Storyboard vs Shooting Board vs Animatic — Which Do You Need?

Updated: May 2026 · Written by Seb Antoniou

TL;DR

The three deliverables, defined

Producers, agency creatives, and directors all use the words storyboard, shooting board, and animatic in slightly different ways, which is most of why this question gets asked at all. Here is how the words land inside a working UK commercial production in 2026.

Storyboard — the narrative version

A storyboard is the sequence of drawings that shows what happens in each scene of the commercial. It is the version the agency creative shows the brand client. The frames focus on action, character, location, and the through-line of the story. Camera notes are present, but the camera is in service of the scene, not the other way around.

ScreenSkills defines the storyboard artist as the person who “visualises scripts as a sequence of drawings to plan camera angles, action and continuity before shooting.” On a 30-second TVC that is usually 15 to 25 frames in black and white, drawn in two or three working days.

The storyboard is the document everyone refers back to. When the director, the DP, the agency producer, and the brand sign off on the storyboard, they are signing off on the film as a piece of storytelling. Anything that changes after that point costs money.

Shooting board — the camera version

A shooting board is the director’s shorthand for shot setup. Where the storyboard answers “what happens here,” the shooting board answers “how is this captured.” Lens choice, camera position, height, move, blocking arrows for talent, and any practical staging the camera operator needs to plan against.

Some directors draw their own shooting boards. Some commission a board artist who is fluent in lens language to translate the storyboard frames into a director-side document. Either way, the shooting board is usually loose, fast, and not for client eyes. It lives in the pre-pro folder, gets handed to the DP and the 1st AD, and gets marked up on the day.

A shooting board for a 30-second spot can be 25 to 40 frames once every camera setup is sketched. The frame count goes up because each storyboard frame might unpack into two or three coverage frames once the director thinks through the edit.

Animatic — the timing version

An animatic is the storyboard frames cut into a timed video sequence, with scratch voiceover, scratch music, and rough sound design. It is the version the agency uses to test that the commercial actually works at 30 seconds before the camera rolls.

Wikipedia traces the animatic back to Disney’s pencil-test workflow. In TVC production today, the animatic does three things at once. It pressure-tests the script timing. It gives the brand a near-final preview for sign-off. And it gives the post house a template for the offline edit. On a 30-second spot, an animatic costs more than a still storyboard because someone has to cut it, sound-design it, and sometimes redraw frames to fit the timing.

When you need each

A practical decision matrix for a 30-second TVC.

Most 30-second commercials with a six-figure production budget run through all three. Brand-led campaigns where the client signs off remotely are now almost always animatic-bound. Direct-to-broadcast spots for smaller brands sometimes stop at storyboard because the agency trusts the director and the post house to absorb the timing work.

How they share work, and where they overlap

The three documents are not three separate jobs. A well-run production has them feed each other.

The storyboard is the source. The shooting board is the director’s translation of the storyboard into camera language. The animatic is the storyboard cut to time. If the shooting board reveals a coverage problem, the storyboard might get a redraw. If the animatic reveals that a beat does not land at 30 seconds, the storyboard might lose a frame or gain one. Producers who treat these as three sealed deliverables end up paying for the same conversation three times.

The cleanest workflow on a typical TVC looks like this:

1. Storyboard locks first. Agency and brand sign off on the story.
2. Animatic gets cut from the locked storyboard. Timing gets stress-tested against the script and the music demo. Notes come back, storyboard absorbs them, animatic re-cuts.
3. Shooting board gets drawn against the locked storyboard plus the animatic timing. Director and DP take it into pre-pro.

The shooting board is usually the last to go. The animatic and the storyboard often iterate together for a week before the shooting board starts.

The cost difference

A rough 2026 benchmark, useful for budgeting but not for quoting.

The storyboard is the cheapest because it is one artist drawing for two or three days. The shooting board is the fastest because it is built on a frame language the storyboard has already established, so the artist is solving fewer compositional problems per frame. The animatic is the most expensive because it adds an editor, often a sound designer, and a music demo budget on top of the storyboard work.

For a 30-second TVC in the UK in 2026, a useful all-in budget for the three documents combined is roughly £2,500 to £6,500 for storyboard and shooting board, plus a separate £1,500 to £6,000 for the animatic depending on whether the agency cuts in-house or sends it out. Premium directors and senior visualisers go higher.

Producer’s checklist: do I need all three?

A four-step decision tree before you commission anything.

Step 1 — Is the client signing off remotely? If yes, you almost certainly want an animatic. Static frames do not carry timing, and a remote client cannot read the timing off a storyboard PDF.

Step 2 — Is the director already drawing their own shooting board? If yes, you do not need to commission a separate shooting board artist. You do still need the storyboard, because the storyboard is the client-facing document and the director’s shooting board is not.

Step 3 — Is the spot more than 30 seconds, multi-location, or with named talent? If yes, the shooting board pays for itself in pre-pro hours saved. If the spot is a single-location 15-second cutdown with one performer, the storyboard plus a shot list is often enough.

Step 4 — Is the music landing the beats? If the spot is music-led — a sport sting, a hype ad, a hero film cut to a licensed track — the animatic is mandatory. The music is half the timing problem and you cannot solve it on paper.

If you answered yes to any one of the four, the deliverable in question earns its budget. If you answered yes to all four, you need all three documents, and you need them in the right order.

Sources

1. ScreenSkills — Storyboard Artist job profile. https://www.screenskills.com/job-profiles/browse/animation/development/storyboard-artist/ (Accessed 2026-05-23). Working definition of the storyboard artist role.
2. Domestika — What’s a storyboard and what’s a shooting board? https://www.domestika.org/en/blog/4820-what-s-a-storyboard-and-what-s-a-shooting-board (Accessed 2026-05-23). Distinction between narrative storyboards and shooting boards.
3. Boords — How to storyboard a TV commercial. https://boords.com/how-to-storyboard/tv-commercial (Accessed 2026-05-23). Industry frame counts and animatic workflow.
4. Wikipedia — Animatic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animatic (Accessed 2026-05-23). Definition and history of the animatic.
5. APA — Advertising Producers Association. https://www.a-p-a.net/ (Accessed 2026-05-23). UK commercial production workflow standards.

About the author

Seb Antoniou is a London-based storyboard artist with 10+ years across Premier League, Bentley, Coca-Cola, Nike and BBC Sport campaigns. He boards for advertising agencies and production companies in the UK and globally, working from script, shot list, or a 20-minute call with the director. About →

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