The storyboard is the script, plus a full description of the visual content, plus a list of everything that will be required.

It's a complete map of the video, a master document that you and the production team can refer to.

We call it an industry standard storyboard.

For commercials and feature films, storyboards usually consist of a series of sketches in comic strip format, so people can see what the scenes will look like.

For corporate video, there is little virtue in this, since the shoot will usually be capturing what's already there; you know what it looks like better than the video crew.

An exception is animation, where it is important to agree the look and content of a sequence before the animator spends time modelling and rendering the images.

The storyboard will also have a list of scenes organised by location - for example scenes 3, 17 and 22 may be in the loading bay - plus details of props, vehicles, costumes etc. A storyboard like this is sometimes called a shooting script.

The Storyboard will also contain a Questionnaire if interviews are involved, plus Guidance Notes for Interviewees.

Again it is valuable to have a team meeting to read through and agree this. You can call this your Shoot Planning Meeting.

Next: Shoot schedule and shoot list >