional storyboard template.

Step 4

4. Collaborate and get feedback

You don’t necessarily need to be working on a professional animation storyboard template to benefit from what collaboration has to offer. A second opinion or outside perspective can be just what you need to snap you out of that pesky creative tunnel vision, especially if you’re solo storyboard building. But if you’re working with a production team of any size, having a singular place to connect, edit and discuss feedback is key.

With StudioBinder, you can invite anyone to look at your work and set their individual permissions to either viewer, commenter, or editor.

If your collaborators with commenter or editor permissions turned on want to leave some notes on your professional storyboard, they can navigate to the comments tab. Respond back and strike up a discussion that really digs into the heart of what’s working and not.

Step 5

5. Create a storyboard PDF

At this point, you’ve made it through all the most essential steps to building a professional storyboard template. But don’t take a nap just yet, because it’s time to put a permanent frame around all that hard work. Converting your storyboard to a PDF isn’t just important for professional animation storyboards and film storyboards, it’s useful even if you’re making a storyboard by yourself. With a PDF storyboard, you can use your document as a guide throughout all the next production stages without worrying about making any accidental changes.

Using StudioBinder’s professional storyboard software, you can make a variety of edits to your PDF converted storyboard. Add a front and back cover for a highly professional storyboard look, or even add a watermark and custom title to make sure only select individuals or departments use it.

Conclusion

That's a wrap!

You came, you saw, you conquered all the challenges of what it takes to make a professional storyboard template. But just because you’re now a master at building a professional storyboard, doesn’t mean you’re familiar with every single type of storyboard there is, so be sure to check out all our free storyboard templates when you get a chance!