What Are the 7 Types of Storyboarding? Explained

Ask three filmmakers what a storyboard is and you will get three different sketches back. So when people ask what are the 7 types of storyboarding, they are really asking which format to reach for at which stage of a project. The answer matters, because using a polished full storyboard when you only need a scribble wastes hours you could spend actually making the thing.

Below are the seven storyboard types explained in plain terms: what each one is, when it shines, and when it will slow you down. Think of them less as a rigid taxonomy and more as tools on a bench you pick up in order.

1. Thumbnail storyboards

Thumbnails are the fast, tiny, deliberately ugly sketches you make first. Each panel is barely big enough to show framing, where the subject sits, and roughly what moves. Nobody else needs to understand them but you.

The whole point is speed. You draw a dozen options in the time a clean panel would take, compare them, and throw most away. This is where the thumbnail vs full storyboard split really lives: thumbnails are for thinking, full storyboards are for showing.

Use them at the very start, before you commit to anything. If you have never done this, our storyboard examples for beginners walk through what these rough passes actually look like on paper.

2. Traditional (full) storyboards

The traditional storyboard is the one everyone pictures: a sequence of framed drawings, one per shot, with notes on action, dialogue, and camera direction underneath. Frames are large enough to read at a glance and clean enough to hand to someone else.

This is the workhorse format for film and commercials. It communicates your intent to a crew, a client, or a collaborator without you standing over their shoulder. It takes longer than thumbnails, so you graduate to it only once the sequence is locked.

When you are ready to build one for a real project, the steps in how to make a storyboard for a film cover framing, notation, and shot flow.

3. Scripted (written) storyboards

A scripted storyboard leans on words more than pictures. Each panel pairs a simple visual with the exact dialogue, voiceover, and sound cues for that moment, so the language and the image stay locked together.

This format suits dialogue-heavy scenes, explainer videos, and anything where timing depends on what is said. Animators use it to sync mouth movement to lines; marketers use it to keep a script and its visuals from drifting apart.

If you are writing the words first, how to write a short film script pairs naturally with this approach.

4. Digital storyboards

Digital storyboards are any of the above, made in software instead of on paper. You drag panels around, swap frames, drop in reference images, and share a link instead of scanning a notebook.

The advantage is revision. Moving a shot from position four to position two is a click, not a redraw, which matters when notes keep changing. Many tools now generate panels from a text description, so you can rough out a whole sequence without drawing at all. Our guide to how to storyboard with AI shows what that looks like scene by scene.

5. Animatic storyboards

An animatic is a storyboard that moves. You lay your panels on a timeline, hold each for its real duration, and add temporary voiceover or music. Suddenly you are watching a rough cut of the film before a single frame is shot.

This is the first moment pacing becomes honest. A scene that looked fine as static panels can feel three seconds too long the instant it plays. Animatics catch timing problems, dead air, and clumsy transitions early, when fixing them is cheap. The animatic has been standard practice in animation and advertising for decades for exactly this reason.

6. Vertical storyboards

Vertical storyboards stack panels top to bottom and frame them in a 9:16 shape, because that is how the footage will actually be watched. They are built for phones: TikTok, Reels, Shorts, and mobile-first ads.

The format forces you to plan for a narrow frame from the start. Composition, text placement, and where the eye lands are all different when the screen is taller than it is wide, and a horizontal storyboard hides those problems until it is too late.

7. Interactive (branching) storyboards

Interactive storyboards map choices, not just shots. Instead of one straight line of panels, they branch: if the viewer clicks here, this happens; if they go there, something else does. Every path gets its own thread.

Games, interactive video, and training simulations depend on this. The challenge is keeping the map readable as branches multiply, which is why these are usually built digitally rather than on paper.

How to choose between the different storyboard formats

You do not pick one type and stop. A typical project climbs the ladder: thumbnails to explore, a full or scripted storyboard to lock the plan, then an animatic to test timing. The format follows the stage you are in.

A quick way to decide:

• Just thinking? Thumbnails. Keep them fast and disposable.
• Handing it to someone else? A full or scripted storyboard they can read cold.
• Worried about pacing? An animatic, so you feel the timing before you commit.
• Making it for a phone? A vertical storyboard from panel one.
• Branching or clickable? An interactive board built in software.

Medium matters too. Animation leans on scripted boards and animatics, and how to storyboard for animation digs into why. Live action leans on full boards. If you want a head start on any of these, grab a storyboard template for a short film and fill it in.

Where AI-directed video fits

Storyboarding used to mean you could draw, or you paid someone who could. That barrier is mostly gone. With Scriptly, you plan your film scene by scene through a chat with an AI director, then generate the actual clips for each scene, with characters that stay consistent from shot to shot.

It collapses several of these formats into one flow. You describe the sequence like a scripted storyboard, watch it as something close to an animatic, and render the finished piece with voiceover, captions, and music, without ever picking up a pencil. It works right in your browser.

Start planning your first film with Scriptly and turn a rough idea into finished scenes today. For more on the craft behind the panels, the 7 steps of storyboarding is a good next read, and the broader storyboard entry covers the history if you want it.