# Planning movies

One of the best features of Captivate is its flexibility. Using Captivate, you can create a simple movie quickly. You can also use Captivate to create more sophisticated movies with images, background music, animation, voice-over narration, and detailed captions.

No matter what kind of movie you want to create, it is helpful to do some planning before you start capturing screen shots. Consider first what you want your audience (the user) to do, learn, or achieve as a result of viewing your movie. Defining this goal first allows you to create a comprehensive plan for success. Once you have defined the action you want the audience to take, you can create the "core" of the movie.

When you are ready to begin drafting movie content, you can do so using storyboards or scripts.

- Storyboards use rough sketches to show the contents of each slide in your movie. If you will rely heavily on pure screen shots in your movie (without many captions or explanatory text), a storyboard may be the best foundation for your movie. Example

Tip: You can use Captivate to create storyboards. Record a "rough" version of your movie, add some blank slides where appropriate, and then publish the movie as handouts. You can include 1-9 slides per page and add blank lines beneath the slides for notes.

- Scripts use text-based pages. They are similar to pages in a book: logical, sequential, and with as much detail as you care to provide. If your movie will contain a great deal of text (captions), a script may be the best place to begin. Example

When planning movies, don't forget to consider adding the following elements:

- Title page

- Credits page

- Copyright page

- Opening/closing graphic or splash screen

- Sound, including narration, music, or sound effects

- Images

- Animated text

- Interactive boxes

- If appropriate, quizzing functionality