For centuries the basic technology of storyboarding remained essentially the same as the process used to create the very first storyboards – a series of cave drawings depicting the events of a hunt.  While paper replaced stone walls, brushes replaced carving tools, and a rainbow of pigments replaced red ochre, storyboarding was still a matter of creative artists outlining their vision in sequential pictorial drawings.

Enter storyboarding software and the world changed.  Now it was possible for anyone who could learn to use the software program to create effective storyboards, even if their own artistic abilities were limited to stick figures.

Some storyboarding software programs are complex and not especially intuitive, leading to a new set of problems.  Then there are streamlined programs like Storyboard Quick that make the process of digitizing artistic vision both intuitive and very fast.

The first version of Storyboard Quick was released way back in 1993 and has gone through 5 updates, leading to the current version – Storyboard Quick 6.0.  The program has always been indisputably fast and easy to use, although a few cite its limitations in earlier versions with its library of characters and imprecision in posing figures.  The 6.0 version has continued the evolution of the product towards bigger and better data base libraries of characters and more options in positioning them in the storyboard frame.

Quick Shots Technology

Now the creator of Storyboard Quick, Power Productions, has just introduced its latest release – Storyboard Quick Studio.

Like all good storyboarding software, Storyboard Quick Studio puts together an impressive package of what might be called artistic or representational shortcuts that streamline the storyboarding process.  Let’s look at some of those shortcuts.

Although Storyboard Quick Studio has a draw feature so you could create your own characters, why bother when you can select color customizable characters from the program’s library?  This version doubles the pose positions available to the storyboard artist.  Now you not only have a large data base of characters from which to select, you can pose them prone, driving, typing, pointing, and even punching.  In addition, each pose has multiple angles you can employ to rotate and elevate the characters.

There is an expanded library of both background scenes and props as well.  The included props are also color customizable and can be rotated.   The library of background scenes includes interiors and exteriors ranging from urban to suburban to rural.

And with one of the software’s best shortcuts – the ability to import files – you can upload your own photos of actual shooting locations or any other scene you like.  Storyboard Quick Studio lets you import digital photos in a variety of formats, even photo shop files.   It’s a simple “drag and drop” process.  Characters and props layer into these photos just as well as they do into the library scenes.

The file import capability can be used to allow the storyboard artist to create frames right alongside the actual shooting script.  You can import files from professional screen writing programs or word processing programs, allowing the storyboards to be built right alongside the script text, maintaining the format of whatever writing program created it.

If that’s not your thing, each frame in Storyboard Quick Studio has a captioning window where you can add your own notes, dialogue – literally anything you want.

Another great shortcut is the Overview Window, where you can view your completed storyboard frames in sequence in a single screen.  You can view them with or without the captions and changing the sequence is a snap.  Frames that don’t work can be easily edited.

Finished boards can be printed in a variety of formats and the next great shortcut –Export to HTML – allows you to email your boards and upload them to be viewed anywhere on the Internet.  You can even export them in Flash Video format.  In an industry that prides itself in being constantly on the go, it’s a tremendous advantage to have your storyboards available for viewing on a mobile device.

It’s sometimes possible for creative people to forget that storyboards have two purposes.  Storyboards are used not only to show the creative vision of the story, but also to share that vision with others.  No matter how good they are, storyboards created with software look digital.  Storyboard Quick Studio includes a feature previously available only in Storyboard Artist – Print to Sketch Boards.  With this feature, you can choose “Sketch Mode” as you print, and you’ll get boards that look like they were drawn by hand.  There are even five different intensity levels so you can experiment to get the exact look you desire.  You may have heard of people paying sketch artists to translate the digital frames to hand drawn representations.  No need for that with Storyboard Quick Studio.

We’ve saved the best shortcut for last:  QuickShots Technology.  This process is exclusive to Power Productions and is actually patent pending.  It gives you the ultimate in speed of completion.  The program has 15 different shot styles ready to go.  That may be a limitation if you can’t find the perfect shot style for your project, but the tradeoff is the unbelievable rapidity with which you can crank out completed boards here.  Once you’ve got the scene style, add your characters and scenes, click a few buttons, and you’re done!  The program will even annotate the shots for you.  How’s that for a shortcut?

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