Before the shoot
The expensive decisions in advertising are made from a deck. A board is approved, a location is booked, talent is scheduled, a crew is confirmed — and the first time anyone sees whether it actually cuts together is in the edit, weeks and a budget later.
A sequence built as a graph moves that moment earlier. The board becomes a rough cut with the right product, the right talent look and the right light. The client reacts to something with rhythm rather than to twelve frames and a description of what happens between them.
That changes what the pre-production conversation is about. Instead of "do you like this frame", it is "does this hold for thirty seconds" — which is the question the finished film will actually be judged on.
How it runs
Lock the references
Product, talent look and location go in as nodes. Everything downstream draws from them, so the pack shot in frame one is the pack shot in frame twelve without anybody checking.
Board the sequence
Each shot is a node fed by the references plus its own direction — size, angle, action. The connections carry the continuity so the direction does not have to restate it.
Cut it on the director stage
The stage reads the same graph as a sequence with order, duration and notes. The board and the cut are one document rather than two that drift apart between revisions.
Take the note
A client asks for the hero shot to be wider. That is one node. What depends on it re-runs; the other eleven shots are untouched, which is the difference between a revision and a rebuild.
Hand off to production
The approved sequence becomes the shot list and the reference pack the crew actually shoots against.
Where it fits in the process
| Stage | Today | With this |
|---|---|---|
| Pitch | Boards, stock comps, an animatic if the budget allows | A moving rough cut with the actual product |
| Client approval | Frames plus a verbal description of the edit | Something with rhythm they can react to |
| Revisions | Re-board, re-comp, re-present | One node changes, its dependents re-run |
| Pre-production | Shot list written separately from the board | The sequence is the shot list |
| Shoot and post | Unchanged | Unchanged — this is previs, not production |
What this is not
This is previsualisation and pitch work. It is not a replacement for a shoot where a real product, a real face and a real location are what the brief is asking for, and presenting generated frames as finished film to a client who believes otherwise is a problem no tool can fix for you.
Lip sync, precise product mechanics and anything where the physics has to be exactly right remain weak across the field. Board around them rather than through them.
Questions from agencies
Can we show this to a client as finished work?
That is your call and your relationship, but our advice is no — present it as previs. The gap between a generated board and a shot film is still visible to anyone who looks closely, and being the agency that blurred that line is an expensive reputation.
Does it handle dialogue and lip sync?
Not reliably, and nothing in this field does yet. Board dialogue scenes on coverage and performance rather than on synced mouths.
Can we use our own footage as a reference?
Yes. Reference nodes take images you supply, which is the normal way to hold a real product or an existing talent look.
How long does a board take?
The first one takes longer than a traditional board because you are building structure. The second campaign is much faster, because the structure is a template. That trade is the honest shape of it.
Who owns the output?
You do. Check your client contract for how generated material is treated in deliverables — that clause is increasingly present and worth reading before the pitch, not after.