StoryFolder
Video Production De-construction
Built a desktop application for Windows and macOS to effortlessly create storyboards, shot lists, and assets from any video production.
2021
Introduction
Last year around October I had an idea for a new type of video production tool. Within 48 hours I built a working demo, got a bunch of people to use it, and even got a few customers. I detailed that 48 hour period in the writeup Launching a SAAS product in 48 hours.
Since then, a lot’s happened. Thousands of people have used StoryFolder to generate hundreds of thousands of images, clips, storyboards, and other assets for research, planning, and production. Companies like Apple, Netflix, SONY, and Showtime Networks (who happens to be my old employer) reached out praising the innovation. Articles featuring StoryFolder started popping up on large industry publications like Cined and we started gathering tons of feedback from users.
The Feedback
We launched a page on a cool tool called FeatureUpvote.com. It allowed all of our users to cast votes on exactly which features they wanted to see built next. After a few weeks, the data was clear. Everyone wanted a desktop version. That was the #1 request, by far.
The reasons were simple: 1. Video files are huge. It’s a pain to regularly be uploading and downloading files from an online service. 2. Users didn’t want to share unreleased content over the internet to a third-party server. Imagine working on the next unreleased Marvel movie - do you think they’d just upload an unreleased scene to be stored on a random AWS server operated by a small, new company? No.
So the goal was pretty clear. I needed to rebuild the entire tool to work locally, on the user’s computer.
The Features
I knew I’d be building a desktop app - but I had a lot of other feature requests from the users voting. There were about 25 relatively ambitious features that had received quite a lot of votes. Since I’m already building the app I may as well include a few extra features.
Currently, the app is pre-launching with a planned release date in April 2021. Pre-order the Desktop app at https://storyfolder.com/desktop.