See it before you shoot it · 25 min

Previz — short for pre-visualization — is a rough visual rehearsal of your film, made before you generate a single frame of final footage. It answers the scariest question in filmmaking early and cheaply: does this story actually work on screen?

Previz is a rehearsal, not a demo

A previz is not a trailer and not a pitch. It is a working rehearsal whose only audience is you. Its job is to surface problems while they are still cheap: the ending that does not land, the character who looks different in every shot, the middle that sags. If your previz is a little ugly, it is doing its job — beauty comes later, and it comes faster because the decisions are already made.

The four pieces of your package

Every film's pre-production produces the same four things, and this course builds each one in order. Character sheets lock what your people look like. Style frames lock what your world looks like. The storyboard draws the film shot by shot. The shot list turns those drawings into a numbered plan. In the final modules you will cut them into a timed previz and assemble the whole production package.

The one rule: ugly is fine

Judge your pre-production on clarity, not polish. A crooked sketch that clearly shows the camera angle beats a gorgeous image that shows nothing. Professionals draw stick figures when stick figures communicate. You are generating images with AI, so yours will look better than stick figures — but hold them to the same standard: does this communicate, or does it just decorate?

Start here. Copy the prompt below, paste your two-sentence story into the bracket, and run it in Muse. You'll get a previz plan: the three moments you most need to test visually, and which piece — character sheet, style frame, storyboard panel, or timed animatic — tests each one cheapest. Work the plan top to bottom through this course.

I am making a short AI film and starting pre-production. Here is my story in two sentences: [paste your story]. Write me a previz plan: list the 3 moments I most need to test visually, what could go wrong in each (character consistency, unclear geography, weak ending), and which previz piece — character sheet, style frame, storyboard panel, or timed animatic — would test it cheapest.

Cast your characters with AI · 35 min

AI casting means designing your characters deliberately before generating footage: one fixed description of face, age, wardrobe, and distinguishing marks, repeated word-for-word in every prompt. A character sheet — the same person shown from several angles and in several expressions — is the document that keeps your lead looking like the same person in every shot.

Design before you generate

A character sheet is a single image showing your character from the front, the side, and the back — animators call this a turnaround — plus a row of expressions: neutral, happy, afraid, determined. Generate it as still images first, when changes cost nothing. Look at the sheet and ask: could a stranger describe this person back to you in one sentence? If not, the design is not specific enough yet.

Write the anchor, then never improvise

Your continuity anchor is one fixed paragraph describing the character — age, face, hair, build, wardrobe, and two or three distinguishing marks — that you paste word-for-word into every prompt that includes them. Models drift when you paraphrase: "silver braids" in one prompt and "gray plaits" in the next reads as two different people. Write it once, lock it, and treat improvising as a bug.

Cast the supporting faces too

Background characters need less, but they need something: a two-sentence anchor each — age, one visual trait, wardrobe note. The audience forgives a simple extra; it never forgives the extra who morphs into a different person halfway through the scene. One line of description per minor character is the cheapest insurance in this course.

This one goes to your image generator, not Muse. Copy it, fill in your one-sentence character description, and generate. You'll get a turnaround — front, side, and back views plus four expressions — of the same person. If any view drifts, tighten the description and regenerate.

Character design sheet for my short AI film, illustration style. Character: [describe your character in one sentence]. Show a turnaround: front view, side view, and back view of the SAME person, plus four expression studies (neutral, happy, afraid, determined) in a row beneath. Keep face, age, hairstyle, and wardrobe identical across every view. Clean neutral background, even lighting, no text.

Back to Muse for this one. Paste your character description into the bracket and send — you'll get a fixed anchor paragraph, under 60 words, covering only what a camera can see. From here on, paste that paragraph verbatim into every image prompt: it's what keeps your character the same person in every shot.

Here is my character: [paste your character description]. Write me a continuity anchor: ONE fixed paragraph, under 60 words, covering face, age, hair, build, wardrobe, and exactly three distinguishing marks. Use concrete visual nouns a stranger could picture. No backstory, no personality — only what a camera can see. I will paste this verbatim into every prompt.

Design the world in stills · 30 min

World design in pre-production means generating still images of your locations before any footage exists: the establishing look, the light, the palette. These style frames become the visual bible for place — every generated shot gets compared against them, so your world feels like one place instead of five.

Stills first, footage later

A style frame is a single finished-looking still that declares: this is what our world looks like. Generate them before footage because stills are the fastest way to judge design — you can compare twelve moods side by side in minutes. If a location does not feel right as a still, it will not feel right moving. Fix it now, in seconds per iteration, not after you have generated clips.

Light is a storytelling decision

The same street at golden hour — the warm light just before sunset — feels nostalgic; at noon it feels exposed; in rain it feels lonely. Choose the light that serves the scene's emotion, then write it down as a rule: "harbor scenes happen at dusk, overcast, lamps just lit." Practicals are the visible light sources inside the frame — lamps, candles, neon signs — and naming them keeps every shot's lighting motivated instead of random.

The world bible: one page per location

Your world bible is one page per key location with three locked lines: palette (the two or three colors that dominate), light (time of day, weather, practicals), and texture (pristine versus worn, and how worn). Paste these lines into location prompts the same way you paste character anchors. When every shot references the same page, the world holds together.

Image generator again. Fill in your location, time of day, light sources, and palette, then generate — no people, no text, the location is the subject. Make one frame per key location; you're locking what the world looks like before a character ever steps into it.

Style frame for my short AI film, cinematic illustration. Location: [describe the location]. Show it as a wide establishing shot at [time of day + weather], with [named practical light sources, e.g. harbor lamps just lit]. Dominant palette: [2-3 colors]. Texture: [clean vs lived-in, one line]. No people, no text — the location is the subject. Make it feel like a real place the story lives in.

Run this one in Muse with your key locations listed. You'll get a world bible — palette, light, and texture lines for each location. Paste these lines into your location prompts the same way you paste character anchors.

My film has these key locations: [list them with one line each]. For each, write a world-bible entry: PALETTE (2-3 dominant colors), LIGHT (time of day, weather, named practicals), TEXTURE (clean vs lived-in in one line). Keep each entry under 40 words, concrete visual nouns only. Format as a simple list I can paste into prompts.

Storyboard with AI · 35 min

A storyboard is your film drawn one shot at a time — a panel per shot, in order, showing exactly what the camera sees. You don't need to draw: describe each shot in plain visual language, generate the panels, and arrange them until the story reads without a single word of dialogue.

One panel, one shot

Each panel is a promise about one shot: the subject, the visible action, the framing, and the camera position. Write a one-line caption under every panel describing the change from the previous one — "she notices the letter," "the lamp goes out." If you cannot name the change, two panels are showing the same thing and one of them should go.

Describe shots in plain visual language

You do not need film-school vocabulary to direct a panel. Four plain phrases cover nearly everything: who and what ("the keeper, from behind, at the railing"), the action ("she lifts the telescope"), the framing ("close on her hands"), and the camera ("camera slowly pushes in"). Feed those four phrases to the image model along with your anchors, and the panel will match your intent.

The ruthless pass

Lay the panels out in order and read them like a comic with the captions covered. Where did you get lost? Which three panels tell the same beat? Cut until every remaining panel earns its place — beginners almost always board too much, and the film gets tighter, not thinner. A storyboard that survives the ruthless pass is a shooting plan, not a wish list.

Paste your 5–8 story beats into the prompt below and run it in Muse. For each beat you'll get a four-line panel description plus a ready-to-paste image prompt with your character anchor and world-bible line appended. Generate each panel prompt in your image generator — those images are your storyboard.

My short film's story beats: [list 5-8 beats in order]. For EACH beat, write one storyboard panel description with four lines — SUBJECT (who/what is in frame), ACTION (the one visible thing happening), FRAMING (wide/full/medium/close-up in plain words), CAMERA (static or simple move). Then add a PANEL PROMPT I can paste into an image generator: append my character anchor [paste anchor] and world bible line [paste line]. Number every panel.

Once your panels exist, paste them into the prompt below in Muse. It plays a ruthless story editor — flagging confusing panels, beats told twice, and dead weight. Cut or fix what it flags (when you agree), then regenerate any replacement panels.

Here is my storyboard, one panel per line with captions: [paste panels]. Act as a ruthless story editor. Flag: (1) any panel whose removal would not change the story, (2) any story jump the panels do not explain visually, (3) any beat told in three panels that one panel could tell. Return the keep-list in order with one-line reasons.

Write the shot list · 30 min

A shot list is the production document that turns your storyboard into a plan: every shot numbered, with its size, camera move, and purpose written down. It's the checklist that keeps a generation session organized — and it's what lets you spot missing coverage before it's too late to fix.

Six sizes, four moves — the whole vocabulary

Shot sizes, from far to near: the wide (the whole place — context), the full (a person head to toe — body language), the medium (waist up — conversation), the close-up (face — emotion), the extreme close-up (a detail — a hand, an eye), and the aerial (from above — geography or awe). Camera moves: static (no move — calm or tension), pan (turning left or right — following), tilt (up or down — revealing), push in (moving closer — emphasis). Learn what each feels like and you can direct anything.

Every shot needs a job

Next to each numbered shot, write its purpose in one line: "establishes the harbor at dusk," "shows her decision landing." This is the discipline that separates a plan from a pile of pretty images. A shot without a job is a shot you will cut later — cut it now, in the document, where it costs nothing.

Check your coverage

Coverage means having all the angles the edit will need: the wide that establishes place, the reaction that shows a face responding, the insert — a close detail like a letter or a hand — that the editor cuts to for emphasis. Read your shot list and ask: if I removed any single shot, could the scene still be understood? The shots you cannot remove are your coverage. The rest are candidates for cutting.

Paste your final panels into the prompt below in Muse. You'll get a numbered shot list table — size, camera, and what each shot must capture. Then run the coverage check from this lesson: every angle the edit will need should be on the list.

Here is my storyboard (panel per line): [paste panels]. Build a shot list table with columns: SHOT # | SIZE (wide/full/medium/close-up/extreme close-up/aerial) | CAMERA MOVE (static/pan/tilt/push in) | PURPOSE (one line: what this shot does for the story). Number shots in story order. Then add a COVERAGE CHECK: list any missing establishing shots, reactions, or inserts the edit will need.

Cut the previz · 35 min

Cutting the previz means assembling your storyboard panels into a timed sequence with temporary music and sound — an animatic. Watching it reveals what no document can: whether your pacing breathes, your story reads, and your ending lands — while every fix still costs minutes instead of hours.

Build the animatic

An animatic is storyboard panels cut to timing with temp — temporary — music and sound: not the final score, just something with the right energy to cut against. Any editing tool works, including free ones; the method is tool-agnostic. Lay panels in story order, set each panel's duration, and add the temp track. Simple pushes and pans across still panels — the classic documentary move — suggest camera motion well enough to judge pacing.

Watch like a stranger

Watch the animatic twice. First pass, mark every moment of boredom — note the timestamp. Second pass, mark every moment of confusion — where you had to think instead of feel. Boredom means the pacing is slow or the beat is unnecessary; confusion means a panel is missing or unclear. Be specific in your notes: "0:42 — I don't know whose boat this is" beats "the middle is weak."

The fix loop

Every note becomes a board change: add the missing panel, cut the dead beat, re-time the section, and watch again. Two or three loops is normal. The animatic is locked — declared final — when a stranger can follow the story without questions and no timestamp bores you. Locking is a decision, not a feeling of perfection: the previz will always be rough, and rough is the point.

Paste your shot list into the prompt below in Muse, with your target runtime. You'll get a timing sheet — seconds per shot, where temp music should swell or drop, and where held panels land hardest. Assemble your panels to this timing: that's your animatic.

Here is my shot list: [paste shot list]. Draft animatic timing: assign each shot a duration in seconds (emotional beats 4-6s, action beats 2-3s, transitions 1-2s) so the total lands near [target runtime]. Suggest where temp music should swell, drop out, or change energy, and mark 3 moments where a held panel (no motion, just duration) would land hardest. Present as a simple timing sheet.

After your first watch, paste your boredom and confusion timestamps into the prompt below in Muse. It diagnoses the likely cause behind each note — missing panel, dead beat, timing problem — so each fix loop targets the real issue instead of guessing.

I watched my previz animatic and took these notes: [paste boredom/confusion timestamps]. For each note, diagnose the likely cause (missing panel, unclear geography, dead beat, pacing) and prescribe the smallest board or timing change that fixes it. Prioritize the fixes: which three changes would improve the film most?

Lock the production package · 30 min

The production package is everything pre-production produces, assembled into one handoff: character sheets, world bible, storyboard, shot list, and the locked previz cut. It's the document a real crew would walk onto a set with — and it's what makes your generation phase fast, consistent, and calm instead of chaotic.

Assemble in story order

Your package has five parts, in this order: 1. The previz cut — the timed animatic, the fastest way to grasp the film. 2. The storyboard — panels with captions. 3. The shot list — numbered, with sizes, moves, and purposes. 4. Character sheets and continuity anchors — the cast, locked. 5. The world bible — palette, light, texture per location. Apply the five-minute test: hand it to a friend — can they describe your film back to you after five minutes? If yes, it is a real package.

From planning to generating

Here is how the package pays off in the next stage. Every video clip prompt you write becomes an assembly job: paste the character anchor for who is in frame, the world bible line for where they are, and the shot list row for size and camera move — then add only the action. Tools will change; Higgsfield, Runway, and Seedance are today's examples. The assembly method outlives all of them, because the decisions were made here, in pre-production.

What "locked" really means

Locking the package means declaring the plan final so generation can begin — not that the plan is perfect. Keep a one-line change log: date, what changed, why. Small controlled changes are healthy; silent improvisation is how consistency dies. If a change affects the character anchor or world bible, update every downstream document that quotes them. The package is a living contract with your future self.

The finale. Paste or describe every piece into the prompt below in Muse — character sheets, style frames, storyboard, shot list, timing. It assembles your production package and runs the five-minute test: can a stranger follow the story? Fix whatever fails, then lock it.

I have completed pre-production for my short AI film. Here are my pieces: [paste or describe: previz notes, storyboard, shot list, character anchors, world bible]. Assemble them into a production package outline in story order, flag any piece that is missing or contradicts another piece, and write the one-paragraph "director's intent" that opens the package — what this film is, in plain words.