The storyboard
One drawing per camera setup, so the crew and the client see the same film before anybody spends money on it. What to draw, how many, in what shape, and what the arrows mean.
Ten rules, and the first one saves the most time
Almost everything written about storyboarding is about drawing. Very little of it is about deciding what to draw, which is the decision that actually costs a week.
- Storyboarding every shot of a short is prep theatre and it eats the week you needed for locations. Board what is expensive, dangerous, or compositionally non-negotiable: the crane move, the stunt, the one frame the client bought. Let coverage be coverage.
- Not one per line of dialogue and not one per beat. If the camera has not moved and the lens has not changed, a second panel is a second drawing of the same shot.
- The panel is what the lens sees. Where everybody is standing is a floor plan, and it belongs on a lighting plan or an overhead, not inside the frame.
- An arrow across the frame means the subject moves. An arrow on the frame edge means the camera moves. They are constantly confused, so write the word: pan left, push in, she exits right. The word survives being photocopied and the arrow does not.
- A box inside a box with an arrow between them reads as a push in, and it reads instantly. Two panels of the same composition at different sizes reads as a cut.
- A drawing cannot state a focal length and everybody guesses differently. WS on a 24mm and WS on a 50mm from further back are different shots and only one of them fits the room.
- Put a number of seconds on each panel and the boards become a rough cut before anything is shot. It will be wrong shot by shot and right in aggregate, which is the earliest warning that the plan does not fit the day.
- The board is a communication document with a deadline, not a portfolio piece. Legibility, framing and the arrow are the content. Nobody on set has ever asked for better hands.
- 12A, 12B, 12C. If the board's numbers and the shot list's numbers differ, the AD will schedule one and the director will call for the other.
- Four for detail, six for a scene at a glance. Landscape, with the description under each panel, because that is what a crew reads standing up.
Frame ratios, and what each is for
Board in the shape you are delivering in. A composition that only works at 2.39 does not survive the crop to a phone, and finding that out in the edit is expensive.
| Ratio | Decimal | Called | Used for |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2.39:1 | 2.39 | Scope | Anamorphic and modern widescreen features. Often written 2.35, which is the older standard and is what most people mean when they say it. |
| 1.85:1 | 1.85 | Flat | The other cinema standard. Slightly wider than a television and the default for a great many features. |
| 16:9 | 1.78 | HD | Television, streaming, the web, and almost every commercial. If nobody has told you a ratio, it is this one. |
| 4:3 | 1.33 | Academy | Period work, deliberate constraint, and archive. Comes back into fashion roughly every six years. |
| 9:16 | 0.56 | Vertical | Social. Board it vertical from the start: a wide frame cropped to vertical in the edit loses the composition that justified the shot. |
| 1:1 | 1.00 | Square | Feed placements. Rarely the master, often a deliverable, and worth boarding if it is contractual. |
| 2:1 | 2.00 | Univisium | A compromise between Scope and HD, common on streaming drama because it crops sensibly to both. |
Frameboard’s cards hold any of these, and a card can be left free to take the shape of whatever you dropped on it, which is what you want while a scene is still references rather than shots.
A reference and a shot are the same object, seen twice
A moodboard, a storyboard and a shot list are usually three documents that describe the same shots and disagree by the second week. In Frameboard they are three states of one card. Drop a reference on the canvas, sketch over it or beside it, and turn it into a shot: it takes a number, a size, a lens and a duration, and the shot list rebuilds itself.
Movement is drawn on the board rather than described beside it. Sweep an arrow from one shot to the next, curve it for a crane move, ring the corner of the frame you mean, and then type the words, because the words are the part that survives.
Boards print four or six to a page with the description under each panel, on every plan. The same boards export as an animatic: every panel becomes a clip held for its planned duration, opening in Premiere, Resolve and Final Cut, so the sequence can be watched rather than imagined.
- Images, clips, sketches, notes, tables. Any of them becomes a shot
- Number, size, lens, movement, duration, description, notes
- Freehand arrows with the words attached, drawn on the board
- Storyboard PDF 4-up and 6-up, PNG, and an animatic that cuts to time
What is a storyboard?
A sequence of drawings, one per camera setup, showing what each shot looks like. It is a communication document: it exists so the crew and the client see the same film before it is shot.
Do I need to be able to draw to storyboard?
No. Stick figures with the frame, the size, the lens and an arrow communicate everything the document is for. Photographs and reference stills work just as well and are faster.
How many panels should a storyboard have?
One per camera setup, and only for the shots worth boarding. A short film might have twenty panels and be fully prepared; boarding every shot of it would take a week and change nothing on the day.
What aspect ratio should I board in?
The one you are delivering in. 16:9 unless somebody has told you otherwise, 2.39:1 for widescreen cinema, 9:16 for social. Board vertical from the start rather than cropping later.
Is a storyboard the same as a shot list?
No. A storyboard is what a shot looks like; a shot list is when it gets made and what it needs. They describe the same shots and they have to agree, which is the argument for keeping them in one place.
What is the difference between a storyboard and an animatic?
An animatic is the storyboard cut to time: each panel held for its planned duration, in order. It answers whether the sequence works, which no still page can.
Board it where the shot list already lives
Every export is on the free plan, PDFs included, because the crew needs the document.
Related: shot list or storyboard, shot sizes and what each is for, and what belongs on a call sheet.