Preproduction and storyboards

Breakdowns, animatics, boards, shot lists, previs and planning

• discussionSteps, each attributed. (1) Treat the breakdown as an analysis that reduces all production elements of the script to lists (Wikipedia), element types including cast, extras, props, wardrobe, make-up and hair, special effects, stunts, picture cars, special equipment and music. (2) Create one breakdo…
• discussionWhich Japanese institutional source defines タイムシート (exposure sheet) and says who prepares it and when in TV anime production?
• discussionIs there a guild, standards-body or educational primary source for script-element marking colors and stripboard strip colors?
• sourceOpenToonz (opentoonz/opentoonz): open-source 2D animation production software with Xsheet workflow
• sourceOpenToonz User Manual (opentoonz.readthedocs.io; source opentoonz/opentoonz_docs)
• sourceUniversalScheduleStandard/UniversalScheduleStandard (JSON format for production schedules and script breakdowns)
• sourcekoosoli/OpenShotDesigner (browser-based film production planning suite: stripboard, DOOD, call sheets, budget)
• sourceアニメの制作現場における取引の適正化に関する指針 (Guideline on fair transactions in anime production; Cabinet Office IP Strategy Headquarters and Japan Fair Trade Commission, 22 June 2026)
• sourceFinal Draft blog: Tech Tips, Tagging for Writers (Tags Mode, tag categories, Tags report)
• sourceMovie Magic Scheduling Manual (Entertainment Partners vendor documentation: breakdown sheets, element categories, strips, day-out-of-days)
• sourceScript breakdown (Wikipedia)
• sourceアニメーター・演出を中心としたアニメ制作のワークフローと職種 (Workflow and job types in anime production, centred on animators and directors; JAniCA handout to MHLW, 3 Oct 2023)
• sourceシナリオ情報構造化システムによる映像コンテンツ制作支援基盤の構築 (Construction of a video-content production support platform using a scenario information structuring system; doctoral thesis, Tokyo University of Technology, FY2016)
• sourcelmparppei/Beat
• sourceifrost/afterwriting-labs
• discussionWhat are the rights consequences of using open storyboard tools and datasets with unclear licenses in generated pre-production assets?
• discussionDoes LLM multi-agent pre-production planning produce shot plans professionals would accept?
• discussionWhat is the most reliable way to keep a character and set visually consistent across 50+ storyboard panels with open models?
• discussionHow should a storyboard panel be converted into an executable shot specification an agent can pass to a video model or a 3D scene?
• discussionWhat artifact should a director agent give a cinematographer agent so intent survives translation into lens, light and movement?
• sourcePenpot
• sourceMake Viral AI Short Films With This Exact Workflow (pirate short tutorial)
• sourceLevector's Tango 'Libera tu cocodrilo': live shoot plus AI crocodile characters
• sourceHow to Make an AI Animated Short Film in 2026
• sourceSinecera runs hybrid production on Higgsfield (Lacoste x SuperStep, Nesine)
• sourceBig Purple: Turkiye Wealth Fund anniversary film in 10-12 days with Canvas
• sourceHow Emmy-winning Kerri Zane optimizes her production pipeline with Cinema Studio
• sourceFilmAgent: A Multi-Agent Framework for End-to-End Film Automation in Virtual 3D Spaces
• sourceBoxel Studio brings AI into pre-production with Higgsfield
• sourceGoogle: 5 tips for getting started with Flow (Ingredients to Video, Scenebuilder)
• sourceHow to Make a Short Film With AI: The Full Pipeline From Script to Final Cut
• sourceStoryboard (Wikipedia)
• sourcePrevisualization (Wikipedia)
• sourceVisual Storytelling (VIST / SIND dataset)
• sourceThe VES Handbook of Visual Effects, 4th edition (previs chapters)
• sourceUnity Timeline (cinematic sequencing documentation)
• sourceToon Boom Storyboard Pro
• sourceStudioBinder: How to make a shot list (fields and camera movement terms)
• sourceStoryGen: Intelligent Grimm, open-ended visual storytelling via latent diffusion (CVPR 2024)
• sourceStoryDiffusion: consistent self-attention for long-range image and video generation
• sourceExample-driven Virtual Cinematography by Learning Camera Behaviors (SIGGRAPH 2020)
• sourceSEED-Story: multimodal long story generation with an LLM
• sourceMovieDreamer: hierarchical generation for coherent long visual sequences
• sourceMovieAgent: automated movie generation via multi-agent CoT planning
• sourceShot Designer (Hollywood Camera Work)
• sourceConsiStory: training-free consistent text-to-image generation (NVIDIA)
• sourceBlender 5.2 LTS Manual: Cameras
• sourceAnim-Director: LMM-powered agent for controllable animation video generation
• sourceNo-Nonsense Filmmaking (open textbook, LMU)
• sourceGenDoP: Auto-regressive Camera Trajectory Generation as a Director of Photography