Drop your story below. HotPrompt's AI storyboard generator turns it into a complete pre-production package — scene-by-scene shot list with shot type, camera move, framing, lighting, dialogue and transitions, plus a visual timeline and three-act story arc. Use it as your shoot day blueprint or hand it straight to your DP, editor and animator.
Tell us what you want filmed — characters, location, beats. 20–3,000 characters. The director picks duration, scene count, format and style for you.
Before vs After
A 'shoot me a 60-second brand film' brief is impossible to execute. Our AI storyboard generator translates it into the specifics a DP, editor and producer can actually run with.
“Make a 60s brand film for a Portland coffee roastery — show the head roaster's morning.”
LOGLINE: Before dawn, a former engineer-turned-roaster cups four origins until one surprises her — and ships the espresso it became. STORY ARC Setup : A dark Portland warehouse, scales and grinders waking up. Inciting : The fourth cupping bowl — something unexpected. Rising : She rebuilds the blend twice, racing against the shop opening. Climax : The new espresso pulled in front of the first customer. Resolution : Her smile in the shop window, lights coming up on the street. SCENE 1: Cold open — pre-dawn drive 0:00–0:04 (4s) · WS / locked drone shot Camera : Slow 4s push-in over Burnside Bridge Lighting : Sodium streetlamp warm key, deep blue cold ambient Action : Headlights cut through fog; the only car on the bridge. → Transition out: J-cut to ambient hiss of espresso machine SCENE 2: The warehouse wakes 0:04–0:09 (5s) · MS / handheld follow Camera : Tracking her through swing doors, holds at the grinder Lighting : Single warm pendant key, deep shadow fill Action : Marisol flips one switch; the warehouse hums into life. SFX : grinder spin-up, fluorescents thunking on → Transition out: Match cut on coffee beans falling ... 10 more scenes, all timed, framed and lit.
How it works
Four steps from 'I want to film this story' to a director-grade storyboard your crew can pick up and shoot.
20–3,000 characters is the sweet spot. Characters, location, the emotional beat — the storyboard generator will fill in the production specifics.
15s to 3 minutes; 4 to 20 scenes. Pacing follows the style preset you pick — commercial gets a hook in scene 1, narrative shorts breathe.
9:16 vertical, 16:9, 1:1, or 2.39:1 cinemascope. Six style presets — cinematic, commercial, narrative short, documentary, music video, explainer.
Logline, three-act arc, timeline, and scene-by-scene cards with shot type, camera move, framing, lighting, dialogue, SFX, B-roll and transitions. Copy by scene or as a single brief.
This isn't a vibe deck — it's a working production document. Every scene is timed to the second and described in vocabulary your DP, editor and AD already use.
A one-sentence logline that frames the whole piece — the elevator pitch a producer can repeat back.
A three-act story arc (setup → inciting → rising → climax → resolution) — even on a 30-second cut.
A visual timeline showing every scene scaled to its real duration — see at a glance where the hero beat lives.
Scene cards with shot type (EWS / WS / MS / MCU / CU / OTS / Insert), camera move, framing, lighting and action.
Optional dialogue and voice-over per scene, only when there's a real beat — no filler 'hi.' lines.
SFX and B-roll suggestions per scene so the sound designer and editor have somewhere to start.
Transitions named per scene (hard cut, J-cut, L-cut, cross-dissolve, match cut, smash cut, whip-pan).
Copy-paste export — full storyboard or per-scene, dropping straight into your shoot day call sheet.
We built this for the people who turn a one-line brief into a shoot day — small studios, content creators, and in-house brand teams that don't have a full pre-production department.
Turn a script idea into a three-act storyboard in minutes instead of an afternoon. The AI storyboard generator hits the beats and leaves you the creative work — casting, blocking, taste.
Hook-led 30-60s spots with clear CTA scenes. The commercial style preset front-loads the hook into scene 1 so the rest of the storyboard earns the close.
9:16 vertical safe areas, faces in the upper third, motion staged inside the vertical frame. The AI storyboard generator plans for the format, not against it.
Beat-driven cuts, performance vs concept scenes, dynamic camera. The music-video preset assumes 120 BPM unless you say otherwise and times scenes accordingly.
Observational camera, B-roll dense, voice-over forward. The documentary preset keeps each scene earned by reality — no manufactured beats.
Hook → problem → talking head → screen-cap B-roll → CTA. The explainer preset writes that spine for you with a real CTA scene at the end, not a tacked-on 'sign up' card.
Every storyboard exports as plain text + structured data. Drop scenes into your favourite generator one at a time, or hand the whole brief to your DP.
Scene-by-scene prompts are exactly what Sora needs — shot type, camera move and lighting spelled out per clip.
Veo rewards specific cinematographer vocabulary; the storyboard outputs Veo-ready lighting and lens cues per scene.
Generate one scene at a time, stitch in the editor. The storyboard's transition column tells you which cut to make in post.
Kling produces strong narrative beats from prose action lines — exactly what the AI storyboard generator emits.
Pika thrives on short, motion-led scenes. Pair with the music-video or commercial preset for best results.
Any text-to-video model benefits from a real shot list. The AI storyboard generator gives every clip a job in the larger piece.
Questions
ChatGPT will happily improvise scene labels and pretend it gave you a storyboard. The AI storyboard generator forces a strict schema — every scene has a shot type, a camera move, framing, lighting, action and timing — and validates the durations sum to your target ±2 seconds. You get a document a real crew can shoot.
Yes — copy any single scene (or the whole storyboard) and paste it into your favourite doc, NLE notes or Notion. The plain-text export keeps the structure so you can hand-edit a line without breaking the rest.
Every account gets 10 free credits per day, which covers one storyboard (typical run is ~12 credits — small ones land in 8). Paid plans give you a monthly bucket so you can run dozens without sweating the meter. The token-based pricing means you only pay for the work the model actually does.
9:16 vertical (TikTok / Reels / Shorts), 16:9 horizontal (YouTube long-form), 1:1 square (social), and 2.39:1 cinemascope. Durations from 15 seconds to 3 minutes. The story arc and scene density adapt to the duration you choose.
Yes, but only where it earns its place. The system prompt explicitly tells the director to leave dialogue empty when there isn't a real beat — no filler 'hi.' lines. Voice-over is added when the style preset (documentary, explainer) calls for it.
That's exactly what we designed it for. Each scene card translates to a single text-to-video prompt — shot type, camera move and lighting are already in the vocabulary those generators expect. Generate one scene at a time, stitch in your editor.
For brand films and product videos pick 'commercial' — it hooks within 2 seconds and ends on a CTA scene. For story-led shorts pick 'narrative short' — it earns the climax with a contrast scene. Music-video and documentary nudge pacing and B-roll density; explainer is best for SaaS demos and educational content.
Only on edge-case content: explicit sexual material, content depicting real public figures defamatorily, gratuitous violence outside narrative context, or anything that violates the underlying model's content policy. Everything else — drama, action, comedy, romance, horror — is in scope.
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