Storyboards are supposed to make pre-production clearer. You take what’s written on the page, translate it into images, and start answering practical questions before you arrive on set. What does the audience see? How should the scene be framed? Where are the characters positioned? Does this sequence actually flow the way you imagined?
The process becomes less effective when your storyboard and screenplay start drifting apart. Change a scene number, and you have to update the storyboard manually. Add a new scene, and you need to create space for its visual elements. Shift the project’s aspect ratio, and your existing boards no longer accurately represent the final format.
The latest updates to Celtx Storyboards solve this exact problem. Rather than simply adding more tools to the screen, the updated experience connects storyboarding directly to the screenwriting and development process. You can now sync storyboard sequences with your script, annotate images directly for faster blocking, and choose the aspect ratio that reflects what you’re actually making.
In other words, there’s less time spent keeping the board organized and more time spent planning what you want to shoot.
In today’s very exciting blog, we’ll explore what’s changed with Celtx Storyboards and how you can use it to your advantage for your next project!
Let’s dive into what’s new with Celtx Storyboards!
What’s New in Celtx Storyboards?
Celtx Storyboards already gives filmmakers a way to organize your previs into panels and sequences, add shot descriptions, and update them before and during production.
The updated experience builds on that digital workflow by tackling three practical problems:
- Keeping the storyboard aligned with an evolving screenplay.
- Communicating blocking quickly without building a separate diagram.
- Previsualizing for the format in which they’ll eventually be viewed.
- Revisiting earlier ideas without manually rebuilding your storyboard.
That means the storyboard isn’t just somewhere to collect images. It can also follow the structure of your screenplay more closely and become a more useful reference as your project moves toward production.
Let’s look at the three biggest changes.
Sync Your Script to Create Sequences
A screenplay rarely stays exactly the same from first draft to production. Scenes move, scene headings change, new scenes appear, others disappear, and even small revisions can create extra organizational work once you’ve already started your previs.
The new script sync workflow helps reduce that disconnect.
You can now automatically create storyboard sequences linked to scenes in your script. Instead of manually rebuilding the structure of your screenplay inside the storyboard, you can use the script as your starting point.
Imagine you’ve storyboarded the first 40 scenes of a short feature and then decide to add a new kitchen scene between scenes 18 and 19. Previously, a revision like that could mean manually checking numbering and reorganizing parts of the board.
Now, you can sync the storyboard with your updated script. The sync can help you:
- update scene numbering
- reflect changes to scene heading information
- create sequences for newly added scenes
That creates a much clearer relationship between what’s written and what’s being planned visually. It also removes one of the more tedious parts of pre-production: maintaining multiple versions of the same information in different places.
Your screenplay can continue evolving without making the storyboard feel obsolete every time it does.
You can also toggle between your storyboard sequence and script in seconds! Just click the arrow at the top of your chosen sequence to find its counterpart in the original script.
Next, you can add in your images through uploading or drag and drop!
You can also preview and play back your storyboard as you go to make sure your shots are coming together how you visualized!
Annotate Your Storyboard Images
Blocking is easiest to understand when you can see it. You might have exactly the right reference image for a shot but still need to explain that the actor crosses left, the camera pushes toward the table, or the second character enters from behind a doorway.
Our updated Storyboard handles this directly. You can now mark up the storyboard image itself. Instead of moving from the image to a separate blocking tool, you can annotate the visual you’re already using to represent the shot.
Want an actor to move across the frame? Mark the movement. Need to indicate camera direction? Add it directly to the image. Want to draw attention to a particular area of the composition? You can communicate that visually without building an additional diagram.
Of course, you don’t need to turn every storyboard panel into a work of art, but we know you’re keen to speed up your process. A rough arrow that everybody understands can be more useful during pre-production than a beautifully constructed diagram that took 20 minutes to build.
And because the annotation sits alongside the image itself, your team doesn’t have to translate between two separate visual references to understand the intention of the shot.
Change Your Aspect Ratio
Sure, what appears in a storyboard frame is important, but so is the frame itself.
A composition designed for a widescreen film won’t necessarily work the same way in a vertical video. Put the same actor, prop, and background into both frames and you’ll have very different amounts of space to work with.
That’s why the updated Storyboard now lets you change the project’s aspect ratio.
You can choose between:
- Widescreen – 16:9
- Standard – 4:3
- Square – 1:1
- Portrait – 9:16
That means you can build the storyboard around the shape of the content you’re actually producing.
To change your aspect ratio directly in the Storyboard tab in the Celtx Studio, click on this icon in the top menu bar:
Then simply choose your aspect ratio from the options:
Making a narrative short intended for widescreen viewing? Work in 16:9. Planning something with an intentionally boxier 4:3 composition? You can visualize that from the beginning. Storyboarding content for a square or vertical platform? You no longer have to mentally translate a widescreen board into a completely different frame.
This may sound like a small change, but framing decisions influence almost everything inside an image.
Restore a Previous Version
Pre-production is rarely a straight line. You might rearrange a sequence, replace several images, experiment with different blocking, and then realize yesterday’s version actually worked better.
Previously, reversing those kinds of changes could mean manually rebuilding parts of your storyboard. Now, the Storyboard automatically saves revision history, much like the Celtx Script Editor.
That gives you a safety net while you experiment. You can return to an earlier version of the storyboard if you need to recover a previous approach or undo individual changes without having to recreate your work from scratch.
This is particularly useful when you’re developing a sequence collaboratively. If several rounds of feedback lead the board in the wrong direction, you don’t have to rely on memory or keep separate copies every time you want to try something new.
Revision history means you can make changes more confidently, knowing previous versions aren’t lost.
And that makes the storyboard feel more like what it should be during pre-production: a working document that can evolve alongside the project.
Need a refresh on how to create a storyboard? Check out our comprehensive storyboard guide!
Ready to see what’s new? Open Celtx Storyboards and start planning your next production.
How the New Storyboard Workflow Works
The most useful way to think about these updates isn’t as three isolated features but as part of one workflow.
Start with your screenplay. Once your scenes are ready for visual planning, sync them into the Storyboard to create sequences based on the script.
Now you have a visual structure that reflects the project you’re actually writing rather than a separate board that needs to be manually recreated.
Next, begin adding the images that communicate each moment. These don’t have to be polished illustrations. Depending on the project and how you like to work, they might be sketches, photographs, location references, concept images, or other visual material. Celtx Storyboards supports adding images and descriptions to individual shots and arranging those shots into sequences.
Choose the aspect ratio that matches your intended output so you’re planning compositions within the correct frame. Then annotate those images wherever you need to communicate blocking or movement.
As the script evolves, return to sync rather than manually comparing the screenplay with the storyboard scene by scene.
That creates a workflow that looks more like:
Script → Sync → Sequences → Images → Annotations → Production Planning
rather than:
Script → Storyboard → Script changes → Fix storyboard → More script changes → Fix storyboard again
That’s the real benefit of our update; the tools aren’t only doing more but they’re reducing duplicated work between stages of the production process. Neat, right?
From Storyboard to Production
A storyboard earns its place in pre-production when somebody other than the person who created it can actually use it.
The director may use it to communicate composition, the cinematographer can understand the intended framing and movement, production teams can spot shots that may require additional planning and cast and crew can get a clearer idea of how a sequence is expected to unfold before everyone is standing on set watching the clock.
Storyboarding can also reveal problems while they’re still relatively inexpensive to fix. Maybe three visuals that sounded essential on the page feel repetitive when placed side by side, the coverage you imagined doesn’t work within your chosen aspect ratio, or the camera movement required to achieve a shot is far more complicated than the story benefit justifies.
It’s much better to discover that while moving storyboard panels around than while an entire crew is waiting for the next setup.
From there, your visual planning can feed into the wider pre-production process. Celtx’s Shot List tools, for example, let filmmakers define shot information such as size, frame, movement, setup, equipment, focal length, and camera details for production.
Who Are the Updates For?
You don’t have to be producing a feature film with a full art department to benefit from the updated workflow.
- For directors, the annotation tools provide a quicker way to communicate visual intentions.
- For screenwriters moving into production, script syncing helps bridge the gap between the written scene and its visual execution.
- For indie filmmakers and small teams, fewer manual steps can be particularly valuable. When one person is juggling writing, directing, producing, and pre-production, they don’t need another document that has to be updated separately every time something changes.
- For video creators, selectable aspect ratios make the Storyboard more useful when content isn’t destined for a traditional widescreen frame.
- And for collaborative teams, a storyboard connected more closely to the script gives everyone a clearer visual reference for the same evolving project.
The common thread is simple: these updates are perfect for when your storyboard becomes a working production document.
FAQ
Yes. You can now sync your script with the Storyboard to create sequences linked to your scenes. If the screenplay changes, syncing can update scene numbering and scene heading details or create sequences for new scenes.
You can now annotate storyboard images directly, making it quicker to indicate blocking, movement, framing ideas, and other visual information.
The updated Storyboard supports widescreen 16:9, standard 4:3, square 1:1, and portrait 9:16 aspect ratios.
Choosing the intended format early helps you plan compositions within the frame your audience will actually see.
No, a useful storyboard visualizes the story clearly. Depending on your process, you can work with rough sketches, photos, reference imagery, or other visual material.
The goal isn’t necessarily beautiful artwork. It’s making your visual intentions understandable before production begins.
They work together, but they answer different questions.
A storyboard visualizes how shots and sequences should look and flow. A shot list turns those creative decisions into more detailed production information about how individual shots will be captured.
Learn more in our article: Storyboard vs. Shot List: Why You Need Both
Conclusion
The best production updates are the ones that remove a job you shouldn’t have needed to do manually in the first place. That’s what the updated Celtx Storyboard is designed to do.
Syncing keeps your storyboard closer to your evolving screenplay. Image annotations make communicating blocking faster. Multiple aspect ratios let you plan for the frame you’re genuinely going to deliver. Together, those changes make the storyboard less of a standalone pre-production document and more of a bridge between your script and your shoot.
If you haven’t opened Celtx Storyboards in a while, there’s now a very good reason to take another look! What are you waiting for?
Bring Your Shots to Life Try Celtx Storyboards for yourself—sign up for free and start planning today.
