Styleframe
A styleframe is a single still in the final visual language of a film: look, light, colour, framing and mood as they are meant to appear in the moving image. It is made before production and exists to be approved, not to decorate a deck.
What a styleframe shows
A styleframe shows a concrete shot from the planned film, not a mood collage. Five decisions sit inside it that shape the finished work: the composition, meaning what sits where in frame, the lighting, the colour world, the degree of realism, and the focal length, meaning whether the camera is close or keeps its distance.
With us a styleframe comes with a note on what should happen in motion. A still does not show whether the camera moves or holds, and that is exactly where misunderstandings start.
Why styleframes come before production
A film made of a hundred generated shots cannot be recoloured afterwards. Each shot comes out of its own computation, and a new visual language means all of it again. So the most important decision in the project sits with a single image that can be changed within an hour.
The styleframe is our second of four approval points. If the look is wrong here, the change costs almost nothing. After production the same change costs a multiple, and on a brand film that quickly runs into four figures. What productions cost in general is on what a commercial costs.
How we work with them
We deliver two to four styleframes per project from different moments of the film, not four variants of the same shot. That way you see whether the visual language carries across different subjects, not just whether one image looks nice.
What you get: the images at full resolution, a note on which model and which seed produced them, and one sentence per image on what happens in motion. What we need from you: a clear response, ideally pointing at what is wrong. "Too cold" is useful, "I don't like it" is not.
Styleframe, moodboard or storyboard
| What | Shows | When |
|---|---|---|
| Moodboard | other people's images as a direction | at the very start, before the concept |
| Storyboard | the sequence, shot by shot | after the concept |
| Styleframe | our own images in the final visual language | before production, for approval |
Frequently asked questions
What is a styleframe?
A styleframe is a still image showing the look, light, colour and composition of a planned shot as it should appear in the finished film. It is produced before the film and approved, so that changes to the visual language do not surface on finished material.
How many styleframes does a project need?
Two to four cover most films, provided they show different moments. More makes sense for films with several locations or chapters. What matters is not the count but whether the selection covers the range of the film.
Do styleframes cost extra?
With us they are part of the fixed price and listed as their own item in the offer. If you only want styleframes, for instance for an internal decision before the project, you can have them separately. See pricing.
What is the difference between a styleframe and a keyframe?
A styleframe fixes the visual language and is made before production. A keyframe marks a fixed state within a movement, between which the software or the model computes the frames in between. One is a design decision, the other a technical point in time.
Related terms
Read on: All terms in the glossary • Pricing • Our films
Want to see the look before you pay?
That is what styleframes are for. In the first call we settle which visual language fits your brand.
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