As thrilling as it is to see a movie take shape in the visual medium of a storyboard, it still amounts to nothing more than a series of static images. Critical elements like timing for comedic or action sequences have to wait until an honest-to-goodness moving picture is available for review.

This lack of motion and energy in storyboards bothered one director so much that, as the story goes, in the mid-1970s he decided they weren't up to the task. Instead of storyboards, he had his editors cut World War II dogfight footage into key action sequences of his big science fiction film. Once it was assembled, he showed the sequence to his special effects crew, so they would have a better idea of what he was looking for from the final footage.

The technique was a resounding success. The film - a little picture called Star Wars - blew the doors off the box office, due in no small part to its abundance of dynamic and exciting special effects sequences. This dynamic storyboarding technique - dubbed "pre-visualization" - has become the norm for bigger action sequences in Hollywood. But what if you're not shooting a massive action epic? How could pre-visualization help you?

Stop me if this sounds familiar. You've nabbed a great location for the climax of your project. You've taken reference photos, generated some terrific storyboards and are excited to shoot this beautifully-framed sequence. Then you get on set, place your actors... and there's this annoying wall about a foot in front of where you planned to put the camera. Bye-bye, lovely scene. Hello, on-set extemporizing!

Using one of the 3D packages like 3D Frame Forge and Storyboard Lite can help you avoid this kind of problem. They allow you to create your shooting space with a simple 3D package. Once finished, you place your "actors" and props on "set," then frame the shots based on where you can actually place the camera. That alone is a reason to investigate one of the pre-visualization software package options.

More exciting is the ability to plan actual camera movement based on the beats of the script. Wonder if a slow dolly would help sell a particular moment? Do it with the pre-viz package and check it out. Worried that your planned in-car shot will look cheesy? Place your virtual camera into a "car" and see it for yourself.

All of this pre-visualization power comes at a cost. First, the more advanced packages aren't cheap. Secondly, though these packages are designed specifically for video pre-production, they are still 3D animation packages. Expect to sink some time into learning them before you start using them in a meaningful way.

That being said, once you have your head wrapped around their interfaces, your options become limitless. In fact, once you understand how to thoroughly pre-visualize a shoot, you can realistically expect the act of actually capturing the real sequence to go much, much more smoothly.

Having all of these packages available to help pre-visualize a shoot makes a director's task that much easier. Just remember that they're not meant to be used as rigid shooting guidelines. Once you're on set, the final decision is, as always, yours to make.