Production Boards help to accurately communicate story decisions into the production pipeline. This step has more to do with formatting than anything else. At this point your main concern will be to renumbering shots and panels, labeling production queues such as dissolves, fades, and camera moves, and inserting dialogue and production notes.
The renumbering of shots and panels reflect the final edit of the approved Story Reel. At this stage once new Shot Numbers are assigned they are locked and will not change during production. If a shot is added from this point a decimal will be inserted (shot 3.1 would be inserted between shot 3 and shot 4). Shots that are removed from production will drop out of the sequence without effecting the remaining shot numbers.
Once completed Production Boards are printed out between 3 and 6 panels to a page.
The best tool for formatting boards is Toon Boom Storyboard Pro. Even if you have chosen to compile your Story Reel with other tools (After Effects, TV Paint, Premiere, etc.) Storyboard Pro has some unique tools for numbering, labeling and printing out your boards in a variety of formats. Once you learn the steps it's a very simple process.
Points to remember about Production Boards:
- Shot numbers are locked and new shots will be inserted using decimals (i.e. shot 10, shot 10.1, and shot 11).
- Production Boards can be formatted in Toon Boom Storyboard Pro
- All editorial queues must be represented in the Production Boards. This includes camera moves, visual effects, audio queues and editorial transitions.