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Preflight Cinema
Preflight Cinema

How Preflight Cinema Works

Canonical product legend

Sketches plan the shot. They are not animated drawings.

A storyboard sketch is a shot-design instruction. It is not footage, not a final image, and not a style frame to animate.

The production path

Five different assets, five different approvals

  1. 01Story truth

    Script and shot breakdown

    Understand the script, define the beats, action, emotion, geography, screen direction, framing, and edit purpose of every shot.

    Resolve any short visual-story questions, approve recurring cast and world references, then approve the shot plan before drawing or filming.

  2. 02Planning drawing

    Storyboard sketch

    A fast black-and-white plan for composition, framing, blocking, action, eyelines, and shot-to-shot flow.

    The filmmaker approves only after full-frame and adjacent-cut review. A generated count, finished job, checkmark, or automated verdict is not visual approval.

  3. 03Newly rendered still

    Realistic shooting-board frame

    Translate the approved sketch into the intended real-world look while preserving its shot geometry and action.

    Approve identity, wardrobe, location, product, lighting, realism, and composition before motion.

  4. 04Motion proof

    Proxy video

    Test performance, camera movement, timing, continuity, and edit flow at lower cost.

    Approve motion and the cut. A sketch may guide the plan, but its drawn pixels and style are not animated.

  5. 05Final-quality take

    Master video

    Create the final take only after the shot plan, appearance, motion, and continuity are accepted.

    Approve the finished take for the film.

Translation contract

Use the sketch as film language, not as pixels

  • An implied visual choice proposed by the script-reading brain is not story truth until the filmmaker accepts it; unanswered choices never enter a shot or generation prompt.
  • Approve canonical recurring cast, product, and location references before paid drawing; generate each usable scene master before dependent coverage, never as a disposable reference sheet.
  • Carry one inspectable scene setup authority through coverage: geography, principal marks, background action and extras, practical set dressing, active props or vehicles, ordinary operation, time, and light; named principals or vacant furniture never substitute for real-world activity in a normally occupied place.
  • An authored empty, deserted, sparse, busy, queued, crowded, or traffic-heavy condition controls scene density. A stable-world correction may invalidate the scene authority, but no secret reference or undisclosed paid regeneration cascade is allowed.
  • Preserve from the sketch: composition, framing, camera angle, subject placement, blocking, action phase, eyelines, screen direction, and edit intention.
  • Rebuild for the realistic result: faces, bodies, wardrobe, location detail, product design, materials, lighting, colour, texture, and photographic finish from the Script and approved project references.
  • Never preserve from the sketch as final appearance: black-and-white linework, paper texture, drawing artifacts, labels, arrows, or an accidental pose that conflicts with the authored action.
  • Never pass a storyboard sketch as the literal first or last frame of a video. It is a planning reference, not footage.
After sketch approval

Two valid routes

Still-first path

Approved sketch → realistic shooting-board frame → proxy → master

Preferred when appearance and continuity must be approved before motion.

Motion-first path

Approved sketch → newly rendered proxy video → motion review → master

The video may follow the sketch's layout and action, but must render the intended real-world look instead of animating the drawing.

Language check

When someone says “sketch to video”

It means: make a new video that follows the approved sketch's composition, framing, blocking, action, and camera intention. It never means: animate the black-and-white sketch itself.