Amazon has been nothing short of experimental in its quest to compete and dominate in the streaming video space. Today, the company takes it a step further with the introduction of the Amazon Storyteller, a program that lets script writers turn their works into full story boards.
The program, which is still in beta, is a free web tool that lets writers not only build out their work into story board form, including characters and dialogue, but it lets users share that work with others to collaborate.
Here’s how it works: Authors can scan a movie script that they’ve already uploaded to Amazon Studios, the creative production arm of Amazon. Storyteller then locates the scenes, locations and characters from scene descriptions and automatically “casts” them from a huge library of characters, props and backgrounds.
This way, without any imagery whatsoever, writers can still see a visual representation of their script. The writers then have the option to change the details of the storyboard, by adding additional vehicles or props, captions, or messing with the positioning and/or facial expression of the characters.
So what’s in it for Amazon?
Well, in order to use the Storyteller software, users must upload their works to Amazon Studios. This means that, whether the project is public or private, Amazon has the right to review it, option it, and extend that option to develop it into a real life TV series or movie.
Amazon Studios already sources work from writers to be made into complete productions, but the Storyteller should bring a new crop of writers into the fold.
If you’re interested in using Amazon Storyteller, head on over here and get started.