FOSS tools like Studio Binder for filmmaking

Hey there, I'm looking at producing my first documentary and one of the tools people use for that is called Studio Binder. It's an all-in-one for making your scripts, shotlists, moodboards, location scouting, storyboards, production planning, collaborators management etc etc.

Any of you know of similar tools that are FOSS? I think some VFX/animation pipelines also have similar needs.

I already found storyboarder for making panels which seems amazing but I'm getting a bit lost in the jungle of options for the project management/scripting side of things. I'm considering Airtable for example but might be overkill for my needs.

Ideally it's something tailored for filmmaking specifically but open to hearing about general purpose planners that can be adapted.

9 comments

Here is the alternative to list for airtable https://alternativeto.net/software/airtable/ . Why not just use Libreoffice and a project planner and a notes app. Big integrated tools are the realm of proprietary Lock in. Lot of what you want seems to be just a word processor and a spreadsheet.

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- Hey thanks for the link I'll check out Notion.
  
  Yes of course you're right, I can recreate everything through sheets, docs and slides, but a purpose-built tool has done a lot of the legwork for you and makes sure you're using industry-standard instead of reinventing the wheel.
  
  I think basically what it comes down to is if I want to avoid the proprietary all-in-one I'll have to make a pipeline with multiple tools myself, if there was a shiny and well maintained Foss alternative I'd probably have found it by now.
  
  Here's an example in airtable for context
  
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- Tools with features and UX designed around a specific workflow can significantly reduce the cognitive load of that workflow. It's why these products gain so much traction to begin with.
  
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  Provided that you fit that work flow well and want to put up with crazy licensing. My personal experience is that for simple stuff they do have advantages. I also think this stuff can have more advantages for lower skill people as a fixed work flow can help but for higher skill people fixed work flows are often more of a problem then a help.
  
  People rave about Visual Studio for example. I always found it fine for editing and debugging but terrible at building software. Not sure what people do now but use to be not uncommon to use other build tools, other compilers, and other version control systems because MS stuff sucked. In the same way, people also rave about excel and matlab too. I will use Python or maybe R thank you.
  
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Just for the benefit of anyone potentially reading this, it looks like I'll be going for Notion, there are some relevant premade templates to give me a starting point and then I'll adapt it to my specific needs.

It'll still need to be in combination with a scriptwriting tool like trelby or arc and storyboarder for panels but all of these can be uploaded into Notion.

For sure it won't be as elegant or integrated but definitely more flexible/powerful, and well, you can't beat the price tag ;)

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