How to storyboard on iPad
A storyboard is not concept art. Its job is to plan a sequence — the framing, the staging and the camera moves — clearly enough that a crew can shoot from it. That means you do not need to draw well. You need to be legible. This guide covers what goes on a panel, the shot sizes and moves to know, how to sequence a scene, and how to do all of it quickly on an iPad with Apple Pencil.
The short version: one panel per setup, each showing the shot size, the camera move and a line of action. Sequence the panels, add durations, and you have a board — and, if you want, a timed animatic.
What goes on a panel
Every panel answers three questions: what are we looking at, how is the camera framed, and what moves. Keep the drawing simple — a horizon line, blocked figures, an arrow for the move — and let the labels carry the detail:
- Shot size and angle — wide, medium, close; high, low, eye level.
- Camera move — static, pan, push, track (an arrow shows the direction).
- Action or dialogue — one line of what happens in the shot.
- Reference numbers — scene and shot, so the board matches the shot list.
Shot sizes to know
Framing is the vocabulary of a board. These are the sizes you will use most, from widest to tightest:
| Shot | Abbr. | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Establishing / wide | WS / EWS | Sets the geography and the scale |
| Full shot | FS | Whole body, staging and movement |
| Medium shot | MS | Waist up — the workhorse of dialogue |
| Medium close-up | MCU | Chest up — the standard coverage size |
| Close-up | CU | The face, and the emotion |
| Extreme close-up | ECU | A detail — eyes, hands, an object |
Camera moves
A board shows movement with arrows and notes. The moves worth marking: static (a locked frame), pan and tilt (the camera pivots), push in / pull out (it moves toward or away), track (it travels alongside), and crane (it rises or descends). If the move matters to the story, it belongs on the panel — and it drives the timing when you build an animatic.
Sequencing a scene
Board one panel per setup or beat, not every frame. A dialogue scene might be a handful of panels — a wide to establish, then the coverage sizes. An action beat can run to many. The goal is to plan the shots you need to communicate and schedule, so the board reads like the scene will cut.
From boards to an animatic
An animatic is your boards played in order, each panel held for its beat, with the camera moves and optional scratch audio. It turns a static board into a rough sense of pace — invaluable for action, comedy timing, or pitching a sequence. Give each panel a duration and a move, and the animatic assembles itself.
Doing it on iPad
The iPad is close to the ideal board tool — pressure-true drawing with Apple Pencil, and everything on one device. The trick is to use an app built for boards rather than a painting app. You want layers and onion skin to sketch fast, aspect guides for your format, the shot metadata living on each panel, and one-tap export to a shooting-board PDF or a timed animatic.
That is exactly what Draw Storyboard is built for — a storyboard app for iPad and Apple Pencil, with the drawing tools a board needs and nothing a painting app makes you wade through. When the frames come from elsewhere — stills, photos, sketches — StorySheet packages them into a print-ready sheet.
Weighing your options first? See how to choose a storyboard app for iPad.
Board for the shoot, not the gallery. The best storyboard is the one the crew can read at a glance on set. Clear beats pretty, every time.
Draw every shot, the way you'd sketch it on paper.
Draw Storyboard boards a whole sequence with Apple Pencil, hangs the shot, lens and timing on every panel, and exports a shooting-board PDF or a timed animatic. On the App Store now.