The script for the explainer was approved after two rounds. The animator spent eight days on the first 40 seconds, and the client’s first note on the cut was that they had imagined the product much bigger on screen, with the three numbers arriving one at a time.
The script never said otherwise. It described what would be on screen, and the client read it and pictured something else.
A storyboard puts that picture on paper before anyone builds it. A dozen rough frames with a line of voiceover under each would have caught both notes in a ten-minute call.
In short
- Board a video when the picture is decided in advance and costly to change, like motion graphics, animation and product reveals.
- Each frame carries a number, the shot, the action, the audio, the on-screen text and the seconds, with audio and text copied from the script.
- Stick figures and scout photos are enough, since a frame only has to show where things sit and how big they are.
- With shots of three to five seconds, a 60-second video comes to 12 to 20 frames.
- Approval covers the shot order, what’s in each shot, the on-screen text and rough timing, and leaves exact framing and color to the edit.
When a storyboard pays off, and when it doesn’t
A storyboard is worth the time when the image is decided in advance and costs a lot to change later. Motion graphics and animation are the clearest case, because every frame is built by hand and a late change means building it again.
Ads with a product reveal belong in the same group, along with shots that depend on a planned camera move or a visual effect, and anything where the client has to approve how the product or a person appears.
Interviews, testimonials, events and most talking-head videos don’t need one. Nobody knows the answers before the shoot, and the pictures come from what happens on the day.
For those, a two-column script says what’s seen and heard, and a shot list turns it into the shots the crew has to get.
Plenty of jobs sit in between. A corporate video built on interviews with a 15-second animated opening only needs frames for the opening. Board the sequences that are hard to describe in words and let the script handle the rest.
What goes in each frame
| Field | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Frame | 1, 2, 3, with letters for several frames of one shot (4A, 4B). It becomes the shot number on the shot list |
| Picture | A drawing, photo or rough layout, inside a box with the final aspect ratio |
| Shot | Size and movement: WS, MS, CU, insert; static, push in, pan. Movement also goes on the picture as an arrow |
| Action | What happens in the frame, in one line |
| Audio | The voiceover or dialogue that plays over it, plus music and sound cues |
| Text | On-screen text exactly as it should appear: lower thirds, numbers, the end card |
| Seconds | Time on screen, measured by reading the audio line out loud or walking through the action |
Copy the audio and the on-screen text from the approved script instead of retyping them. When the board and the script carry two versions of the same line, the client approves whichever one they read last.
You don’t need to draw well
Stick figures are fine. A frame has to show where things sit and how big they are, and a circle for a head inside a correctly proportioned box does that.
Draw the box first, at 16:9 or 9:16 depending on the delivery, then the horizon line, then the subject. Arrows show movement, of the camera or of someone in frame.
Photos often beat drawings. The pictures from your location scout, taken from where the camera will stand, already show the real room. Put someone from the team where the presenter will be, shoot it on a phone at lens height, and the client can read the frame without imagining anything.
Frames grabbed from a reference film or ad are good for mood and composition. Mark each one REF in a corner, so nobody takes it for the cast or the location you’re booking.
For motion graphics, gray boxes and placeholder shapes in the design app are enough, as long as the text inside them is the real text.
A storyboard template to copy
The usual layout is a landscape page with two rows of three panels, six frames per page. Each panel is a box in the delivery’s aspect ratio with the fields underneath.
For a vertical video, fit four or five narrow panels per row. One panel looks like this:
+------------------------+
| |
| picture, 16:9 box |
| |
+------------------------+
5 | SCREEN | 5 s
Hours load from the clock
VO: "Hours come in straight
from the time clock..."
TEXT: none
Google Slides with one frame per slide works too, with the fields in a text box under the picture.
If your team prefers a spreadsheet, Google Sheets can put an image inside a cell (Insert > Image > Insert image in cell), so each row becomes a frame with its fields in the columns beside it.
How many frames for a 60-second video
If the shots in your video hold for three to five seconds, 60 seconds comes to between 12 and 20 frames. The frame count follows the shots, since most frames stand for one shot.
A shot that changes inside itself, like a push-in that ends on a different subject or a graphic that builds in three steps, gets one frame per state.
Motion graphics usually cuts faster and needs more, while a video built on interviews needs frames only for the B-roll and graphics.
Here’s a 60-second launch video for a made-up payroll app, Bramlow, mixing live action and screen animation in 12 frames:
| # | Picture and on-screen text | Audio | Sec |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WS: the office at dawn, Rosa turns on the lights | MUSIC in. VO: “Payday used to start at six in the morning.” | 5 |
| 2 | CU, slow push in: three spreadsheets, a calculator, a sticky note | VO: “Three spreadsheets, a calculator and a lot of double-checking.” | 5 |
| 3 | MS: Rosa rubs her eyes. TEXT: “4 hours every payday” | VO: “Four hours, every two weeks.” | 4 |
| 4 | ANIMATION: the spreadsheets fold into the Bramlow logo | SFX: whoosh. VO: “Then her team moved to Bramlow.” | 4 |
| 5 | SCREEN: hours load from the time clock | VO: “Hours come in straight from the time clock…” | 5 |
| 6 | SCREEN: pay totals fill in, row by row | VO: “…and every paycheck adds itself up.” | 5 |
| 7 | SCREEN: the cursor clicks Run payroll | VO: “One click to run payroll.” | 4 |
| 8 | ANIMATION: a counter drops from 4:00 to 0:15. TEXT: “From 4 hours to 15 minutes” | VO: “Four hours became fifteen minutes.” | 6 |
| 9 | MS: Rosa leaves at five, waving goodbye | VO: “And Rosa leaves on time.” | 4 |
| 10 | CU: a phone shows a payslip notification | VO: “Everyone gets their payslip on their phone the same day.” | 6 |
| 11 | WS: the team at lunch | MUSIC up | 4 |
| 12 | END CARD: logo and bramlow.com | VO: “Bramlow. Payroll in minutes.” MUSIC out | 8 |
The durations add up to 60 seconds. They come from reading each line aloud at the narrator’s pace and adding the moments with no speech, like the lunch shot and the end card.
Getting the client’s sign-off
Send the board with a short note saying what an approval covers. Approving a storyboard settles the order of the shots, what’s in each one, the on-screen text and the rough timing.
It doesn’t settle exact framing, color or timing to the frame. Put that in writing:
Approving the storyboard fixes the sequence, the content of each shot and the text on screen. Framing and timing can still shift in the edit, and if a shot doesn’t work once it’s filmed, we’ll tell you before replacing it.
The client then knows the edit may move things by a second or two, and you have a record that the product appears in frame 7 because they agreed to it.
Adding or swapping frames after approval is a new round, like a script change, and it counts toward the rounds in your quote. How to stop endless revision rounds covers that conversation.
For animation, add one more step before anyone builds: an animatic, which is the frames cut to a scratch voiceover at the planned timing. It shows whether the story really fits in 60 seconds, and it’s the last cheap moment to change the pacing.
The approved board then goes into the pre-production checklist next to the approved script.
How this works in RecReview
RecReview has no storyboard tool, but a storyboard fits in two places it already has.
The storyboard file can go on the video’s task as an attachment: a PDF, an image or a PowerPoint file of up to 50 MB, one file at a time, or a link to the Slides or Sheets version. Everyone in your workspace can open it, and the client can’t.
For the client’s notes frame by frame, a photo gallery does the job, even though it was built for photos. Create one for the client and project, with a title like “Storyboard, launch video”, and upload each frame as a JPEG, PNG or WebP image of up to 40 MB.
HEIC files from an iPhone aren’t accepted, so export scout photos as JPEG first. Frames show in the order you uploaded them, there’s no way to drag them into a new order, and the viewer doesn’t show file names. Put the frame number inside each image and upload in sequence.
The client goes through one frame at a time and comments on the frame on screen, drawing on it with a pen, arrow, box or circle. Badges on the thumbnail strip mark the frames that have comments or new versions.
A redrawn frame goes up as a new version of the same image, so it keeps its place, and the client can compare it with the earlier one side by side, with a split or as an overlay.
Leave the gallery’s Approve button alone for a storyboard. A gallery is a delivery of its own, with its own card and code on your board. Approving it closes it like any delivery: with one of the automation presets, its task moves to Delivered and the client’s main contacts get the approval email.
Ask for the storyboard OK as a comment on the last frame instead, and keep that comment as the record. More on photo galleries.
