A storyboard field template, field by field
A segment of storyboard is a form, not a paragraph. Ten fields, each answering a question the model will otherwise answer for you, and each blank field is a decision handed to a system that has not read the script. As of 2026-09-12.
| Field | What to write | Why it is in the template |
|---|---|---|
| Action | What each person does, in order, with the contacts named | Vague action is where invented movement comes from |
| Continuity out | The state the next segment opens from | This is the field that makes segments join |
| Dialogue | The lines verbatim, with the speaker named on each | Unattributed lines come out of the wrong mouth |
| Framing | Shot size and where the lens sits | Without it the framing drifts between takes |
| Length | Seconds for the segment, and for each shot inside it | Dialogue that does not fit is the commonest reshoot |
| Light | Where the light comes from and its quality | Written as a result it gets painted on as a result |
| Location and time | Place, time of day, weather | Holds the scene plate and its light steady |
| Opening state | Who is where, holding what, on which side of whom | The model draws this first, so carry-over belongs here |
| Sound | What is audible that is not dialogue | Blank sound fields produce silence or invention |
| Who is in frame | Only the people the shot shows | Naming someone off-screen puts them on screen |
Inclusion rule. Fields that change what is generated. Production metadata such as a segment number is not listed, because nothing downstream reads it. Order. Alphabetical by field.
1A segment is long; the shots inside it are short
The unit billed and generated is the segment, and it pays to make it as long as the channel allows. The unit the audience perceives is the shot, and shots are short. One segment routinely contains three or four of them.
Writing shots as separate segments is the expensive mistake: every boundary between segments is a join, and joins are where continuity breaks and regeneration starts.
2Dialogue length is arithmetic, and it is usually wrong
A line takes about as long to say as it takes to read aloud, and a shot needs a beat at each end for the mouth to close and the cut to land. Written without that allowance, the shot ends mid-word, and the fix is a new generation.
The table below is the arithmetic at a working speaking rate. It is an assumption rather than a published figure, and a production that measures its own reads should replace it.
| Words in the line | Speech at 2.5 words per second | Shot length to write |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 3 | About 1.2 s | 2.5 s |
| 4 to 5 | About 2.0 s | 3.5 s |
| 6 to 9 | About 3.0 s | 4.5 s |
| 10 to 14 | About 4.8 s | 6.5 s |
| 15 to 20 | About 7.0 s | 9.0 s |
Inclusion rule. Bands of line length. The speaking rate is a working assumption stated here rather than a figure published by any vendor, and the beat is a fixed allowance of about three-quarters of a second at each end. Order. Ascending by number of words.
3Eight contradictions worth deleting before rendering
A character named in the dialogue who is not in the frame list. Two light sources that cannot both be true. An action that needs a hand already holding something else. A framing that cannot contain the action. A time of day that contradicts the plate. A prop that entered in a segment that was cut. An opening state that does not match the previous continuity-out. A shot length shorter than its own dialogue.
Each of those produces a specific, recognisable failure, and each is visible by reading the segment rather than by watching a take. Reading is free.
4Adjust the template to the clip ceiling, not the reverse
The channel decides how long one generation can be, and the storyboard has to respect it. A template written for a thirty-second ceiling produces joins every fifteen seconds on a channel that stops at fifteen, and every join is a chance to lose continuity.
So the ceiling belongs at the top of the template, filled in before any segment is written. It is the constraint everything else negotiates with.
5The blank field is the real failure mode
Every field left empty is answered anyway, by a model with no view on what the scene means. That is how invented gestures, unexplained light changes and characters who quietly change sides get in.
Filling a field badly is recoverable, because the take will show what was wrong with it. Leaving it blank makes the failure look random, and random failures do not teach a production anything.
Craft notes, not a register entry. No line here is attributed to a tool, and none should be read as a claim about one. The sourced material is on the register. Related: Why takes fail, One person or a team.
6How a serial stays consistent
Serial work like “Storyboard fields” depends on continuity; SceneMixer's guides describe how it keeps it:
Every segment starts with a short header that sets the stage before the first shot: Location (a scene chip), Time, Weather, the Opening frame (what the first frame shows), Set dressing (what is in the room, and any background people) and Props (the objects the segment uses).
SceneMixer, The Segment Header, Field by Field (read 2026-10-13)
A SceneMixer segment comes out with its sound already in it: each line spoken in that character’s voice, the speaker’s lips moving with the words, and the ambience of the place — rain, traffic, a clock.
SceneMixer, Dialogue and Sound in One Generation (read 2026-10-13)