Storyboard & Previz

Each row is a shot, shown as a grid of cards or as a list. A shot has:

• a duration and timed segments such as [0–2s] and [2–5s], each with its own action;
• camera chips (move, lens, angle) and audio cues tagged [AMB], [SFX], [MUSIC] and [VO];
• @ mentions of cast, locations and products from the Asset Bible;
• a model, picked per row, with a live credit quote;
• versions: every shot keeps a history of its saved versions.

The shot editor shows the prompt in the Vexel shot grammar with a linter that flags problems before you spend credits. ⌘K opens the command palette with the board’s actions.

From the shot editor’s Prompt tab, Get notes asks four critics (a Cinematographer, an Editor, Continuity, and Brand & clarity) to read the prompt in parallel. Apply notes one by one or all at once; every applied rewrite is saved as a new version. Claude critics are quoted and metered like a Director turn.

• Draw frames in the Storyboard toolbar draws a sketch for every shot, with a quote per image. One image job per shot draws a panel for each segment as a strip.
• Sketches use the cast’s reference images, so characters stay recognizable even as line drawings.
• In the Previz tab you can compare and approve sketches, redraw one, upload your own drawing, or annotate it with arrows and notes. Annotations are drawn into the animatic.
• At the boards stage the Director draws the frames itself before proposing the checkpoint, and the checkpoint waits until every shot has one.

The storyboard stays in cheap sketches; previz keyframes show the client the real film. For each shot, the opening moment of its sketch is rendered as a realistic film still, keeping the sketch’s composition, staging and framing, with the cast’s reference images for faces, products and places.

• Sketches and previz frames live in two separate lanes per shot, each with its own history and its own approved frame.
• The animatic uses a shot’s previz frame when it has one.
• Video takes start from the previz frame as their first frame, on models that support it.

The animatic is the video storyboard: the frames on a timeline at their planned durations, with Ken Burns moves taken from each shot’s camera (push-in, pan, tilt), a panel per segment, and timecode and shot numbers burned in. It plays in the Previz tab.

Share the animatic with a review link from the Deliver tab. When the client approves it there, the animatic checkpoint is approved and video generation can start.

Export the board as a PDF for decks, from the Previz tab or from Deliver (which shows a live preview of the first page). Choose 3-up or 6-up, landscape or portrait. Each panel carries the shot number, title, duration, running timecode, camera, visual, audio cues and dialogue. Shots without a frame get a labelled placeholder.