Leading Visual Content Licensing Marketplace Unveils Innovative “Storyboards” Feature for Creative Teams to Build Out Production Scenes As They Consider Visual Licensing Options

Catch+Release, the leading content licensing marketplace, announces the launch of its latest platform feature, “Storyboards.” This innovative tool empowers creative and production teams to organize visual assets in story sequences, facilitating the exploration of content licensing early in the campaign production process.

Enhancing the Creative Workflow

The concept of “storyboarding” is a cornerstone in creative production, involving the layout of stills — whether reference images or original production — accompanied by voiceover notes, sound cues, and other descriptive elements. This sequence of stills and notes communicates the story that will eventually be brought to life in video form. To certain groups, a “storyboard” is only something that gets delivered to a film director in advance of an original production shoot. However, this Catch+Release feature applies to a much broader use case. While it still supports the need to build pitch decks, it also supports media research and early-stage ideation. Storyboards(™) is an out-of-the-box platform feature built for creative teams to develop production scenes from scratch as they consider visual options and even continue to craft a compelling narrative.

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How Storyboards(™) Works

The Storyboards(™) feature provides a visual shorthand that speeds up production workflows by introducing visual licensing options earlier on — during the conception phase. When creatives are able to consider these options early, they are able to develop a cohesive narrative. This also means getting ahead of production timelines and staying within budget, rather than scrambling to reconcile at the final stages.

On the Catch+Release platform, teams can easily build out a storyboard by creating scene blocks. Each scene block can include a visual asset, sound cues, and production notes. The key unlock for creative teams is that scenes can be added to storyboards without requiring these three options to be filled. That means a scene can be added to a storyboard, even if the team has not yet decided what visual they want to use for it. Often it is the case that teams recognize where a beat is missing in a spot, but they are not yet sure what exactly should fill the void. Adding a scene that’s not quite finished yet allows creative teams to visualize where there are gaps and what needs to be filled in order to shape the story.

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Key features and benefits of Storyboards(™) include:

• Scene-Based Story Blocking: Identify and address visual and script gaps within your story.
• Source Visuals Easily: Find visuals from the internet or even search directly from the Creator Community based on keywords, and assign them to a scene.
• Sequential Shot Layout: Make quicker, more informed decisions about the visuals you would like to clear and license.
• Alternate Visual Options: Attach multiple visual options to a scene that is under consideration.
• Integrated Production and VO Notes: Keep all creative concepts in view so that you can map out scenes in the right sequence to tell your narrative.

“With Storyboards, we’re empowering creative teams to review visual options for ads within the context they’re most comfortable: the story itself,” explains Lauren Kostka, Senior Product Manager at Catch+Release. “On top of sewing visuals together in sequence, our platform allows you to fill in missing pieces by searching for content straight from our Creator Community and assigning them to a scene. With the ability to add alternates, we’re also making it easier to pick your visual selections while being able to scan the entire story from start to finish at-a-glance. While our main focus will always be to make visual licensing easy and accessible for all, we’re proud to be able to support creative teams as early on as the conception phase of their campaign.”