What is Photoreal Board?
A photoreal board is a storyboard frame rendered at finished quality rather than sketched, showing the lighting, casting, wardrobe and product detail the final shot will carry. Image generation made these cheap to produce, so a client can approve the actual look of a video before any footage is shot or generated.
- Category
- Creative & Video Production
- Also called
- Photoreal storyboard, Photoreal concept board, Concept board
- In our work
- AI video production
The change is recent and practical. An illustrated board asks a client to imagine lighting, casting and finish from a line drawing, and most clients are poor at that, which is how a project reaches its first cut and discovers the brief was misread. A photoreal frame removes the imagination step: the room, the wardrobe, the product angle and the mood are visible while changing them is still a matter of regenerating an image.
Two risks are worth naming. A frame can promise a look the production method cannot actually deliver, so boards are best produced with the same tools and references that will make the finished shots. And a board that looks finished invites approval of the picture while the script is still wrong, because a beautiful frame is more persuasive than a paragraph. Reading the boards against the script, in order, is what keeps the approval honest.
Common questions.
Is a photoreal board the same as a frame from the finished video?
No. A board frame is a still made to show intent: framing, light, casting and product detail. The finished shot has motion, timing, sound and a colour grade applied across the whole edit, and it is filmed or generated afterwards against the approved board.
Where it comes up.
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Related terms.
Storyboard
Creative & Video ProductionA storyboard is a sequence of drawn or rendered frames that maps a video shot by shot before production begins, each panel showing framing, action and the line of script or narration that plays underneath.
Reference-Driven Generation
Creative & Video ProductionReference-driven generation is the practice of conditioning an AI image or video model on supplied images rather than on words alone, so a real product, face or set appears the same in every generated shot.
Shot List
Creative & Video ProductionA shot list is the numbered inventory of every shot a video needs, recording for each one the subject, framing, camera movement, location and approximate duration.
Prototype
Product & DeliveryA prototype is a clickable simulation of a product that behaves enough like the real thing to be tested with users, while containing no working back end.
Scoping a project?
Reading definitions because you are scoping a project? Skip ahead and just ask.