Animatic

aka Animated storyboard · Story reel

A timed sequence of storyboard frames cut against dialogue, scratch music, and sound effects — the closest thing to seeing the film before you shoot it.

An animatic is the storyboard, set in motion. Approved frames cut against a scratch audio track at the right pace, with camera-move overlays panning across stills, transitions slotted in, and rough sound design dropped on top. A good animatic catches pacing problems, identifies missing coverage, and gives every department a fixed reference for what the cut wants to be. StoryboardCanvas Animate ships a full timeline editor with 27 camera presets, 9 transitions, easing curves, onion skinning, auto-tweening, and multi-track audio — the same craft tools an animation studio uses, in your browser.

In StoryboardCanvas

See Animatic live in /animate

Every animatic we generate stays linked to the rest of the project — change a scene heading and the animatic updates automatically. No re-import. No copy-paste. One project file from script to wrap.

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Related terms

Storyboard

A sequence of drawn or AI-generated frames that visualise the film shot-by-shot before principal photography.

Shot List

The director's per-scene list of every shot to be captured — shot number, type, angle, movement, lens, and any special notes.