Tip: Animated Storyboards
One way to bring your pre-production to life is to take your storyboards and animate them. I did this on my short film Hostages, as animated storyboards were a part of the previsualization assignment. When I included the animated storyboards into The Making of Hostages, people wondered how I did it. It's pretty easy, and in the above video, I describe how.
Comments
There are some iPhone apps and other software that will allow you to make animatics and, in the case of FrameForge 3D, you can previsualize your shot from assigning camera lenses, creating fake actors and scenes...really robust but overkill.
I like your method better because it cuts down on unnecessary creativity. If that makes sense.