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The Master Guide / 06 Anchors and stills · Still prompts, storyboard frames and diagrams

Presentation and storyboard frames

Every image in a client presentation is a storyboard image or an illustration. Each one should read as a still pulled from the finished film.

Every image in a client presentation is a storyboard image or an illustration. Each one should read as a still pulled from the finished film.

What they are

  • Each shows a scene, a shot, a sequence or the film's spirit, and may serve as a section separator. The deck as a whole expresses the film's concept and visual language.

  • It is never a start frame and never attached to any generation, in any role (decided); read its framing and write it in words (see Writing the treatment → Storyboard images). Takes are judged against the treatment, the approved anchors and your plan (the shot plan; see Planning, budgets and takes), never against a frame.

  • Where a shot needs an internal start or end frame, make it separately from the approved anchors (see Photoreal anchors (Nano Banana Pro) → Internal start and end frames). Never reuse it as a presentation image.

  • Frames show the vision. The final shots need not contain them.

  • When an agency's board exists, keep its scene order and beats, and redraw it in the film's look.

Photographed, not rendered [official guidance]. Write every generated frame to pass these ten points, and remake any frame that fails one:

  1. A nameable lens, in the scene's capture [proven]: camera height, distance, angle, focal length and what is sharp, in the capture the treatment gives the scene (a crewed camera, a documentary operator, a character's phone, a fixed or period device), written as its visible result. Never a floating render camera, never a camera brand.

  2. One motivated light source, with a ratio where it helps (2:1 gentle, 4:1 dramatic), and shadows where that source puts them; never even glamour light everywhere.

  3. Real skin: pores, small asymmetries, uneven make-up, matte rather than glossy; never "flawless", "porcelain" or "airbrushed".

  4. Lived-in materials: wear, dust, a chipped edge, natural asymmetry in the room; never a showroom.

  5. Restrained depth of field, what a real lens at that distance would give.

  6. A grade a colourist would make: the look block's grade, never a saturated high-dynamic-range (HDR) look.

  7. No decorative effects: flare, bloom and glow only where the look asks, with a physical cause; nothing glows that is not a source.

  8. People caught mid-task, weight on a foot, hands doing something, never posed for the lens unless the treatment's style is posed [best available, not yet validated].

  9. No quality tags, and none of the usual AI defaults unless the treatment chose them (see Making it feel real → The usual AI defaults to avoid).

  10. Checked at full size and against the reference before it goes on a page (see Still prompts, storyboard frames and diagrams → Before a frame goes on a page).

Aspect. Make frames at the film's ratio: 16:9 frames for a 16:9 film, 9:16 frames for a vertical film, scope frames for a scope film. How vertical frames sit on a page: see Client presentations → Page types and storyboard pages. 2K by default; 4K for full-bleed hero pages of a photoreal film; a stylised film's frames stay at 2K, Seedream's maximum.

One film, not a collection [best available, not yet validated]:

  • one look block in every generated frame;

  • each frame has a function: hero, place, character, action, hands and object, texture, peak, ending;

  • alternate wide, medium, close and detail, with no more than two similar framings in a row;

  • states carry forward: wet stays wet, the lid stays open.

How many frames per page, their captions and the mix per section are set in Writing the treatment → Storyboard images.

Template: a photoreal frame (Nano Banana Pro; written for this guide)

{Image 1 is {role}'s casting close-up: it owns the face only; ignore its grey backdrop.} {Image N owns {one quality} only.} This is a still from the finished film, scene {n}: {moment}. Story intent: {what the scene does}. Emotional beat: {what the viewer feels}. The goal of the shot: {what this frame must make clear}. {Subject: pose from the ground up, hands, gaze, held expression}; {once cast: match exactly {the structures that must match}; keep {his/her} face exactly the same as Image 1; do not reshape, slim, age or beautify}. {Environment and time}. Camera at {height} m, {distance} away, {angle, tilt, roll}, {focal length}, f/{aperture}, {what is sharp}. Foreground: {…}. Midground: {…}. Background: {…}. {Edge control}. Light: {source, direction, quality, Kelvin}{, the ratio from the lit side to the shadow side}, {practicals}, {shadows}; nothing glows that is not a source. Palette: {each leading colour with its material, light and placement}; no {forbidden colours}. {Surface realism}. {Atmosphere, if real}. {The look block, word for word}. {Aspect}. {One surgical negative line}.

Example: photoreal, before casting (Nano Banana Pro; written for this guide)

Image 1 is the client's photo of the Nabeeq bottle: it owns its shape, glass, cap and colours; the label area stays blank. This is a still from the finished film, scene 3: a power cut at a rooftop family gathering; only the grandmother carries on. Story intent: she is the family's calm. Emotional beat: a warm laugh at her nerve. The goal of the shot: her steady pour and the dark family behind her, in one frame. A Cairene woman of about seventy, broad-hipped, deep laugh lines, a loose black scarf, a brown house dress and cardigan; her weight on her left hip, the bottle tilted in her right hand over the glass in her left, the stream of juice mid-fall, eyes on the glass, a small closed smile. A flat Cairo rooftop at night, a water tank and a washing line behind her. Camera at 1.4 m, 2 m away, level, no roll, 40 mm, f/2.8, her hands and face sharp. Foreground: the soft corner of the plastic table, the lantern on it. Midground: the grandmother. Background: three relatives as dim shapes, two at the parapet, one on a crate at the far right. Her hands sit in the middle third; nobody touches an edge. Light: the paraffin lantern on the table beside her, frame-left, about 2200 K, 4:1 from her lit cheek to her shadow side. Palette: amber lantern light on her skin and the glass leads; the juice's deep red is the one accent; blue-black night fills the rest; no green, no white light on her face. A loose thread on her cuff, a rust stain down the tank. The air is still. One spherical prime family with gentle fall-off. The grade keeps whites a little warm, keeps shadows blue-brown without crushing them, and leaves skin its true olive. Moderate contrast, exposed for the faces, fine organic grain, a soft highlight roll-off. Skin stays matte, its pores and uneven tone visible. Everyone is busy with something, never posing for the lens. The only light is light the scene contains, and nothing glows that is not a source. 16:9. No text on the bottle; one grandmother.

Example: stylised, after the style anchor (Seedream 5.0 Pro; written for this guide)

A storyboard frame for a hand-painted 2D gouache comedy ad: Fawzi's cart wheel jammed on a step, the cart tilted back toward him, low three-quarter view, 16:9. The approved style anchor of Fawzi owns the painting style and his design; draw nothing else from its scene. This is scene 2: the climb defeats him for one second, a held laugh, and the tilted cart and his braced body must read at once. Fawzi braced against the cart with both arms locked straight, one sandal half off the edge of the step, cheeks puffed, eyes squeezed shut; keep his pear-shaped head, dot eyes and moustache exactly as in the anchor, not widened. The cart's red awning tilted toward the camera, two bottles knocked askew in their crate. The stepped alley at noon, washing overhead. The view is low, at step height, 3 m back, a little wide. The cart fills the foreground right, Fawzi the midground left, the steps and the dome behind; the dome sits on the upper-left third and nothing touches an edge. Light: the high noon sun from behind the camera's right, short violet shadows. Palette: ochre walls lead, Fawzi's blue stripes support, the awning's red is the accent. A scuff on the cart's wheel and grit on the steps, painted as simple shapes; a small puff of dust hanging at that sandal. Painted exactly in the anchor's construction, flat colour with no texture on the figure and cart. 16:9. One Fawzi, one cart; no text, letters or logos.

Sources

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