A video storyboard is a frame-by-frame plan of a video, made before anything is filmed or animated. Each frame shows one shot as a sketch or designed image, with notes underneath covering the script line, the action, and how the camera frames it. Storyboards come after the script is confirmed and before the shoot is booked. They give everyone (your team, your stakeholders and our crew) the same picture of the finished video while changes are still cheap.
What goes in a video storyboard
A video storyboard pairs a picture of each shot with the information the crew needs to film it. The pictures show what the viewer will see. The notes cover what you can't draw.
Every frame on our storyboards has the same fields:
Shot number, like 1A, 1B and 2A, so everyone in a review can point at the same shot (the number is the scene, and the letter is the shot within it)
The image: a sketch for live action, or a designed frame for animation
Shot type: how wide the shot is and what the camera does, like "WS - slow dolly in" (a wide shot with the camera creeping forward)
Location: where the shot happens, inside or outside, and the time of day
Shot description: what happens in the shot, in plain sentences
Dialogue: the voiceover or lines that play over it
Notes: anything the crew can't miss on the day
Between frames, we mark how one shot moves into the next: a cut, a whip-pan, or a visual effect. The cover page sums up the whole video: its length, how many shots and scenes it has, and the format it's delivered in.
A video storyboard example
Here are three drawings from the storyboard we made for "Funny Canadians #2," a commercial for the Canadian lender Fairstone, next to the same moments in the finished video. We're only showing the drawings here. On the full board, each one sits above the written fields listed earlier. The 45-second spot was planned as 15 shots across 7 scenes, and every one of them was on the board before the shoot.
This one is about as close a match as you'll get. The drawing set the framing (an over-the-shoulder close-up of the envelope) and the angle, so on the day the crew knew exactly where the camera went.
In the storyboard sketch, the guy on the couch looks more like a crash test dummy than an actor, and that's on purpose. The drawings only need to make each shot obvious: how wide it is, who's in it, and where the camera sits. Movement gets drawn too. The arrows here tell the crew the coffee table and laptop slide into the shot. On the full board, the shot type written beside it adds that the camera slowly dollies in at the same time.
A storyboard is a plan, and the best ideas sometimes show up on the day. In the drawing, the actor stands over the stump with his hockey skate. On set, he ended up down on one knee. One detail from the board's written notes made it through exactly: bills already cut in half around the stump. You can see them scattered on the grass.
The written notes, which you can't see in these images, are where a storyboard earns its keep. Across the full Fairstone board, they asked for close-ups of the bills to cut in later, a close-up of the laptop "for safety," and a version of several shots with the actor not looking at the camera. Those extra takes were for a separate 15-second social cut, which had its own storyboard and was planned in three sizes (16:9, 9:16 and 1:1). Because the social version was on the board, it came out of the same shoot.
How we make a video storyboard
Our storyboards are drawn by our in-house storyboard artist, working from a rough version our creative director sketches first. By that point, the concept and the look of the video are already settled. The storyboard works out how each moment will actually be shot.
The script gets confirmed.
We don't storyboard a script that's still changing, because every rewrite means redrawing frames.Our creative director roughs it out.
Brandon sits down with the script and works out how the story plays on screen, shot by shot. He'd be the first to tell you he's no artist, so this version is mostly stick figures with a lot of written description.Our in-house storyboard artist draws the frames.
They take Brandon's stick figures and direction and turn them into clean frames anyone can read at a glance. The Fairstone frames above are their work.We review it with your stakeholders. We walk your team through the boards in a meeting and dig deeper into the concept. This is the moment to raise "what if the CEO is standing?", while it costs a pencil sketch instead of a reshoot. If your videos go through legal or compliance, bring them into this review too. A visual they'd flag is much easier to fix on a storyboard than in a finished edit.
Logistics kick into full gear.
Once the boards are approved, we book locations, talent and gear around them.
Here's the jump from step 2 to step 3 on another project. The rough gets the layout and the idea down. The finished frame cleans it up so anyone in the review can read it in a second, and adds the camera direction: the arrows in the corners mean the camera pushes in on the desk.
AI is speeding up step 3. Brandon can sketch a frame, add a prompt, and get back a professional-looking storyboard frame in a fraction of the time. It's a good example of how we use AI in production: as a tool that speeds up the process, with a person deciding what every shot needs to do. (More on that in our take on AI video production.)
Live-action vs animation storyboards
Live-action and animation storyboards do the same job, but they look completely different.
Live action: the frames are sketches. Their job is to show the shot (the angle, the shot size, and where the people are) so the crew knows exactly what to film on the day.
Animation: the frames are designed, and they look like the finished video. In animation, the design has to come first anyway, so the boards are built in the final style. When your team approves an animation storyboard, they're approving close to what they'll see on screen. For more on that design stage, see how mood boards and style frames come before the storyboard.
Why a storyboard saves shoot days
A good storyboard is the cheapest way we know to shorten a shoot. A well-planned storyboard can turn what would have been a week-long shoot into one or two days, without cutting corners on quality.
The time savings come from walking onto set with every shot already decided. The crew isn't working out angles while your executives wait between takes, and nobody discovers a missing shot in the edit.
We can't always storyboard, though. When a timeline is tight, we'll often use a shot list instead: a written list of every shot we need, without the drawings. It's faster to make and still keeps the shoot organized.
How detailed a storyboard needs to be
A storyboard only needs enough detail for the client and crew to agree on the direction of each shot. Think of it as a rough outline of the video.
The most common mistake we see is spending too long making frames beautiful. If everyone in the review can tell what the shot is, who's in it, and what's being said, the board is doing its job. Polish the video instead.
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between a storyboard and a shot list?
A storyboard shows each shot as a picture, with notes underneath. A shot list is a written list of the shots needed, with no drawings. A storyboard is better for getting stakeholders aligned on how a video will look. A shot list is quicker to make, so we use one when the timeline is tight.
Does every video need a storyboard?
No. Storyboards earn their place on bigger live-action shoots and on animation, where changing a shot later is expensive. On tight timelines, a shot list keeps the shoot organized without the extra step.
What does our team need to have ready before the storyboard?
A confirmed script. The concept and the look of the video are settled before storyboarding starts, so the storyboard can focus on how each moment is shot. After that, your job is to bring the right stakeholders to the storyboard review. To see where storyboarding sits in the full timeline, read our video production process.
If you've got a video coming up with a lot of people who need to agree on it (marketing, the executive team, legal), a storyboard is usually where that agreement happens. We've been getting rooms like that on the same page for B2B teams since 2014. Let's talk about what yours needs.
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