Free Storyboard Template (Printable PDF)

What a storyboard template is for

A storyboard is a scene drawn as a row of small pictures before anything is filmed, animated or drawn properly. Each frame shows one moment: where the camera is, who is in shot, and what happens. Under each frame you note the shot, the action and any dialogue or sound. The point is to make your expensive decisions on cheap paper. Moving a stick figure takes seconds; reshooting a scene, re-animating a shot or redrawing a comic page does not. Directors from Alfred Hitchcock to Pixar story artists plan this way for the same reason. A template gives you the frames and the note lines already laid out, so you spend your time on the shots rather than ruling boxes.

What is in this template

Page one has six 16:9 frames, the shape of film, YouTube and most explainer videos, each with lines for the shot, the action and the dialogue or sound effects, plus a time field so you can pace the scene. Page two has eight 9:16 vertical frames for Reels, Shorts and TikTok. Vertical video lives or dies on the first second, so frame one is where you plan the hook. Page three is for comics: six page-sized thumbnails for roughing out a whole issue before you script it panel by panel, with a line for the story beat and one for the panel count. Comic artists call these thumbnails, and they do for a comic what a storyboard does for a film. Page four is a cheat sheet: shot sizes from extreme long shot to extreme close-up, the angles that change how a character reads (low angle for power, high angle for vulnerability, Dutch tilt for unease), camera moves for video, transitions, and the three rules that fix most weak boards.

How to storyboard a scene

Start by writing the scene in one sentence: who wants what, and what is in the way. If you cannot, the board will not save it. Next, list the beats, one per frame. A beat is a single change: a look, a line, a reveal. Most scenes need between six and twelve. If the action line under a frame contains the word "then", it is two frames. Give every frame a shot size, and vary them. A run of medium shots reads as flat; a wide establishing shot, a medium for the conversation and a close-up for the moment that matters gives the scene a rhythm. Draw badly on purpose. Stick figures and arrows are enough; the board is for decisions, not art. Arrows show movement of a character or of the camera. Finally, flip through the board at speed, the way a viewer will experience it. Any frame that does not move the story forward can go.

Mistakes that make a storyboard useless

Drawing too carefully is the most common one: if a frame takes ten minutes you will not change it, and a board you will not change is just an illustration. The second is forgetting the 180-degree rule. If one character is on the left of frame and the other on the right, keep them there for the whole conversation; crossing the line makes viewers lose track of who is where. The third is leaving the shot line blank. "MCU, low angle" takes two seconds to write and tells everyone downstream, a camera operator, an animator, an artist or an AI model, what you meant. The last is boarding in the wrong shape. A 16:9 board for a vertical video puts every subject in the wrong place, which is why this template includes both.

From paper storyboard to finished frames

When the paper version is working, ComicInk can turn the same scene into finished storyboard frames. Paste your script or brief into the AI storyboard generator (up to 2,000 characters) and Sidekick writes the scenes, giving each one a shot type and a camera angle. Then generate the frames in the Storyboard Sketch style for greyscale pencil boards, or in a cinematic style, with the same cast in every frame. Boards export as a PDF and a shot list, and the frames can go on to guide a rendered video. New accounts get 100 free credits with no card, and writing the scenes costs nothing.

How to use this template

1. Download and print the PDF

   Print at 100% on Letter or A4. Use page one for widescreen video, page two for vertical video, page three for comic pages.

2. Write the scene in one sentence

   Who wants what, and what stops them. This keeps every frame pointed at the same goal.

3. One beat per frame

   List the beats and give each its own frame. Most scenes need six to twelve.

4. Fill in the shot line

   Use the cheat sheet shorthand: ELS, MS, CU, OTS, low angle. Change the shot size on every cut.

5. Sketch fast, then flip through

   Stick figures and arrows only. Read the board at speed and cut any frame that does not move the story.