How do you use AI tools for pre-visualization before a live film shoot?

AI previsualization before a live shoot runs as one pipeline: load the full script into an AI agent, lock look-and-feel through reference-batched image grids, generate casting, costume, and location options, then animate storyboard frames into rough 15-second animatic clips your DP and crew can shoot against. One documented team locked cast, costumes, look-and-feel, and world images in a single day.

Start by giving the AI complete story context, because every previz asset downstream inherits it. invideo is an agentic video creation tool with all the current image and video models available, so one project can carry this whole pipeline from script to animatic.

1. Load the script and answer the foundational questions. Upload the full screenplay so the invideo agent holds characters, arcs, and themes before visualizing anything. Have it surface its pre-production questions — what each character looks like, key props, deliverable format — and answer them before generating a single asset; those answers change every frame that follows. If you've already written a visual treatment or director's style document, load it in the same pass.

2. Lock look and feel with reference batches and image grids. Pull visual references mapped to specific sequences rather than one general mood board, batch them by theme (spatial logic, color theory, key set ideas), and tell the invideo agent explicitly what to take from each batch and what to ignore. Then generate image grids instead of single frames — one workflow requested 3 grid options per round — iterate on the grids you like, extract the strongest panels, and use those panels as continuity anchors for all later previz. Image generation is cheap relative to a scout day, so optionality costs almost nothing.

3. Previsualize cast, costume, and props. Generate character portrait options as casting comps — Recraft produces faces with pores, lines, and stubble that read as real people, and Nano Banana handles multi-angle character sheets. For costumes, direct by mood when you don't have an exact spec: describe the feel of the character and select from the options that come back — one production had seven costume variations generated while the team took a break. Run the same pass on hero props so the art department sees what the director sees. One documented day of this — three people plus the invideo agent — locked cast, costumes, look-and-feel, and world images in a single working day.

4. Scout locations digitally. Have the invideo agent pull real-world landmark and location images from the internet as location plates, then pick the frames that match your intended shoot. These plates double as lighting and palette references when you previsualize shots set there.

5. Turn storyboard frames into rough animatic clips. Generate key frames first, approve them, then animate them — multi-shot video models mean you no longer need to board every individual frame, since a single storyboard frame can drive a 15-second multi-shot sequence. On model choice: Kling generates multi-shot sequences natively, Seedance 2.0 reference-to-video carries character and location context across clips so the animatic stays continuous, and Veo handles polished single-shot motion — all of these run inside invideo, and the invideo agent routes each shot to the right one. Generate in your film's aspect ratio so the animatic frames match what your DP will actually compose.

6. Run multiple variations on the ambiguous sequences. For abstract, dangerous, or expensive-to-repeat beats — stunts, VFX-heavy moments, dream sequences — generate several distinct visual interpretations and lock one as the canonical reference; one production generated 5 variations of a hallucination sequence before choosing. These are the scenes where previz pays for itself, because the cost of discovering the idea doesn't work on set is highest.

7. Manage shot-to-shot consistency before showing crew. Raw video generations drift between clips, so lock character sheets and use your extracted grid panels — not loose references — as generation seeds, which keeps the animatic reading as one film. Treat the clips as intent-setting previz for framing, blocking, and pacing, not frame-accurate camera choreography.

8. Hand off to production. Have the invideo agent generate a scene-by-scene shot list from the script and sequence the cut order — a director's assistant sub-agent works well for tightening shot-after-shot flow — then share the animatic and shot list with your DP and AD as the alignment reference for the shoot. One caveat from documented practice: when external clients such as agencies are involved, a traditional storyboard lock is still required, so use the AI animatic to supplement the locked boards rather than replace them.

Watch some of these to see what works for you:

Rather than generating one, one, one, one, one images to generate grids. Image generation doesn't cost much, especially in invideo. Use that to your advantage.

— invideo's creative team