No script, a fixed running time, and a treatment that has to sell
A music video has no screenplay to break down. What it has is a track of a known length, a treatment that has to win the artist or the label over, and a shoot where the constraint is how many looks and locations you can physically get through before the light goes.
So the planning documents are different ones. The treatment carries the idea, the boards carry the sequence, and the shot list carries the day — there is no page count to schedule against and no dialogue to break down.
What transfers cleanly from film production is everything about the day itself: locations, cast and dancers, wardrobe changes, kit, crew, and a budget built from those rather than guessed at.
How a video gets planned
Treatment first, because that is what gets approved before anything else happens.
- 01Treatment and look
Visual language, palette and reference frames — what the artist and label are actually saying yes to.
- 02Boards
The sequence in frames, which for a performance-and-narrative cut is how you find out whether the idea sustains three and a half minutes.
- 03Shot list
Setups by look and location. The real currency of a music video day, since there are no pages to count.
- 04Cast, dancers and crew
Who is called for which block, and what each costs at regional rate bands rather than a US default.
- 05Budget
Locations, kit, wardrobe, choreography and crew, in your own currency across 110 supported.
Looks are the scheduling unit
A video is usually planned as a set of looks — a performance setup, two or three narrative worlds, a wardrobe change each. Ordering the day badly means the artist changes six times instead of three, and every change is thirty to forty-five minutes you did not budget.
Grouping by location and by look does the same job that grouping by location and cast does on a feature: it stops you paying twice for the same setup. The mechanics transfer even though the vocabulary does not.
Where the track itself is not modelled
There is no audio timeline here. You cannot import the track, mark beats against it, or time boards to a waveform — and on a video cut to a specific drop, that timing work is the whole craft.
Keep that in your edit suite. What is here is the planning around it: the treatment, the visual language, the shot list, the day, and the money.
Boards can be cut to a rough duration as an animatic, which is enough to check whether an idea sustains the running time. It is not frame-accurate synchronisation to a track and should not be relied on as one.
Common questions
Can I import the track and time boards to it?
No. There is no audio timeline and no beat marking — timing a cut to a track stays in your edit software. Planning, boards, shot list and budget are what this covers.
Is there a script breakdown for a video with no dialogue?
Not in the usual sense. Element tagging reads a screenplay, and a treatment is not one. Plan from the shot list instead, which is how music video days are actually scheduled.
How do I budget dancers and choreography?
As cast and crew at regional rate bands, with day counts from the shooting plan. There is no union ratebook, so if you are engaging under a specific agreement the bands will not match it.
Can I use it to pitch to a label?
The treatment, boards and a budget top sheet are the artefacts a label or artist responds to, and they export as PDFs. There is no client approval or comment workflow — that gap applies here as it does to commercials.
Does it work for a one-day, one-location video?
Yes, though lightly. At that scale the useful parts are the treatment, boards and shot list; the scheduling machinery is built for productions with more days to arrange.
What we're learning, once a week
Real numbers on making films with AI — costs, workflows, and what actually works. No pitch, unsubscribe anytime.