Do you like to dabble in creative filmmaking? Perhaps you are just wanting to test the waters of making YouTube videos. Either way, I’m sure you know one of the toughest parts of making a video is figuring out a decent plot or topic. In an effort to jumpstart many film hobbyists, there are often tools you can find online to get you going.

All that said, I’ve found a few websites that will help you on your path to filmmaking. Some of these tools range from the casual and normal concepts to the crazy and exciting ones. Below, you’ll be able to check them out, so go ahead and take a look. There’s a little something for everyone.

Automatic Movie Script Treatment Generator

Before you even get started with your project, it’s a good idea to write a treatment or a summary to tie all your ideas together. Although not the best solution to create a treatment, Bill Myer's Automatic Movie Script Treatment Generator could help you get started. Just fill in the blanks and select the appropriate drop-down menu options, and you’ll be more than ready to start writing your script.

The Story Starter

If you’ve decided to go the proper route and write your own treatment, you’re going to have to put a little more thought into things. As mentioned in a previous article about short story prompts, The Story Starter is a great aid in coming up with concepts or videos. Just click a button, and the website will randomly generate the a lead-in for you with 2,667,073,500 possible Story Starters to choose from!

I would recommend using these sentences for dialogue or maybe even an introduction to a treatment. However, I would recommend that you just use them as a launch-pad.

Incompetech’s Free Online Graph And Storyboard Paper

If you’ve been on Incompetech’s website before, you’ll know that it has a a lot of free film music to use. However, the site also has some great storyboard templates. Just plug in the size of your paper as well as the aspect ratio of your film, and you’ll be good to go. Furthermore, there are options to add slugs and headers, and beyond that, you can change the colors of the lines for each box.

It’s a pretty great tool if you don’t feel like drawing out each little box yourself, so I would go ahead and save yourself time by printing the sheets off here.

Plot-o-matic

In a similar fashion as to Billy Myers’ tool, the Movie Plot Generator will help you come up with a nice film plot by just filling in the blanks. As someone who likes options, I would just keep this link on standby if the original tool doesn’t seem to be working for you. Furthermore, this website creates a nice, condensed version of the film plot, and it could be used indirectly as a writing prompt generator.

Conclusion

These are just a few websites to help you out while planning your film project. However, they are all designed to help you out with the preliminary stages.

What websites do you use to plan for films or videos? Have you made your own films or videos before?

Image Credit: moonors