Storyboard / Floor Plan App/Programs

[Malthe Freiesleben Ejlers]

Hello guys,

What are some great programs for Storyboarding and doing Floor plans that you guys know of?

[Phil Jackson]

I don't know if there's a lot of programs that do both well. I like Sketchup quite a bit. It's fast and easy and the Sketchup library allows you to create scenes very quickly to a high level of detail. 

Vectorworks is really good too and allows for pretty quick modelling of walls and sets and also has a lot of built in functionality for rigging, truss, lighting, etc. but its a bit of a learning curve and more of a serious tool for actual construction documentation.

I've personally used ToonBoom and liked it for shot composition.

Foundry, the company that makes Modo and Nuke, apparently has some sort of Storyboarding software called Flix but I'm not that knowledgeable about its capabilities.

[James Brown]

Shot Designer is a great and super quick resource to use. Especially on an ipad why you are on location. 

It is a bit simple but when you are trying to block movement of actors and quickly draw a floor plan there isn't anything that is a quick. 

I use Illustrator with 'film set objects' which has all the camera and lighting etc for some more complex but still super efficient to create lighting and camera plots.  

You really don't want to get too bogged down in the tech of it. 

[AJ Young]

I'm a bit old school, but I still draw my overheads by hand. Nothing is exact, but it gives me a good idea of what to do on the day. I start my overheads once we have our locations locked in.

More recently, I've been using Blender and free models of humans for "storyboarding". It takes a bit of education on simple modeling to build the sets that match their real life counterparts, but once you learn the program it becomes a breeze. Cine Tracer by Matt Workman can do this as well!