The rhythm check and the pre-send check

Look at the whole deck as one strip before you send it, then answer ten questions.

Make a contact sheet of the whole deck: every page as a numbered thumbnail, about eight to a row (steps below).

Read it for rhythm [proven] for the rules:

• scene runs keep one layout and vary the pictures: rotate shot sizes, never the same size twice in a row, and alternate the subject's side;

• an argument layout appears on two consecutive pages at most, and a full-bleed or full-height page breaks a longer run;

• open with contrast, and give every section opener its own composition;

• answer each wide within two pages with a close-up or detail;

• summaries (cast, places, colour) come after the story;

• cut any frame that could belong to any brand.

The rhythm warnings [best available, not yet validated]:

• a story page under 40% picture;

• three pages of one argument type in a row;

• no change of ground in the first three pages;

• a deck median under 60% picture (cinema decks) or 35% (gallery decks);

• two pages over 100 words in a row.

Picture share is the area of visible images and films over the page area.

The pre-send check: answer each line yes or no before every send.

1. New link per send: a new frozen page with its own copies of every file, the working link never sent, the send logged, and the cover message kept as an unsent draft.

2. Vertical frames shown vertically, never cropped into landscape boxes.

3. Every page reads alone: it carries an image or a film, the film's title and its page number, and still makes sense when someone forwards it by itself; story pages are mostly picture.

4. Images true to the sourcing rules: generated frames show this film's people and product, sourced stills are chosen for one quality and captioned as your decision, and there is no stock, no watermark and no "frame study" label.

5. Frames look photographed, not rendered, and match the treatment (from the anchors stage on, the approved anchors); hands and touch points, faces, product and label pass at full size.

6. Accents subdued; no deep gradient or colour wash over frames.

7. Headings readable, fonts true: no fallback fonts (check the font that actually drew the text; steps below), nothing under the size floors, no sideways scroll.

8. Plain English, nothing internal on any page, including what a search can't see (see The stages and gates → What the client sees, and what stays internal).

9. No labels ("for decision", "proposed", "option", "draft"), none of this Guide's evidence labels, and no A/B/C options unless you chose to show alternates on a named item. Questions go only in the cover message, and the approval line only where it belongs.

10. Exact: brand names, product and label text, on-screen words, timings and Arabic checked letter by letter.

Why "every page reads alone": agency readers lift single pages out of a deck and send them on, and treatments are often read without a talk-through.

Do it yourself

Make the contact sheet (Acrobat or macOS Preview)

1. Export the deck as a PDF.

2. View it as thumbnails: Acrobat's page thumbnails, or the contact-sheet view in macOS Preview.

Find the font that drew the text (Chrome DevTools)

1. Inspect a heading, then a line of body text.

2. In Chrome DevTools → Elements → Computed, read Rendered Fonts: it names the font that actually drew the text. A name that isn't one of the deck's fonts is a fallback.

Sources

• Hollie Fraser (The Treatment Forum); Adam Wells, "The Silent Treatment" (LBB); Alexandre Moors on sequencing a deck as a story (Filmmaker Magazine).