How to board a shot list before you generate

A storyboard is cells, not a paragraph. One cell, one generate, one duration the catalog actually sells — then stitch. Asking Veo 3.1 for five setups in eight seconds is how the board gets thrown away.

A storyboard is a plan with cells. A paragraph is a wish. The catalog does not sell wishes. It sells 4-second clips, 8-second clips, 10-second clips, 25-second clips — menus that change on every row. If your board has five cameras and you paste them into Veo 3.1, you bought one 8-second file that tried to be a coverage plan. The model compressed the plan. You will throw the file away and blame Veo.

This is the boarding pass. Write cells. Buy a duration that exists. Generate once per cell. Combine later.

Write cells, not a paragraph

A cell is one shot. Camera. Subject. Action. One duration you can actually buy. Optional still if identity has to hold.

"Wide of the kitchen, she enters, she opens the fridge, close-up of the bottle, she drinks, she smiles at camera" is six cells wearing a trench coat. It is not a prompt. If the camera has to travel to a new setup, that is a new cell. The glossary rule is the same: one cell, one shot.

Write the board so a stranger could generate from it without calling you. Each cell should name:

• What is in frame (one subject, one action)
• Where the camera sits (locked wide, 85mm close, slow push — pick one)
• How long the shot is allowed to run
• What still, if any, pins the product or the face

Do not write "then we cut to." The cut is the stitch. The cell does not know the next cell exists.

If two cells share a face or a pack, attach the same still to both. Hoping the next prompt remembers the last is how the bottle becomes a cousin. First-last-frame is the two-cell version of this discipline: two stills, one motion job in between. It is not a loophole that lets you skip the board.

Buy a duration the catalog actually sells

Veo 3.1 sells 4, 6, and 8 seconds, 4K, 40 credits, native audio. There is no 12-second Veo take. There is no "just a little longer." Five setups in eight seconds is not ambitious. It is five setups the model will squash into a pan that never lands.

Sora 2 Pro Storyboard sells 10, 15, and 25 seconds at 30 credits, image-to-video, native audio. Inside that budget you can send 1–10 shot objects whose durations add up to n_frames. That is still cells. It is not permission to dump a film into one Scene string. Three 5-second shots fit a 15-second board. Four 6-second shots do not. The sum is the job.

Other rows have other menus. Do not steal a duration from a model you are not generating on. If the beat is three seconds of a turn, you still buy the shortest duration that row sells. Veo's floor is 4 seconds. Sora Storyboard's floor is 10. Trim in the edit.

Write the duration on the cell before you pick the model. Then pick the row that actually sells that length. The reverse — picking Veo because you like it, then asking it for 25 seconds of coverage — is how the board gets thrown away a second time.

Generate one cell, not the film

Multi-scene generation is the execute step. One generate has one model, one length menu, and one chance at coherence. A movie-shaped brief is several beats. Stuffing those beats into a single clip is how the model invents a jump or compresses the coverage into a muddle. Split the brief. Pick a type per scene. Combine when they finish.

Text-to-video, image-to-video, first-last-frame, or a previous-scene handoff that takes the last frame of shot N as the start of shot N+1 — those are types, not synonyms. First-last is a two-cell board with a motion job in between. A previous-scene handoff is a join. Neither is "make the whole storyboard in one box."

Sora 2 Pro Storyboard is the row whose input is the board: each shot is its own Scene plus a duration, plus one optional reference image for the whole sequence. Repeat the character and the set in every Scene. There is no memory besides the text you write and that one still. Shorthand ("same as shot 1 but closer") is how shot 3 drifts.

For everything else, generate cell by cell from the AI video generator or from a still you already locked. Review the take against the cell, not against the film. If the cell was a 6-second fridge open and you got a 6-second kitchen tour, regenerate the cell. Do not keep it because "the rest of the movie might save it."

Stitch after the generates land

The AI movie maker is the combine. Movie mode drafts scene by scene, lets you pick a model and a type per scene, then dispatches and stitches. That is the unit. A paragraph is a briefing surface. The board is the job shape.

Review the draft before dispatch. Credits and continuity are decided per scene, not after the combine. Stitching two unrelated generates hides nothing. If identity has to carry, use a previous-scene type or the same still on both cells.

The combine is not a director. It will not fix a cell you asked Veo to play five setups in. Board first. Generate second. Stitch third. That order is the whole craft. Skip the board and you are paying for a highlight reel of accidents.

FAQ

Can I put the whole shot list in one Veo 3.1 prompt?

No. Veo 3.1 is 4, 6, or 8 seconds. A shot list is cells. One 8-second generate will compress five setups into a pan you cannot cut. Split the list. Buy eight seconds for one setup.

Is Sora 2 Pro Storyboard one generate or many?

One generate, many cells — only if the cells' durations sum to 10, 15, or 25 seconds. Each shot is still a Scene object. A paragraph with five cameras is still the wrong shape.

Do I need stills before I board?

Not for every cell. Board the shots first. Attach a still when the product, the face, or the room has to match the next cell. Sora Storyboard takes one optional reference for the whole board. First-last needs two stills because the stills are the endpoints.

Where does the movie maker sit versus generating in the video tool?

The video generator is one cell. The movie maker is the sequence: draft, per-scene model, dispatch, stitch. Use the video generator when you are iterating a single beat. Use the movie maker when the board has more than one cell that has to become one file.