One shot. Pencil to picture. You watch every step.
At the bottom of this page is a real shot from one of our own films. It started as a black-and-white storyboard drawing. Before you see what it became, here is every step it went through — the same five every shot takes — and what each one costs today.
Each step answers one question, shows its price before it starts, and waits for you. Nothing moves on until you say yes.
01Story truth
Script and shot breakdown
A first assistant director reads every page and hands back scenes, shots and a continuity Bible.
Understand the script, define the beats, action, emotion, geography, screen direction, framing, and edit purpose of every shot.
Resolve any short visual-story questions, approve recurring cast and world references, then approve the shot plan before drawing or filming.
Quoted before it starts
02Planning drawing
Storyboard drawing
Pencil. Framing, blocking, eyelines, the cut. Change your mind here, on paper.
A fast black-and-white plan for composition, framing, blocking, action, eyelines, and shot-to-shot flow.
The filmmaker approves only after full-frame and adjacent-cut review. A generated count, finished job, checkmark, or automated verdict is not visual approval.
Today: €0.40 a drawing
03Newly rendered frame
Still
The real look before anything moves. A wrong face or the wrong light shows up here.
Translate the approved storyboard drawing into the intended real-world look while preserving its shot geometry and action.
Approve identity, wardrobe, location, product, lighting, realism, and composition before motion.
Today: €0.15 a still
04Motion proof
Proxy video
The first motion. Check the performance and the move before the finished take.
Test performance, camera movement, timing, continuity, and edit flow at lower cost.
Approve motion and the cut. A storyboard drawing may guide the plan, but its drawn pixels and style are not animated.
Today: €0.65 for 5 s
05Final-quality take
Master video
The finished take, rolled when you say so, from everything you already approved.
Create the final take only after the shot plan, appearance, motion, and continuity are accepted.
Approve the finished take for the film.
Today: €0.90 for 5 s
Why it saves money
The set already knows how to save money.
Nobody rolls camera to find out where the actor stands. You board it, block it, light it, rehearse it — and only then you roll. Preflight Cinema keeps that order, and the order is the saving: a mistake shows up at the step built to catch it, before the master.
On a storyboard drawingthe wrong framing, the wrong blocking, a cut that will not work.
On a stillthe wrong face, the wrong wardrobe, the wrong room, the wrong light.
On a proxythe wrong performance, the wrong camera move, the wrong timing.
Today a storyboard drawing costs €0.40. A 5-second master costs €0.90.
That's 2 storyboard drawings for the price of one master.
You see the price before every click, and that's the price you pay.
A note fixes one thing. Everything you didn't mention stays exactly as it was.
A step that fails puts the full amount back in your balance.
Storyboard drawings plan the shot. They are never animated.
A storyboard drawing is a shot-design instruction. It is not footage, not a final image, and not a style frame to animate.
Drawing to picture
Use the storyboard drawing as film language, not as pixels
✓An implied visual choice proposed by the script-reading brain is not story truth until the filmmaker accepts it; unanswered choices never enter a shot or the instructions sent for it.
✓Approve canonical recurring cast, product, and location references before paid drawing; generate each usable scene master before dependent coverage, never as a disposable reference sheet.
✓Carry one inspectable scene setup authority through coverage: geography, principal marks, background action and extras, practical set dressing, active props or vehicles, ordinary operation, time, and light; named principals or vacant furniture never substitute for real-world activity in a normally occupied place.
✓An authored empty, deserted, sparse, busy, queued, crowded, or traffic-heavy condition controls scene density. A stable-world correction may invalidate the scene authority, but no secret reference or undisclosed paid regeneration cascade is allowed.
✓Preserve from the storyboard drawing: composition, framing, camera angle, subject placement, blocking, action phase, eyelines, screen direction, and edit intention.
✓Rebuild for the realistic result: faces, bodies, wardrobe, location detail, product design, materials, lighting, colour, texture, and photographic finish from the Script and approved project references.
✓Never preserve from the storyboard drawing as final appearance: black-and-white linework, paper texture, drawing artifacts, labels, arrows, or an accidental pose that conflicts with the authored action.
✓Never pass a storyboard drawing as the literal first or last frame of a video. It is a planning reference, not footage.
After the drawing is approved
Two valid routes
Still-first path
Approved storyboard drawing → still → proxy → master
Preferred when appearance and continuity must be approved before motion.
The video may follow the storyboard drawing's layout and action, but must render the intended real-world look instead of animating the drawing.
Language check
When someone says “drawing to video”
It means: make a new video that follows the approved storyboard drawing's composition, framing, blocking, action, and camera intention. It never means: animate the black-and-white drawing itself.
The reveal
You made it. Here's the shot.
Scene 1, shot 3, from one of our own films: a woman steps into a café, a man pays at the counter, the barista smiles. One frame, three steps.
01
Pencil first: the woman at the door, the man at the counter, the barista behind it.
Storyboard drawing
02
The same frame in its real look: the faces, the café, the warm afternoon light.
Still
03
Then it moves: she walks in, he pays, the barista smiles.