Storyboard to film

What a storyboard is

A storyboard is a film told in still frames, one per shot, in order. Each frame shows what the camera sees, who is in it, what happens and how it leads to the next shot. It exists because changing a frame is quicker than shooting a scene twice.

A small set of shot sizes covers most storyboards, and knowing them makes it easier to say what you want.

You don't need these words to work with Domi. Describe what you want to see and she turns it into shots. If you know them, you can be precise, as in “make shot 4 a tight shot of her hands.”

Why approving the storyboard first saves credits

Filming a shot is a generation, and every generation uses credits. The storyboard is where mistakes cost the least to fix:

• A shot in the wrong order is a frame you move, not a shot you film twice.
• A missing moment is a frame you add before filming, not a gap you find after.
• A character who looks wrong is fixed once, at casting, before any shot is filmed with them.

You see a generation's estimated credit cost before it runs, so approving a frame means knowing what filming it will use. Domi's replies in the studio use credits too, so planning isn't free. But the shots you would have thrown away are never filmed.

From your script to a storyboard

Bring a script, a book chapter, a diary, photos or footage. Or start from one sentence and write the script with Domi first. The Last Train began as a short script about two strangers on a station bench. Domi broke it into a storyboard, and its frames became the filmed shots above.

To get a storyboard close to the one in your head, put these in your first message:

• The purpose comes first, such as a pitch, a gift, a first episode or a teaser for your book.
• The style shapes every frame. Name it, whether cinematic drama, animation drawn by hand, stop motion or 3D animation.
• The mood is easiest to give as two or three films or photographs it should feel like.
• What must stay is the line, the image or the ending you won't give up.
• Each character needs a few lines on age, look and clothes.

How to check a storyboard before you approve it

Read it twice, once as the person who wrote it and once as someone seeing it cold. Then check six things:

• Each frame shows one idea. If it shows two, it may need to be two shots.
• The turn of the scene usually deserves a close shot, not a wide one.
• Screen direction holds. If she walks left to right in one shot, she keeps heading that way in the next unless the story turns her around.
• Eyelines meet. Two people talking look toward each other across the cut.
• Every shot earns its place. If the story still reads without it, cut it, and that is one less shot to film.
• Nothing lives only in your head. If you can't see it in a frame, the viewer won't either.

When something is off, name the shot and the change, as in “Shot 6, wider, so we see the empty station.” You change one shot at a time, without starting over.

One cast across every frame

A storyboard is only useful if the film keeps it. Domi casts each character once and holds the same face, clothes and look across every shot and scene, so the woman in frame 1 is the woman in frame 12.

The strip below follows one woman in a mustard raincoat through five keyframes, from a wide shot at a rainy crossing to a door opening on her smile. Because you see each shot before it is filmed, you can catch anything that drifts and fix that one shot.

Any style, the same storyboard

A storyboard works the same way for any style, but choose the style first, because it changes what each shot can do. Animation can put the camera where no camera fits. Stop motion suits fewer, deliberate movements. A cinematic drama rewards real light and real places.

The eight clips below, all made in Video Studio, are a product commercial, a cinematic drama, animation drawn by hand, stop motion, a music video, a documentary, 3D animation and a 1960s fashion film. The same steps apply to short films, short dramas, music videos and video ads.

Storyboarding with your team

Invite the people you plan films with into the project by email. They can open and continue each other's sessions with Domi and leave notes drawn on a frame, which go to whoever made it. Every version is kept, so the storyboard you approved and the one before it are both still there. The finished film goes to a client with one link.