Story and Storyboard: Three Files You Must Deliver Before Shooting
💡 Goal: Deliver the three paper files needed before shooting within 40 minutes—a three-sentence story synopsis, a one-page A4 short script, and a storyboard sheet, and finish the dialogue trimming and shot continuity checks along the way. With this AI script and storyboarding step done solidly, the later character reference images and shot generation will have a list to rely on.
🎯 Stage Goals
- DeliverFile One: Story Synopsis—60-second story told in three sentences; the story is finalized here, no more changes while shooting
- DeliverFile Two: Short Script—one page A4 laying out your 60 seconds clearly, dialogue trimmed, reading it aloud won't run over time
- DeliverFile Three: Storyboard Sheet—the script broken into a numbered shot list, each shot can be taken to generate on its own, adjacent shots have passed the continuity check
⏳ Estimated Time
- The five lessons in this stage total about 31 minutes (6 + 7 + 4 + 8 + 6), about 22–40 minutes with a ±30% buffer
- Short-on-time route: the lessons matching the three files—2.1 Story Synopsis, 2.2 Short Script, 2.4 Storyboard Sheet—are must-dos (about 21 minutes); 2.3 Dialogue Trimming can wait until before voiceover, and 2.5 Continuity Check can be filled in before generation
- This stage is still paper work: no video generation, no software installation, no spending
🚀 Before You Start
- Completed Quick Start: especially 1.2 Minimal Scope for an Original Story—a single-scene, few-character, 30–60-second topic already written into your notes
- A pen or a blank document: all three files are "paper deliverables," and changes at this stage cost nothing
- 1.4 Cost and Trial-and-Error Log kept at hand: once the storyboard sheet is finalized, you'll have an exact shot count, and the cost log can be filled in accordingly
- No graphics card or paid account needed: tools only come into play at the next stop, Character and Scene Assets
- A cup of water ☕—this stage wears out pens, not graphics cards
📚 Lessons in This Stage
Doing AI script and storyboarding really means answering five questions in order: What is the story about? What should the script look like? How much dialogue to keep? Which shots to break it into? Do the shots connect to each other?
| Lesson | Content | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| 2.1 Story Synopsis | Tell the 60-second story in three sentences: produce File One, story finalized | 6 minutes |
| 2.2 Short Script Template | One page A4 laying out your 60 seconds: produce File Two | 7 minutes |
| 2.3 Dialogue Trimming | Trim before voiceover: match dialogue length to voiceover duration and subtitle line count | 4 minutes |
| 2.4 Storyboard Sheet | Break the script into a shot list: produce File Three, each shot generated on its own | 8 minutes |
| 2.5 Shot Continuity Check | Transition checklist: go through item by item whether adjacent shots connect | 6 minutes |
How the three files map to the five lessons (the assignment design of this course):
| Deliverable File | Produced in Which Lesson | Polished in Which Lesson |
|---|---|---|
| File One: Story Synopsis | 2.1 | — |
| File Two: Short Script | 2.2 | 2.3 Dialogue Trimming |
| File Three: Storyboard Sheet | 2.4 | 2.5 Continuity check |
The entire course revolves around the same 30–60-second original practice film (this is this site's course design). The previous stop Quick Start set the workflow, scope, route, and budget; this stop handles pre-production, turning the story into three files; after that, Character and Scene Assets and Shot Generation begin actually producing images and footage.
💡 Why deliver these three files before shooting begins?
Runway's official help documentation describes long-video production as: first develop the story concept and storyboard, then prepare character references, then generate multiple short clips, and finally edit them together into the film—story and storyboard come before any generation steps. This course turns that step into three checkable files (synopsis, script, storyboard), which is this site's teaching design, not a feature requirement of any tool. Lock the story and storyboard down on paper first, and the generation stage becomes just executing the list.
🎒 What you will gain
- Three checkable paper deliverables: synopsis, script, storyboard—every later stage follows them
- A numbered shot list: character reference images are prepared against it, shots are generated by it, and editing is matched by shot number
- A sense of "paper first, generation later" order: changing one word in a document is far cheaper than reshooting a shot
- A sense of direction for the next stop: once the files are all delivered, move on to Character and Scene Assets to set reference images for the characters and scenes in the film