Script and Storyboard

Week 9 · SLOP8760

Phase 3 of 4 · Holding It Together

This week adds

A beat sheet, a hook, and a storyboard: the three documents that turn held shots into something long enough to call an episode.

States, not transitions

“The rival arrives uninvited” is a state a shot can show. “Then things get tense” is a feeling, and leaves the storyboard guessing.

Recorded script and storyboard ladder, tier t2: beat sheet — Ladder t2 · beat sheet

The opening is a published window

3seconds to introduce the content proposition

A vertical episode is watched thumb-first, and the default action is to keep scrolling. TikTok’s own creative guidance puts the hook in the first six seconds and the proposition inside the first three.

Source: TikTok Ads Manager Help, creative best practices — https://ads.tiktok.com/help/article/creative-best-practices

The percentage of times viewers stayed to watch past the initial seconds of a Short
YouTube Help, “Stayed to watch”

Source: YouTube Help, Understand your YouTube content performance — https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/12220281

The storyboard is a shot list

The recorded tier three names a size, a duration and a camera for every entry. S8, 0.0 to 4.0 s, medium, slow push-in. S9, 4.0 to 7.0 s, close-up on the hand and the stake. S10, 7.0 to 12.0 s, medium side profile, static.

Source, for the shot-list vocabulary: Bordwell, Thompson & Smith, Film Art, 13th ed. — https://www.mheducation.com/highered/product/film-art-introduction-bordwell-thompson/M9781264296095.html
Source, for the shot numbers and timings: this course’s own recorded run — src/data/studio/inputs/week09/t3.md

Two different kinds of claim were sitting under one citation. Size, angle and cut are the textbook’s vocabulary and it is the right book for them. S8, S9, S10 and the 4.0 and 7.0 second marks are not in that book and could not be: they are read off this week’s own recorded shot list, which says “S9 4.0–7.0 s CLOSE-UP on the hand and the stake, slight low angle, static camera.” A publisher’s product page cannot support a number, and pointing at one for these was asking it to.

A storyboard for this course is not a drawing exercise; it’s a shot list with a size and a reference attached to each entry — which reference sheet or master plate that shot checks against, and roughly how close the frame is. A board that only shows composition without naming its reference is a set of pictures, not a production document; whoever shoots from it later needs to know which locked asset each panel is supposed to match.

The shot-scale vocabulary — long shot, medium, close-up, and the rest — is not this course’s invention and is worth learning from the standard reference rather than from a prompt guide. Film Art’s three chapters on the shot and on editing are where the terms this deck uses come from, and they are the terms a crew will assume you mean.

Pick one device on purpose

Mystery, conflict in progress, visual anomaly, or direct address. A shot trying to be all four earns none of them.

Recorded script and storyboard ladder, tier t4: storyboard (+ 3 frames) — Ladder t4 · storyboard (+ 3 frames)

The ladder

The same two-to-three-shot sequence, four ways.

A prose paragraph, with no shot breakdown at all
That paragraph as a beat sheet written in states
Plus a shot list, with a size named for every shot
Boarded with keyframes, each tagged to the reference it must match

Before class

Sketch, in a few lines, the premise your storyboard will cover — the prose-paragraph tier of this week’s ladder.

This week’s exercise

Turn that paragraph into all four ladder tiers for the same two-to-three shot sequence: the paragraph itself, a beat sheet in states, a beat sheet with a sized shot list, and a boarded version with keyframes tagged to their references. Bring all four tiers to Wednesday’s Dailies.

Reading

TikTok: creative best practices for performance ads
TikTok
Introduce your content proposition in the first 3 seconds for better recall and awareness
YouTube Help: get started creating YouTube Shorts
YouTube
short-form videos that are up to 3 minutes long
YouTube Help: understand your content performance
YouTube
The percentage of times viewers stayed to watch past the initial seconds of a Short
Film Art: An Introduction, 13th ed.
Bordwell, Thompson & Smith2026
The Relation of Shot to Shot: Editing
Pixar in a Box: the art of storytelling
Khan Academy
Linked, not quoted: the lesson contents could not be confirmed by fetching the page.

Script and Storyboard#

Week 9 · SLOP8760#

This week adds#

States, not transitions#

The opening is a published window#

The storyboard is a shot list#

Pick one device on purpose#

The ladder#

Before class#

This week’s exercise#

Reading#