Brief, script, storyboard

This lesson is still being tested: it improves with learners' feedback. If something is unclear, it is the lesson that needs fixing, not you.

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to

write a creative brief: goal, audience, message, tone, format, constraints;
have a voice-over script prepared, written to be spoken;
build a storyboard shot by shot, whose durations add up to the total;
check the script and the storyboard before producing anything.

Why it matters to you

A failed video almost always fails before the editing: an unclear message, too much information, a length that doesn’t fit, an image you don’t have the right to use. The brief and the storyboard settle all of that on paper, when fixing costs nothing. And that is where AI helps most: writing, breaking down, estimating a length, as long as you check everything.

Before you start


You need	Your assistant (free account), your notes on the video’s subject, and the creative brief and storyboard template (resource)
Cost	€0
Duration	60 minutes
Reminder	No face or voice of another person without their permission, even in a draft

Understand it in 3 minutes

The creative brief is the order for the video (template in the resource): the goal, the audience, one main message, the tone, the format (length, vertical or horizontal), the notes to use, the constraints, and what to hand in.

The script is the voice-over text. It is written to be spoken: short sentences, one idea per sentence. Its length depends on your speaking pace: the AI can estimate it, but only your reading aloud, with a stopwatch in hand, gives the real length.

The storyboard breaks the video down into shots:

No.	Duration	What we see	On-screen text	Voice-over
1	2 s	A pile of books	The title	(music)
2	5.5 s	A date circled on a calendar	The date and time	The sentence with the date

The durations must add up to the target length.

Faces and voices. In France, according to the CNIL (the French data protection authority; its page is in French), everyone has a right to their own image, including on the Internet, and you must make sure you have a person’s permission before publishing their photo; for a minor, you need the parents’ permission. Other countries have their own rules: asking for permission first is always the safe choice. The simplest way to start: hands, objects, places with nobody in them.

Do it together

1Step 1: The brief

Open the resource Creative brief and storyboard. Fill in the brief for a 30-second video. To practice: the back-to-school evening of the book club, with the exercise notes from module 9 (or your own notes).

2Step 2: The script and the storyboard

Paste the brief and your notes into a new conversation.

In our test of 24/10/2026, with Claude Code and the club’s notes, the answer gave a script of 64 words (we recounted them), an estimated length of “about 27 seconds, at a calm pace of about 2.4 words per second”, and a storyboard of 7 shots whose durations do add up to 30 seconds.

The sign-up address, which was missing, stayed as “[to be completed: club email address]”, and no shot showed a face.

3Step 3: Check

Go through the “Before producing” list in the resource. In our test, one point slipped past the AI: the script said “Saturday, November 22”, but in 2026, November 22 is a Sunday. Every fact in a script gets checked, just like in a document (module 10, lesson 5).

Then read the script aloud, with a stopwatch in hand. Too long? Cut a sentence, don’t speak faster.

Your turn

Choose a real short video (or a carousel) that you need.
Fill in the brief, and have the script and the storyboard prepared.
Check every fact, every duration and every right, with the list in the resource.
Keep the brief and the storyboard: they are the first pieces of your deliverable (lesson 6).

Resources to download

Creative brief and storyboard: the brief to fill in, the storyboard table, and the list to check before producing.

Check your work

It worked if:

your brief has a single main message, and its constraints about rights;
every fact in the script comes from your notes, and you checked each date on a calendar, day of the week included;
the storyboard total is the target length;
you read the script aloud with a stopwatch in hand.

Common mistakes:

trying to say everything in 30 seconds;
a script written like a text to be read, with long sentences;
trusting the length estimate without reading aloud;
planning a shot with a recognizable person, without their permission.

Keep it and pick it up later

Put the brief, the script and the storyboard in the video’s folder: everything else in the module starts from them.

Going further

optional

For a carousel (a series of images to swipe through), the same storyboard works: one line per image, without a duration column.

New words

5 words explained

Word	What it means
Creative brief	The order for a video: goal, audience, message, tone, format, constraints
Script	The text of the voice-over
Storyboard	The breakdown of the video into shots, with their duration, image, text and voice
Shot	A piece of video, made of a single image or a single movement
Voice-over	The voice you hear without seeing the person speaking

The test in step 2 was actually run with Claude Code 2.1.310, in a new, isolated session; we recounted the words and added up the durations (test report, T61). To be checked: it has not been replayed in the app or in ChatGPT.