StoryBoard Artist 4

As any filmmaker, animator or video professional will testify, storyboarding is an essential and time-consuming part of the production process. An effective storyboard will help you to develop the plot, experiment with storylines and perhaps, more importantly, get approval from the big-money men.

Traditionally, storyboards for films are drawn on paper and pinned up on a wall, and we very much doubt StoryBoard Artist is going to wholly change this process. But, for TV creatives, digital-video professionals, advertisers, games producers and others wanting to plot out a story, it could come in very handy indeed.

The great thing about StoryBoard Artist is that it’s so incredibly easy to use. You can be up and running after around ten minutes. The process starts with an empty frame. By using the libraries of characters, objects and environments you can build up a scene and, using director-camera arrows, you can get an idea how the final shot will look.

StoryBoard Artist enables you to import layered Photoshop files or folders, as well as images, so it’s not a problem if you’d rather use your own photos or drawn images as frames. However, if you’re going to do the latter, you may as well save some hard-earned cash and use your non-linear editor instead.

The included libraries and amount of options within them make the storyboarding process simple and enjoyable. After selecting a character, prop or environment, you choose a preset pose before selecting an angle. The dialog is a touch fiddly, but it takes no time to get used to it. Arranging your characters, objects and so on is done by cropping and layering tools.

Another thing we really like about StoryBoard Artist is the ease with which you can create animatics – or animated storyboards. Working in a familiar timeline environment, you can add transitions and audio narration, manually editing frame duration if you so wish. It’s no FCP or Avid, but it’s good enough for the job.

So is there anything we don’t like? Well, it’s not cheap. We understand that in big productions $799 is a drop in the ocean, but to independent filmmakers and digital-video creatives this kind of cost can be avoided by sticking to pen and paper. Halve the price and it becomes a much more attractive proposition.

In addition, it’s dongled! Having to attach a USB hardware key to your machine every time you want to use the application feels so archaic.

These gripes aside, StoryBoard Artist 4 is a genuinely useful, fun application that makes the process of outlining plot and creating easy to digest animatics very enjoyable. It’s a great example of an app that knows what it’s for and doesn’t try to do much else. If storyboarding is your livelihood, it may become an essential tool. If it’s part of a bigger picture, this app will no doubt aid your production workflow but will depend on how deep your, or your investor’s, pockets are.