Rubric Maker

Storyboard Rubric Template

A ready-to-use, analytic storyboard rubric for Storyboard planning a video, film, animation, or comic sequence (Grades 6–12). Score a storyboard as a production plan — whether someone else could shoot from it — rather than as a set of drawings, so the grade does not come down to who can draw. Edit it for your own assignment, print it, download it as a Word file, or share a link with your students.

Edit this template in the maker →

The storyboard rubric

CriterionExcellent (4)Proficient (3)Developing (2)Beginning (1)
Shot coverage & continuityEvery beat of the sequence has a panel, including an establishing shot and a closing shot, and screen direction stays consistent so characters do not switch sides between cuts without a reason.All the main beats are covered with a clear beginning, middle, and end, though one transition or reaction shot is missing and would have to be improvised.Covers the highlights only — several panels would each require multiple unplanned shots to film, and characters change position between panels without explanation.Fewer panels than the sequence needs, with whole sections of the story absent from the board entirely.
Framing & camera choicesShot sizes and angles vary with what the moment needs (wide to establish, close for reaction, low angle for power), each panel names its shot type, and camera moves are drawn with arrows and labeled.Uses a mix of shot sizes appropriately in most panels and labels the main ones, but a few key moments are framed by default rather than by choice.Nearly every panel is the same shot size at eye level, with shot types unlabeled or labeled inconsistently across the board.No indication of framing at all — panels show what happens with no sense of where the camera is or how close it stands.
Panel readabilityEach panel reads at a glance — figures, props, and background are placed clearly and motion is shown with arrows — and nothing needs to be explained aloud, even where the drawing is rough stick figures.Most panels are clear, with one or two where the action or who is who takes a second look or a spoken explanation to work out.Panels are cluttered or ambiguous often enough that a reader would need the student present to follow the sequence.Panels cannot be read as a sequence — figures are unidentifiable, or the drawings do not match the notes written beneath them.
Production notesEvery panel carries its dialogue or narration, the key sound or music cue, an estimated duration, and the transition into the next shot, and the durations add up to roughly the assigned running time.Most panels carry dialogue and transitions, with durations and audio cues noted on the important shots but missing from the rest.Notes appear on some panels only, usually dialogue alone, with no timing or audio information anywhere on the board.No production notes, or notes so brief they only repeat what the drawing already shows.
Pacing & sequencingPanel count and durations give the important moments more screen time than the material between them, and the shot order builds — setup before payoff, reaction after action — rather than listing events.The sequence flows logically and the key moment is given some weight, though the opening or an in-between stretch runs longer than it needs to.Every beat gets roughly equal time regardless of importance, so the sequence reads as a list of events at a constant speed.Shot order is confusing or out of sequence, and the running time sits on moments that do not matter to the story.

Four levels — Excellent (4) to Beginning (1). Print this page, or open it in the editor to change the wording, levels, or points.

How to use this rubric

Storyboards get graded on artwork more often than anyone admits — the student who can draw gets the A, and the student with a workable plan in stick figures gets marked down. But a storyboard is a set of instructions: someone who was not in the room should be able to pick it up and shoot the sequence. This rubric grades it that way, scoring coverage, camera choices, readability, production notes, and pacing, with a modification note for classes where drawing skill would otherwise decide the score.

Why these criteria

Each row targets something the assignment is really teaching, with descriptors written to be observable rather than vague:

Shot coverage & continuity
A storyboard's job is to account for every shot the sequence needs; this row catches boards that jump from the opening to the ending with the middle left for shoot day.
Framing & camera choices
Shot size and angle are a storyboard's actual content, so this row asks whether each choice was made for a reason instead of every panel being the same wide shot.
Panel readability
The board has to be understood by whoever shoots it, which is a different thing from whether the drawing is skillful.
Production notes
The written half of each panel — dialogue, sound, duration, transition — is what turns a picture into an instruction someone can follow.
Pacing & sequencing
Grades the boarding decision that survives into the finished cut — how long the story lingers where, and whether the order of shots builds toward anything.

How to adapt it

Frequently asked questions

Do students have to be able to draw to score well?
No, and the rubric is written to make that explicit. 'Panel readability' asks whether a panel communicates — stick figures, boxes labeled with names, and arrows for motion can reach the top level. The rows carrying the most weight are about planning: framing choices, production notes, and pacing. If drawing skill is still skewing grades in your class, the third modification note lowers that row's weight further.
How many panels should a storyboard have?
Set it from the running time rather than a fixed number — roughly one panel per shot, and a 60-second video usually needs 12 to 25 shots depending on how fast it cuts. Give students the target running time and let 'Shot coverage & continuity' do the checking: the question is whether every beat has a panel, not whether they hit a count.
How is this different from the comic strip rubric?
A comic strip is the finished piece — the panels are what the audience reads. A storyboard is a plan for something made afterward, so it is graded on whether it can be filmed: shot types, durations, audio cues, transitions. If students are making a comic as the final product, use the comic strip rubric instead.
Can I use this if the video never actually gets made?
Yes — every row scores the board itself and none of them require a finished video, which is the usual case when storyboarding is taught as its own unit. If the video does get made, grade the film with the video project rubric and keep this one for the planning stage, so a weak idea is not penalized twice.

More rubric templates