Author: Marco Liao, Executive Producer
The most expensive words on a shoot day are "I thought we were getting that shot." By the time they are said, the crew is on the clock, the location is paid for, and the light is going. A storyboard, or on a simpler shoot, a shot list, is the document that stops that sentence from being said.
This article explains what a storyboard is, how it differs from a treatment, a shot list and an animatic, and what you should expect to receive and approve before a brand film shoot.
A storyboard is a sequence of drawn frames, one per shot, showing what the camera will see and in what order, with notes on shot size, movement, action, dialogue and timing. It is made in pre-production, after the script and the director's treatment, and before the shot list and schedule. Before a brand film shoot, you should see and sign off on the treatment, the storyboard (or a shot list for simpler films) and the shooting schedule.
This article is for marketing managers, brand managers and founders in Singapore approving a brand film, TVC or corporate video. It is also for anyone sent a PDF of sketches marked "approve by Friday" who is not sure what to check.
A storyboard is the film drawn before it is shot: one frame per shot, in order, with notes under each frame. The treatment comes before it and says how the film will feel. The shot list comes after it and says how each frame will be captured. An animatic is the storyboard timed against sound.
Our Services page lists Scriptwriting & Storyboarding and Director's Treatment as separate pre-production items for that reason: one does not replace the other.
StudioBinder's what is a storyboard guide covers the drawing side in more depth, and its shot list vs storyboard comparison is worth reading if your producer uses the two words interchangeably.
Each frame carries a sketch and six pieces of written information, and the notes matter more than the drawing. A board with stick figures and complete notes is more useful than a beautiful one with the duration column empty. The shot sizes, durations and notes are what the crew builds the day from.
Because a TVC is designed shot by shot to a fixed length, and an interview is captured as it happens.
A 30-second commercial has to land a message, show a product and close on a logo inside the slot a broadcaster sells, so every frame is composed, dressed and timed. The only way to agree those frames before the money is spent is to draw them. The full process from brief to broadcast is in our TVC guide.
A corporate interview with B-roll is different. The content comes from what your people say on the day, which nobody can draw in advance. What needs agreeing is the setups: who is interviewed, where, how many angles, and which B-roll will cover the answers. A shot list does that, and the crew for each kind of shoot is in our production setup guide. Brand films usually sit between the two: the designed sequences get a board, the documentary parts get a shot list, and the client sees both.
Our behind-the-scenes film for Canon's Imagine Bigger Things Asia launch TVC shows the project from pre-production planning to on-set execution, which is the board becoming the shoot day. For the Association of Banks in Singapore's EDP/EDP+ launch TVC we conceptualised and produced the spot, so the concept and the production came from the same team.
The decisions do not go away. They move to the shoot day, where each one is made with the full crew waiting.
Three things tend to follow. On-set debate: the brand manager and the director discover, with the camera already set, that they pictured the product reveal differently. The missing shot: the edit needs a close-up of the label, and nobody shot it because nobody had agreed it. Then the bill for both: overtime, or a reshoot that means booking the crew, the location and the talent a second time.
A change on paper costs a redrawn frame. The same change on set costs the whole crew's time while it is argued. The rest of what happens before a camera is hired is in our guide to planning a brand video.
Four things: the brand moments, the product, the pacing against the length, and the legal lines. Everything else is the director's job.
Brand moments. Find the frames where the brand is doing something only your brand would do. If you cannot point to them, the film will be generic.
Product visibility. Count the frames in which the product, service or logo is visible, and how long they run. A board can read well as a story and still show the product for two seconds out of thirty. Check the label and packaging are the ones on sale when the film airs.
Pacing against the length. Add up the duration column. If it is longer than the slot, something will be cut, and you want to decide what now. If the message lands in the last frame of a skippable placement, most viewers will never see it.
Legal lines. Read every super, claim, disclaimer and price in the dialogue and notes columns. The board is the last cheap place to fix a claim that compliance will reject.
A board can only be as good as what fed it: a clear goal, ideas tested before anyone starts sketching, a finished script, and a visual style agreed in the treatment. The goal belongs in the brief before any of the rest can start.
Before you sign off a storyboard or shot list, your team should:
The director breaks the approved script into shots and sketches rough thumbnails. A storyboard artist draws the clean frames and the producer adds the notes and timings. The board goes to the client for one round of comments, is revised, and then feeds the shot list and the schedule. You see the clean board and the revision, not the thumbnails.
The same frames drawn in a vertical 9:16 shape, usually for a shorter film. The board checks that the message lands in the first seconds, that the product is in frame while the viewer's thumb is deciding, and that there is room for captions. If your shoot must produce vertical cutdowns, ask for the vertical frames rather than assuming the horizontal ones will crop.
Any drawing tool works, from pencil and paper to tablet software; what matters is the frames and the notes under them. As the client you should never need to open storyboarding software. Ask for a PDF with the duration and notes columns filled in, and send it back if they are empty.
A storyboard template is a grid of empty frames with fields for shot size, action, dialogue and duration. Sketching the shots you have in mind is a useful part of a corporate video brief. For a TVC or brand film the director draws the board from the treatment, because the board is a directing decision, not a wish list.
For a TVC, yes: the board is for you and the shot list is for the crew. It turns each frame into a line the crew can schedule, with lens, camera position, set-up time and shooting order; StudioBinder's what is a shot list guide shows the usual columns. For an interview shoot the shot list alone is normally enough.
Send us the brief and the lengths your media plan needs. We will tell you whether your film needs a drawn board, a shot list or both, and what you will be approving at each step. Get in touch with the team at hello@emergentfilms.com.
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