Storyboard

The film drawn before it is shot, frame by frame. Cheap mistakes on paper instead of expensive ones on set.

The storyboard is the film's first, cheapest existence: every intended shot drawn, sized and ordered, so the whole can be watched on a wall before a single call sheet exists. Composition, coverage and continuity have their arguments on paper, where changing everything costs an eraser.

Cheap mistakes on paper is the economic core, but boards also function as the production's shared contract: crew, client and director pointing at the same drawing are, for once, imagining the same film. In brand and motion work the board is where scope is truly agreed; approving one is approving the film, frame by intended frame.