I've done storyboards before. My Fiction Technique teacher back at FSU had us draw up storyboards for the short stories we were writing, so to give an idea on what we wanted for our story. She didn't mind any style (even stick figures). At that time I was getting into machinima and had recently bought
The Sims 2 to test out as a machinima making tool. So, I constructed a "set" of what was the location in the story, created my Sim representations of my characters, and took screencaps of the Sims performing certain actions (close enough to match what I wanted for the story). After it was done, I printed it out and then submitted it in for a grade. When I got the paper back, I had received an A+ on it with a note saying, "You definitely put a lot of detail and thought into this. Impressive!" So, machinima can be useful as a tool.
Another one you can do, which is probably better, is using action figures or wooden art figurines. I came across a page where a filmmaker had shown how he created storyboards for his short film, where he took the wooden art figurines, composed the shot he wanted and used a digital camera to take a picture to use for the storyboard. The same principle can be applied if you're using action figures (anything from the 3 3/4 inch
G.I. Joe size to 12 inch figures can do it), as by doing the composition, one shot can say so much, like the
work of Mark Hogencamp).
I've only done the machinima one before. As long as you're only using it for a story or showing the shots you want to do for a short film project, then either of the above mentioned suggestions should work. Don't expect to use them in any behind the scenes/making-of featurettes if its for a short or feature-length film (unless the GUI says otherwise, its best to be on the side of caution).