Plan the story.
Test the fifteen seconds.

1. Decide what the animatic needs to prove.

A storyboard puts the planned images in order. An animatic places those boards on a timeline so you can review duration, transitions, text and guide sound together. A beautiful board can suggest a compelling film while concealing the fact that its actions will not fit into fifteen seconds.

Use the animatic to answer a narrow question: can a viewer understand this idea in the available time? It can expose a delayed product introduction, an unreadable end card or three actions competing inside one short shot. It cannot establish that a final generated hand movement, product detail or camera move will work. Those remain production questions requiring their own checks.

There is a useful public example of separating review stages on Singapore studio CraveFX’s OCBC Stack Rewards project page. It presents storyboard, animatics, playblast and final-film material as distinct artifacts. This is a conventional animation reference, not an AI case study or a Nightwolf commission. The useful lesson is the separation of decisions, not a claim that its workflow guarantees a particular result. Source: CraveFX’s OCBC Stack Rewards project.

For an AI film, approve story and timing separately from image fidelity. Write down which questions the rough version settles and which it deliberately leaves open. This prevents a quick planning exercise from being mistaken for a final look, motion or product-accuracy approval.

2. Start with a small, explicit fictional brief.

Our worked example is a fictional fifteen-second film for an imaginary yellow day bag. The idea is simple: everything is ready for a short trip. The viewer should recognise the bag, see it being picked up and understand the invitation to leave. No brand, commission, generated footage or audience test exists behind this example.

The proposed sequence moves from a hallway to a doorway, then ends on the bag and a short line: “Ready when you are.” Assume one landscape master for this planning exercise. A vertical version would need its own framing review. There is no voice-over, no price claim and no attempt to demonstrate waterproofing, capacity or another product specification.

Those exclusions make the exercise usable. A fifteen-second plan that also tries to explain construction, show three destinations and introduce a founder is solving several different communication problems. Choose the one thing a viewer should retain, then give each shot a job that supports it.

For this brief, the bag is the subject and departure is the action. A shoe insert may convey movement, but if it occupies too much of the film it can turn the piece into a footwear story. Every attractive detail has to earn its time against the central message.

3. Give every board an exact interval and one job.

The following is a paper timing plan, not a rendered animatic. Intervals are contiguous: each shot starts where the previous one ends. The five durations total fifteen seconds. An editor would next place rough boards at these lengths and watch the result in real time.

The four-second ending is a starting allocation for this particular line, not a universal platform requirement or a proven optimum. If the real end card needs a URL, legal wording or more copy, review that actual layout at the intended display size and change the allocation accordingly.

Number the boards and keep the same identifiers in feedback. “Extend board 04 by half a second and shorten board 03 by the same amount” is actionable. “Make it more cinematic” does not tell an editor which timing decision to change. The revision-brief guide explains how to preserve approved choices while making a specific adjustment.

4. Show enough motion to make the timing honest.

One still held for three seconds cannot fully explain a reach, grip and lift. For the pickup, use simple start and end boards, an arrow or a plain action label. If a rough move between boards is used, label it as an editorial guide. Do not let a smooth zoom over a still imply that the final camera or subject motion has been tested.

Add only the guide sound needed to understand the rhythm: perhaps a restrained pickup sound, a door cue and a simple music bed. Mark all temporary audio clearly. Do one pass with sound and one without it. If the story is only understandable because a guide effect explains an ambiguous image, the boards may need clarification.

Keep sound decisions connected to the picture but avoid treating the temporary mix as final approval. Music rights, performance, sound design and mix are separate delivery considerations. Our fifteen-second sound-design example goes further into cue planning.

Choose a working frame rate with the editor and use it consistently. The durations in this table use whole seconds, but actual edit changes should be made on the timeline’s frame boundaries. Record the version, duration and aspect ratio on the review export so feedback refers to the same artifact.

5. Revise the timing before polishing the boards.

Consider a different first draft: four seconds of an empty hallway, four seconds showing small packing details, three seconds for departure, two seconds of product beauty and two seconds for the ending. That also totals fifteen seconds. It delays the principal subject and compresses the final message.

The revised plan above moves the bag into the opening composition, replaces several packing actions with one pickup and gives the ending four seconds. This is an editorial proposal based on the brief, not a measured claim that the revised film performs better. Both versions would need to be assembled and reviewed before calling either one successful.

This is where a rough animatic earns its place. It lets a team debate the allocation of attention before asking for a polished version of every shot. If the bag still feels incidental, revisit the framing or the number of actions. Adding more decorative detail will not resolve a story-priority problem.

After changing a duration, watch the entire piece again. A locally improved cut can make the following action feel rushed. Keep the total duration visible and recheck the ending rather than letting small adjustments silently extend the film beyond its brief.

6. Separate board generation from production proof.

AI tools can help create candidate boards, but a set of generated pictures is not automatically a timed film. Runway describes Ad Concepter as a way to generate storyboard-style concepts from product imagery and a brief. That is useful for exploring visual options; its documentation is not evidence that a particular sequence will read correctly in fifteen seconds. Source: Runway Ad Concepter.

Higgsfield’s storyboard guide similarly places visual boards and shot planning before the video stage, discussing Popcorn for boards and Cinema Studio for subsequent production. These are vendor descriptions of available workflows, not a Nightwolf tool test or a guarantee of consistent final footage. The practical requirement remains the same: put the selected frames on a timeline and review the intended film. Source: Higgsfield’s storyboard and shot-list guide.

In our fictional example, the hand lifting the handle is a production risk worth isolating. The animatic may approve the three-second story beat while leaving grip, material behaviour and product fidelity unresolved. Record that distinction. If the pickup cannot be produced convincingly within the chosen method, consider a simpler action, a live-action insert or another approach rather than assuming the timing approval proves feasibility.

Before generating finished shots, translate each approved board into a brief with subject, action, framing, continuity requirements and intended edit duration. Discuss any extra material needed around the cut. Our camera movement guide and guide to editing separate AI shots cover the next decisions.

7. Approve the decisions, not the roughness.

Send the animatic with a short review note stating what is temporary and what needs a decision. Ask reviewers to watch once at normal speed before scrubbing through individual boards. A sequence can make sense when explained frame by frame and still be confusing in real time.

A useful approval note might say: “Story order and fifteen-second timing approved in version 03. Pickup feasibility, final product detailing, music and end-card finish remain open.” That is a fictional example of a bounded decision. It gives production a clear starting point without pretending that a rough timeline answers every question.

Keep the approved animatic beside the later edit, but allow new evidence to inform the work. If a finished action requires more space, explain the trade-off and agree what changes. The aim is a shared plan that supports good decisions throughout creative production and finishing.

Sources checked 14 October 2026. The day-bag brief, timings and paper revision are fictional planning examples; no rendered animatic, generation experiment or performance test is claimed. Explore images are independent visual references, not consecutive frames or a single campaign.