Storyboard Shot Builder

What it is for

Most storyboards start as a list long before anyone draws. This tool turns that list, one shot per line, into a real storyboard. Each line becomes a board with a title, a duration, action and dialogue, plus an optional scene, shot size and camera note. You get a contact sheet preview, an editable Flipline Story Desk project, a shot list CSV and an SRT file with the dialogue.

Each line uses the pattern Title | Seconds | Action | Dialogue, optionally followed by Scene | Shot size | Camera. The tool rounds each duration to whole frames at the frame rate you choose (1–30 FPS) and can add simple stick-figure staging sketches that you edit later. It does not draw your shots, animate a camera or import screenplay files.

Worked example

A short morning scene, typed as four lines at 12 FPS, aspect 4:3 classic, staging sketches on:

Alarm | 2.5 | A phone buzzes on the nightstand. | | Bedroom | detail | static Too early | 3 | Mia squints at the screen. | Five more minutes. | Bedroom | close | push-in The calendar | 1.75 | A red circle around today. | | Bedroom | detail | tilt-down Up and out | 4 | Mia grabs her coat and runs. | The interview! | Hallway | wide | pan-right

The tool answered "4 boards lasting 11.25 s at 12 FPS." The canvas is 960 × 720 px. At 12 FPS the boards got 30, 36, 21 and 48 frames, so "Up and out" starts at frame 87 (timecode 00:00:07:03) and the sequence ends at 00:00:11:03. Each board received five editable staging marks: a ground line and one simple figure framed by its shot size.

The dialogue SRT has only two cues, because the silent boards are left out: "Five more minutes." from 00:00:02,500 to 00:00:05,500 and "The interview!" from 00:00:07,250 to 00:00:11,250.

How to read the result

• Summary: number of boards, total length and frame rate.
• Contact sheet: the first six boards with title, scene, shot size, duration, camera, action and dialogue, the same layout Story Desk prints.
• Download editable storyboard: a .flipline-story.json project for Flipline's Story Desk, where you draw over the sketches and play the animatic.
• Shot list CSV: one row per board with start frame, end frame (exclusive), in and out timecodes and duration in seconds.
• Dialogue SRT: subtitle cues for boards with dialogue.
• Open in Story Desk: a link that opens the storyboard directly in the app, as long as the project fits in a link.

Tips and common mistakes

• Pipes separate fields, so a | inside dialogue breaks the line. Leave the dialogue field empty for silent shots, but keep its pipe if you add a scene after it.
• Use the exact shot sizes wide, medium, close, detail or over-shoulder and camera labels such as push-in or pan-right; anything else is rejected with a list of valid values.
• Durations that don't fit the frame grid are rounded once. At 12 FPS, 1.3 s becomes 16 frames, which is 1.333 s.
• Turn staging off when you plan to draw everything yourself; the boards then start empty.
• Up to 48 lines, 120 seconds per shot and ten minutes in total are accepted.

FAQ

Does the tool upload my script?

Yes, this utility sends the text you submit to the server to build the result. Story Desk itself works locally in your browser.

Can I import a Fountain screenplay or a Storyboarder project?

No. Paste one line per shot in the pipe format instead, for example by joining spreadsheet columns with pipes.

Why is my last shot slightly longer or shorter than I typed?

Each duration is rounded to whole frames at the chosen frame rate. Choose a frame rate that divides your timings evenly, or accept the small rounding.

What do the staging sketches show?

Simple, deterministic stick figures and a ground line, scaled by shot size. They are ordinary drawing marks that you can move, erase or delete in Story Desk.