GuidesHow to Storyboard an AI Video, Step by Step
How to storyboard an AI video, from idea to shot
An AI video is won before the first generation. Every generated shot costs credits and time; the storyboard decides what you generate, and above all what you don't.
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One sentence before anything else
Sum up the video in one sentence that contains a character, a stake and a twist. If the sentence doesn't hold, the storyboard won't either.
A three-part structure
Even for a three-minute video: a situation, a problem, a resolution. For a thirty-second short: a hook in the first three seconds, a development, a clean ending.
A script written to be spoken
If the video has a voice-over, write short sentences, made for the ear. Read them aloud with a stopwatch: the length of the voice sets the length of the video, not the other way round.
For a first attempt, stay tiny: ten to fifteen seconds, and a single line of narration under twenty-five words. That is the exercise in Module 01: getting through the whole pipeline once matters more than a beautiful result.
The shot list: from script to shots
Break the script into shots. For each one, note:
- what we see;
- the shot size: wide, medium, close-up;
- the duration, to the second;
- the camera move, or the lack of one;
- the line spoken during the shot;
- the character's single action.
This shot breakdown becomes your roadmap: a shot that isn't on it doesn't get generated.
One image per shot
For each line of the shot list, produce a still image, even a rough one. It will be the starting point for the animation. Check continuity at this stage (character, light, camera axis): fixing it here costs almost nothing; fixing it after animation costs a whole generation.
If a character appears in several shots, all their images start from the same board: see keeping a character consistent.
Read it through before generating
Scroll through the storyboard like a comic, reading the voice-over on top. If the story makes sense that way, it will make sense on video. If not, now is the time to cut, while cutting costs nothing.
After the storyboard
Then come shot-by-shot animation, voice, music, and the edit. Sound has its own rules: music that carries the voice without taking its place, and every shot checked on headphones before export.