The four levels of service - and the shape of your frame
Pencil, tone, colour, photoreal. Each one is a different product at a different price. Plus: why your box is the wrong shape.
8 minute read · one activity · lesson 4 of 21
You do not sell 'storyboards'. You sell a level. The book breaks the service into four, and each is priced differently because each consumes a wildly different amount of your day.
The four levels
- Level 1 - Pen and pencil. Line only. The fastest, highest-volume product. The default for director boards.
- Level 2 - Tone. Line plus greyscale. Essential the moment lighting, night, or shadow carries meaning in the scene - because the lighting team will read it.
- Level 3 - Colour. Slower again. Sells atmosphere, brand palette, time of day. Common in advertising pitch work.
- Level 4 - Photo-realistic. The top of the ladder and the slowest. Reserved for high-budget client-facing art.
The rule that saves you
Never accept a level you cannot deliver, however much you want the money. The book is unambiguous: if you are a pencil artist, do not take a photo-real commission. Underperform and you expose yourself to negative recourse - you have wasted your time and the client's.
And the counter-intuitive bit: taking the harder style does not earn you more. That specialist charges the same day rate as you and simply produces fewer frames in a day. The money is in output at your level, not in reaching for a level you cannot sustain.
Frame ratios
Your panel should be the shape of the finished film, because the composition you draw is the composition they will shoot. The common ratios: 4:3, 16:9, 1.85:1, 2:1, 2.39:1.
Does the panel have to be the exact ratio? Strictly, no - a general rectangle does the job. But drawing 16:9 action inside a squarish box teaches you to compose for a frame that does not exist, and it is a free mistake to stop making.
“Remember if you are a pencil artist don't accept an opportunity for a photo realistic style. Even if you are eager for the money, if you underperform you expose yourself to negative recourse.”
- Mitchell James Hughes, Storyboard Art
Build your rate card by timing yourself
Stop guessing what you can do in a day. Measure it. This single exercise is what separates people who quote confidently from people who quote and then panic.
- Choose one frame - a two-person interior, medium shot, with a background. Something ordinary.
- Draw it at Level 1 (line only). Time it, to the minute.
- Draw the SAME frame at Level 2 (line + tone). Time it.
- Draw it at Level 3 (colour). Time it.
- Now do the arithmetic: 7 working hours ÷ your per-frame time = your daily output at each level. Write all three numbers down.
What you should have at the end
Three numbers: frames-per-day at line, at tone, at colour. This is the spine of everything in Module 4. A storyboard artist who does not know these numbers cannot price a job.
Day 4 in one line
Four levels, four products, four prices. Know your frames-per-day at each - it is half of your day rate, and most beginners have never measured it.
This course is free and stays free. If you want to board in the suite Mitchell James Hughes built for his own work - script, shot list, storyboard, animatic, AI artist - the free tier opens every app with no card.
Start free →