A Review of Cinemek’s Hitchcock Iphone Storyboard App

Imagine the following scenario:

You meet with a corporate client about shooting a commercial of their store. After discussing the highlights of the film, you take reference shots of the store via your iphone and later compile them using a generic solution in your screenwriting software. Sound familiar?

Well what would you say if I told you there was now an application that lets you create a full blown storyboard by the time you reach the office?

Meet Cinemek’s latest product, “Hitchcock.”

Hitchcock is the world’s first mobile storyboarding application, which allows you to acquire photos with your phone and add traditional storyboarding markups such as dolly, track, zoom, and pans. You can even add your own stand-ins.

So how easy is it?

I completed the exact same scenario in the beginning and it only took ten minutes. My team even received a full resolution PDF for review straight from the application.

1) Take photos of the location. Be sure to grab appropriate angles and not just quick snapshots.

2) Open up Hitchcock and create a new storyboard.

3) Tap the “Photo Library” button and choose your images. You can alternatively capture straight into the application.

4) Tap on the “Storyboard” button once the images are imported and begin sorting your angles.

5) Once you have your shots in order, go to the “panel view.” The panel view allows you to setup your shots with various options such as dolly, track, pans, and more. You can stand-in characters with ease and set the duration of each panel. You can even add audio if you want.

6) Once you have tweaked all your panels and have a pretty decent looking storyboard, click on the “Storyboard” button and press “watch movie.” Your storyboard will playback just as you created it in an advanced slideshow form. This is huge for visualization and it blows the clients mind when you can show them a small taste of what the finished product will look like.

Conclusion:

Well in six simple steps you can have a professional looking storyboard created directly on your phone. With the ability to export this and send it to your team, you have an invaluable and quick planning resource. While “Hitchcock” may not have the ability to draw your own frames, it makes up for it in a rich feature set that works well for the time crunched filmmaker who needs the ability to assemble a professional storyboard on the go. For the applications low price of 20 dollars, one will not be disappointed with the time he will save using Cinemek’s “Hitchcock.”

Pros:

• Ease of use.
• Incredible set of useful storyboarding tools. The stand-in feature is awesome!
• Ability to watch the finished storyboard playback.
• Ability to share with clients via email straight from the application.

Cons:

• No ability to draw frames unless you import them from another application.
• Cannot export the finished slideshow.
• Very easy to accidently move a frame in the “storyboard overview.” There needs to be a lock button.
• No ability to change items on the PDF export to match your band.

For more information on “Hitchcock,” visit the official site at: http://cinemek.com/hitchcock/