Springboard 0.95

Six Mile Creek Systems is a company that specializes in developing software that “will simplify movie production.” When the company was founded, it was founded on these guiding principles:

- Everyone has a story to tell.
- Telling out stories is part of being human.
- The most pervasive narrative form is dynamic media (film, video, animation, movies).
- It is relatively easy to get the equipment needed to come with a narrative movie.
- Movie production is a difficult to manager, complex, time consuming process.
- Movie production is difficult for experienced people and doubly so for inexperienced ones.
- Production management can be simplified and taught to others via software applications.

Six Mile Creek Systems set out to create software that would address the guiding principles presented above and would make it easier to for regular people to tell their stories and make their own movies.

The application Six Mile Creek Systems came up with is called Springboard. It weighs in at about 2.5MB, meaning you should be able to download the application in no time at all. Once downloaded, the next logical step is to install the application on your computer. You will be glad to know that Springboard will work with all versions of the Microsoft-developed Windows operating system.

Once installed, Springboard can be used for coming up with: homegrown video projects, animated shorts, feature films, multimedia presentations, theatre set designs, comics.

The application will take you through all the steps you need to take to ketch storyboard ideas for video, animation, film or other media. Visually organizing and planning your story becomes a straightforward process by using Springboard. You get to see how your movie or other media project will look like before you start shooting. This means you can save time and explore more options before committing your choices to film.

You could compare Springboard to the classic method coming up with storyboards on paper. As a matter of fact, the same simplicity is to be found in the Six Mile Creek Systems-developed application (remember the guidelines above?). To the simplicity the software adds functionality; functionality you can only expect to get from software - perfect erasing, copy-and-paste, easy backups, overlays, exporting directly to video and the Web, and much more

Pros

• Lightweight download
• Easy to use
• Works with all Windows versions

Cons

• Demo version is limited: limited print and export, watermark on output.
• Nag screen

Springboard has been reviewed by George Norman on 14 Apr 2010. Based on the user interface, features and complexity, Findmysoft has rated Springboard 4 out of 5 stars, naming it Excellent