What an AI storyboard generator should give you
A pile of pretty images is not a storyboard. A storyboard is structure: scenes with a setting and a target length, shots with a camera angle, a movement, lighting and a duration, and beats that say who speaks or acts in each shot. Previzly generates exactly that structure first and renders images second, which is why you can change the plan before you spend a single credit on pixels.
Step 1: write the idea and pick the format
A project starts with the idea in plain language, a genre and a format: widescreen 16:9, vertical 9:16 or square 1:1. The format matters early because the breakdown is written for it. A vertical short gets tighter framing and shorter shots than a widescreen scene.
Step 2: cast before you break down
Create each character from reference images and a few attributes (hair, eyes, build, wardrobe, palette), then generate the canonical avatar. The avatar comes with a locked seed, so every later keyframe of that character is rendered from the same identity. Doing this before the breakdown means the shots can be assigned to real cast members instead of placeholders.
Step 3: generate the breakdown
One action turns the idea and the cast into a tree of scenes, shots and beats. The result appears as a storyboard: one horizontal rail per scene, one card per shot, and the beats (dialogue, action, direction, sound) listed under each shot. The whole tree is editable, so treat the first draft as a proposal.
Step 4: fix the plan before you render
This is where an AI storyboard generator earns its keep or fails. In Previzly every shot is described with typed fields rather than loose prose: subject, action, camera angle, camera movement, lighting, style and duration. Change a field and the shot updates; drag a card to reorder shots inside a scene; drag a rail to reorder scenes; add or delete shots; rewrite a single beat with a short instruction such as “shorter and more menacing”. Nothing you do here costs credits.
Step 5: render keyframes, take by take
Each shot can produce several keyframe takes. Generate a couple, pick the one that reads best, and that take becomes the frame the video is animated from. Scenes can also get a set plate, a background image that keeps the location consistent across the shots in it. If you later edit a shot’s text, its media is marked stale so you know which frames no longer match the script.
What it costs
Breakdowns are cheap, keyframes are cheap, video is where the credits go. The pricing page lists every action with its price, and the app shows the same prices on each generate button before you confirm.
From storyboard to animatic
Once the keyframes exist, the timeline lays the shots out by duration with their generated voices, so you can scrub the film as an animatic before committing to video. When you are happy, generate video per shot, add a music bed and assemble the finished movie with one action. The storyboard never goes away: it stays the editable spine of the project.