Animatic software that turns your storyboard into a timed previs.

Your boards become a timed animatic in the same file - set the duration of each frame, add camera moves and transitions, lay a scratch track and dialogue underneath, then export the cut as MP4 or a Premiere/Final Cut timeline. The previs your edit starts from, before a single frame is shot.

See Animate →
The Animate app's animatic viewer playing a sequence of storyboard frames as a timed cut, with the playback transport and the frame timeline beneath.
The Animate app's timeline view listing each shot's duration alongside a camera-move preset grid, easing curves, focus points and transition controls in the side panel.
The Animate app's export studio offering MP4, GIF and PDF-board output plus five editorial timeline formats - Final Cut XML, EDL, OpenTimelineIO, FCPXML and SRT - with audio, subtitle and timecode options.
Animatic Viewer
Sequence your storyboard frames into a timed, moving cut you can watch and feel before a single frame is shot.

What's inside Animate

Storyboard to animatic software.

  • One-click: frames + camera arrows + script timing -> animatic
  • 27 camera presets + 9 transitions + proper timeline editor (trim, ripple, snap)
  • Onion skinning + auto-tweening across keyframes
  • Aspect-ratio templates (16:9, 21:9 anamorphic, 9:16 social, 1:1) with safe-zone overlays
  • Multiple stacked audio tracks - dialogue, music, SFX, ambient bed - upload your own today
  • Track scrubbing, snap-to-frame, ripple-trim - cuts feel like a rough edit, not a slide deck
  • Time-coded comments per frame so editorial notes stay anchored to the shot
  • FFmpeg in-browser MP4 / MOV export with timecode burn-in
  • Editorial handoff - Premiere XMEML, DaVinci EDL, OpenTimelineIO, per-shot frame sequence
  • Send to Animate from the Storyboard Editor in one click - same project file, no re-import
Get started Replaces: Legacy animatic-mode tools and rough-cut editing apps

The pipeline

Where Animate sits in the production flow.

The final pre-production deliverable. Animate sits between the storyboard editor (where you compose frames) and the shoot day (where you execute the plan). Every frame, every camera move, every cut decision lands here as a timed animatic ready for PPM, financiers, and the crew read-through.

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This app

Animate

Owned by: Director + 1st AD pre-production

Feeds downstream into

Inside the app

Every shipped feature, fully wired.

Each block below maps a real shipped capability to the workflow it powers. No vapourware, no coming-soon.

From frames to motion in one click

Drop the storyboard deck onto the timeline and Animate stitches a motion-timed animatic - script timing inferred from dialogue word count at 150 wpm, camera-arrow overlays interpolated as actual pan / push / dolly motion in the MP4 (not held still frames), onion-skin overlay configurable from 5–50%, auto-tween across keyframes.

  • Send-to-Animate one-click chips from the Storyboard Editor, AI Artist gallery, Files page, and Diary BTS
  • Drop-onto-canvas to create frames in one motion - single or batch from a folder of stills
  • Per-frame pan / zoom / rotate / reset with a live HUD chip; transforms persist with the frame
  • Real motion in MP4 - camera moves you tag render as actual interpolated motion, not slideshow
  • Onion-skin opacity slider (5–50%) saved per-project

Audio that finally ships

Every MP4 and WebM carries every audio track the timeline holds - dialogue scratch, music bed, sound design, ambient - mixed with per-track fade in / fade out, volume, stereo pan, and delay envelopes. Clamped to the video length so a long music bed never runs past the final frame.

  • Multi-track upload - dialogue, music, SFX, ambient bed
  • Per-track fade-in / fade-out / volume / stereo-pan / delay
  • FFmpeg WASM mux runs entirely in-browser
  • Character TTS read-through via production-grade voices (Read-Through panel)

Eight first-class editorial handoff formats

Export once, hand off anywhere. MP4 + WebM for review reels (with optional watermark, Rec.709 colour tagging, XMP metadata). XMEML for Premiere + DaVinci. FCPXML 1.10 for Final Cut Pro X. EDL for legacy pipelines. OTIO for cross-tool round-trips. SRT for caption workflows.

  • MP4 (libx264) + WebM (libvpx-vp9) with audio mux + watermark + Rec.709 + XMP
  • XMEML for Premiere / DaVinci with track + transition fidelity
  • FCPXML 1.10 for Final Cut Pro X (FCP 10.6+) with rational timing
  • EDL for legacy linear NLEs
  • OpenTimelineIO (.otio) for tool-agnostic round-trips
  • SRT subtitle export auto-built from dialogue annotations

DollyAI™ in every frame

Open the right-rail Dolly panel and the assistant already knows the active frame number, scene, hold duration, dialogue word count at 150 wpm, transition type, camera-move preset, timeline runtime, audio track count. Ask 'is this scene paced too tight?' or 'should this cut land harder?' - the answer is anchored in the actual frame you're looking at.

  • Frame Brain - Dolly reads active-frame state without you having to repeat it
  • Director's annotations drafted by AI vision in one click (camera / mood / motivation / continuity)
  • Continuity sentinel sweeps every adjacent frame pair, flagging prop / costume / hair / lighting / sightline drift
  • Per-row 'Ask Dolly' presets - pacing critique, transition motivation, match-cut ideas, sound design
  • Per-scene budget impact pill computed from breakdown element counts

Built for review at every stage

Mint a read-only review URL with one click - token-protected, expirable, revocable. The recipient gets a phone-friendly viewer that plays the animatic with audio, supports frame comments, and never reveals the underlying project. Every share is logged with timestamp and viewer details.

  • Public review tokens with expiry + revocation
  • Mobile-optimised review viewer with frame comments + presence
  • Real-time live-review playback sync (host scrubs, viewers follow)
  • Time-coded comments per frame so editorial notes stay anchored
  • Version history snapshot on every autosave - restore any prior version with one click

Locked-style motion (Q3 2026)

Train a LoRA against your /artist bible - Mitchell or any of your custom artists - and apply it to your animatic so every regenerated frame reads in that locked artist's voice. The infrastructure is live today (queueing layer, status pills, apply-to-project pointer). External GPU training lands in Q3 2026.

  • LoRA training queue against the artist bible (3–10 reference images per lock)
  • Per-project active-lock pointer in animatic_projects.settings
  • Status pill: not_requested · queued · training · ready · failed · cancelled
  • Audit log entries on queue / cancel / apply
Previsualise the cut

The cut, before you shoot.

By the time the camera rolls the cut already exists: timed, scored and exportable to your edit. The previs is not a mock-up you throw away, it is the spine your editor builds the real thing on.
Animate app for StoryboardCanvas film production software - Storyboard to animatic software.

DollyAI™ in this app

AI commands wired into Animate.

A few of the 200+ DollyAI commands across the suite, here in Animate. Every one shows its credit cost before you commit, and every response is anchored in your real project - not a generic prompt.

Draft annotations

4 cr

Vision-grounded camera / mood / motivation / continuity drafts for the active frame, preserving any user-typed notes.

Continuity sentinel

3 cr

Sweeps every adjacent frame pair, flags prop / costume / hair / lighting / sightline drift with severity ranking.

Pacing critique

3 cr

Reads the active frame's hold duration against dialogue word count at 150 wpm and tells you if the cut lands too tight or too slack.

Transition motivation

3 cr

Suggests which of the 9 transitions reads true for the emotional beat you're trying to land.

Match-cut ideas

3 cr

Pattern-matches adjacent frames for compositional / motion / colour echoes that read as deliberate cuts.

Camera motivation

3 cr

Picks from the 27-preset library and tells you why the push / pull / tilt earns its move on this beat.

Sound design

3 cr

Per-frame Foley + ambient suggestions read from the scene's diary entry + character continuity.

Runtime estimate

3 cr

Predicts the final cut's runtime from the timeline's current state + scene complexity from the breakdown.

Character read-through

1 cr

Per-frame TTS in any of 9 professional voices - dialogue read at performance pace, not synthesised dictation.

Talks to every app

Animate reads + writes to the same project file.

No re-entry, no copy-paste, no out-of-sync versions. Every connection below is a live data path in the running product.

Editor

One-click Send to Animate from the Storyboard Editor - frames + camera arrows + scene linkage all flow in.

AI Artist

Every gallery generation carries a Send to Animate chip - the frame lands on the timeline with full scene context.

Draw

Export from Canvas Draw lands as an animatic frame; transforms / pan / zoom persist.

Files

Send to Animate chip on every image asset in the Files page.

Diary

Diary BTS photos surface as a third import source alongside Storyboard + AI Artist.

Breakdown

Per-scene element counts feed the budget-impact pill on every filmstrip card.

Script

Script timing infers default per-frame hold durations from dialogue word count at 150 wpm.

Producer

Every export / share / annotation logs to the unified producer audit log feed.

Frequently asked

Common questions about Animate.

Can I export the animatic to Premiere or DaVinci Resolve?

Yes. Animate ships XMEML (Premiere + DaVinci), FCPXML 1.10 (Final Cut Pro X), EDL (legacy), OTIO (cross-tool), and SRT (captions) - eight first-class editorial handoff formats. Every export carries audio, transitions, and camera-move metadata.

Does the MP4 export include audio?

Yes. Every MP4 and WebM that leaves the engine mixes down every audio track on the timeline - dialogue, music, SFX, ambient - with per-track fade in / fade out, volume, stereo pan, and delay envelopes. Clamped to the video length so a long music bed never runs past the final frame.

Can I share the animatic with reviewers who don't have an account?

Yes. Mint a read-only review URL in one click - token-protected, expirable, revocable. The recipient gets a phone-friendly viewer that plays the animatic with audio, supports frame comments, and never reveals the underlying project. Every share is logged.

Does it run in my browser?

Yes. Animate runs entirely client-side in Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. FFmpeg WASM does the audio mux and MP4 / WebM encode in-browser. No download, no plugins, no desktop install.

Can I roll back to an earlier version of the animatic?

Yes. Every autosave snapshots the full timeline - frames, audio tracks, settings, transitions, camera moves - into the cloud. Open the Versions panel, scroll through the labelled history, restore any prior version with one click. The restore itself takes a snapshot first, so even the restore is recoverable.

Does the AI cost extra per generation?

Every DollyAI™ action shows its credit cost before you commit - annotations drafts 4 credits, continuity sentinel 3 credits per frame pair, pacing critiques 3 credits, character TTS read-through 1 credit per dialogue block. Credits roll up to your monthly plan.

The Promise

Animate is on every tier.

No locked features, no Pro-only exports, no surprise paywalls. Every Animate tool on this page ships on every plan - Hobbyist to Enterprise.

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More in the suite

Works with every app around it.

Storyboard Canvas · the complete production suite

The complete script-to-screen suite - start free

Twenty synchronised apps, one project file. Every app on every plan - pick a tier by team size, not features.

Get started