Storyboard approval in the UAE: who asks for the document, and when

The published answer is not about drawing. Skills England, in occupational standard ST0489 version 1.1, defines a storyboard as a series of sequential art that conveys the story and character in a visual media such as film, television or games, and states that its purpose is to communicate the visual story to colleagues, clients and stakeholders. That is a United Kingdom occupational standard and it is not evidence about anything in this region. Three readers are named, and two of them sit outside the room where the board was made.

The same standard describes the gate. The presentation of a storyboard is part of the overall pre-production process, it is used to demonstrate the film or content before it is signed off to proceed to the next stage of production, and it moves through the workflow from pre-production to production. A board exists to be approved by somebody who did not draw it.

Then it leaves a second time, to be executed. ST0488, the junior animator standard at version 1.2, requires that a junior animator be able to interpret a storyboard, and lists the script, animatic, x-sheet and dope-sheet as separate production documents to be read.

Previs carries its own definition, narrower than the way the word gets used in a pitch. Read through an Internet Archive capture of the Previsualization Society dated 8 April 2014, and footnoted there as formulated by the ASC, ADG and VES Joint Technology Subcommittee, previs is a collaborative process that generates preliminary versions of shots or sequences, predominantly using 3D animation tools and a virtual environment, so that filmmakers can explore creative ideas, plan technical solutions and communicate a shared vision.

The craft has a formal name for imagery made to be looked at internally and then discarded. The Visual Effects Society glossary defines a temporary composite as a rough composite produced to better judge the spatial and colour relationships of the elements in a scene so that they can be modified to produce a final composite. A storyboard is a different object. It goes to a client, it goes to an authority in Abu Dhabi and in Saudi Arabia, to the operator at Dubai Airports, and to the Dubai Commission whenever it asks under clause 7.1 of the permit terms, and, on Midjourney's default terms, it goes to a public gallery.

This section dates faster than anything else here, so every sentence names the product, the version where one is published, and the date read. Midjourney publishes that V8.2 became its default on 24 July 2026, and that V8.2 features a new Edit Model replacing Omni Reference, Character Reference and the Retexture tool.

The published claims are counts of inputs. Midjourney's Edit model generates new images using up to four reference images and is compatible with versions 8.1 and 8.2, per its help article updated 4 September 2026. Google's image-generation documentation, stamped 4 September 2026, carries a per-model table giving character consistency across up to four reference images on one model and up to five on another, with the cheapest model carrying no character-consistency route at all. Runway published in January 2026 that up to three active references may be selected for a single generation. Boords publishes up to four reference images on a single generation, on a documentation page carrying no date, read 6 September 2026.

None of the vendors read for this article publishes how far a generated result holds across a sequence of frames. They publish how many reference images may be attached, which is a different number.

The concessions are worth more than the claims. OpenAI publishes, under its own heading Limitations, that its model may occasionally struggle to maintain visual consistency for recurring characters or brand elements across multiple generations, and that it may have difficulty placing elements precisely in structured or layout-sensitive compositions. That page carries no date stamp, so 6 September 2026 is the only date available for it. Those two sentences describe the two properties the occupational standard asks a board for: a character who stays the same person, and staging that holds its layout.

Midjourney concedes the same territory from another direction. Its Seeds article, updated 27 July 2026, publishes that seeds cannot capture or bookmark a specific style, character or appearance across different prompts, that they should not be relied on for the same results over different prompting sessions, and that they have the least impact on the final image.

The most candid sentence located comes from a storyboard product. Boords publishes that the AI does not automatically remember previous frames, that writing "the same character" or "the location from frame 3" in a prompt will not work, and that the reference image must be attached for the model to see it. The same company published in September 2025 that it is the first storyboarding platform to let a user place multiple consistent characters in every scene, each maintaining their unique appearance across the entire storyboard and eliminating consistency problems. That is an attributed vendor marketing claim, and it sits beside the vendor's own documentation. Google documents the same mechanism in plainer engineering terms, instructing the user to include previously generated images in subsequent prompts to maintain consistency. Consistency, as these vendors describe it, is the operator attaching the right reference to every frame.

Camera control is vocabulary rather than a dial on every product read. Google documents it as photographic and cinematic language inside a prompt string, such as wide-angle shot or low-angle perspective. On Midjourney's published parameter list, in the article updated 1 September 2026, there is no parameter for camera position, height, angle, focal length, lens, field of view or shot size, and aspect ratio is the only published parameter touching framing. Across OpenAI's published image-generation guide, read 6 September 2026, there is no camera, lens, focal-length or viewpoint parameter, and the configurable output options published are size, quality, format, compression and background. Both of those are statements about those documents on that date, and neither says framing cannot be influenced through prompt text.

Boords publishes the trade-off as a hard either-or. Its shot-type selector, offering auto, close up, mid shot, wide shot, from below, from above and aerial, is only available when no reference images are attached, and when using references the camera angle must be specified in the prompt instead. On that product, on that date, the operator chooses the control that sets the shot or the mechanism that holds the character, not both in one generation.

Two independent research groups, fifteen months apart, open their papers by stating that precise camera control is missing in current text-to-image models and that current models struggle to provide precise camera control using natural language alone. Both are arXiv preprints, cited here only for that framing statement about the state of the field.

On the four Dubai Film and TV Commission pages that explain the process, retrieved on 6 September 2026, being the how-to-film page, the script approval page, the FAQ and the terms of use, the words storyboard and treatment appear zero times. That was counted by searching the fetched pages rather than inferred, and it is a statement about those four documents on that date and about nothing wider. The permit terms quoted above are the fifth document on the same host, and they answer what those four are silent on. So the two gates are separate rather than alternatives: the script is cleared before a permit application is made, and storyboards and other filming materials can be called for at any time once the permit is running.

The first gate is a script requirement. For all movie and television filming in any government or private location, script approval must be received prior to applying for a filming permit. The entire script should be submitted, even if only a sequence is filmed in Dubai. For films and TV serials, the final approved script must include the itinerary of scene shots and each location or scene intended for filming. An itinerary of scene shots is a shot-by-shot commitment written in words, which is the same commitment a board makes in pictures. That comparison is ours, and it is a comparison rather than a rule.

Then the sentence that gives the subject its weight. No further amendments shall be permitted once the final script is submitted with the application form to DFTC.

The exception sits on the same page, and quoting the lock without it overstates the lock. You may cancel a request for script approval after submission, but it is not possible to adjust an already-submitted request unless specifically asked by the Commission to do so. Two lines in the Script Terms run the same way. Clause 5 states that the Commission at any time may request amendment on the script or resubmission of the script within a specified period as it deemed necessary. Clause 6 states that in case of any change in the content of the approved script, you shall notify the Commission in writing and obtain approval from the Commission prior to any implementation of any such amendment. Every one of those sentences is the Commission's own, all were read on 6 September 2026, and this article reports each and reconciles none.

Two further lines matter to a brand buyer. The Commission publishes that it shall be entitled to cancel a filming permit or reject a script without any prior notice or reasons provided to the Company, and that any international crew will be permitted to arrive on site pursuant to approval of the script and issuance of the filming permit, which puts the creative clearance upstream of travel rather than only upstream of the permit.

There is a scope tension inside the Commission's own pages, and it is reported here rather than resolved. The permit criteria chart on the how-to-film page names advertisement, short-form, long-form, documentary, radio programme and photography as content formats requiring a permit. FAQ item 4 scopes script clearance to TV series, films and documentaries. A brand film is named in the first list and not in the second. Both sentences are the Commission's own, and the useful move is to ask the Commission in writing which applies to the job in hand. The Journal's Dubai DFTC permit article owns the permit route itself.

Three parties draw three different lines around a pre-production document.

The portal first. The Commission's terms of use state that the site acts as a portal for the submission of script permits, and those terms are the Dubai Development Authority's, a governmental entity established by virtue of Law No. 1 of 2000, superseded by Law No 15 of 2014, and they name filmdubai.gov.ae among the sites they cover. Clause 5.3 reads that you retain all rights in any of Your Content that you upload or submit, and that you grant a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, transferable, sub-licensable licence to use, store, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, modify, create derivative works from, and distribute any of Your Content for the purposes of operating, providing, and improving the Sites. Clause 3.1 asks users not to upload content that belongs to another person and which you do not own the rights to, or that infringes any patent, trademark, copyright or other proprietary rights.

The tool sits at the other end. Midjourney's Terms of Service, updated 17 August 2026, state that it is an open community which allows others to use and remix your content whenever it is posted in a public setting, and that by default your content is publicly viewable and remixable. Stealth is part of a Pro or Mega subscription, Midjourney agrees to make best efforts not to publish assets made with stealth mode engaged, and assets made in a shared or open space such as a Discord chatroom are viewable by anyone in that chatroom regardless of whether stealth mode is engaged. The licence granted in those terms is perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, sublicensable, no-charge, royalty-free and irrevocable, it survives termination, and it covers the content the user inputs into the services as well as any assets produced, with content defined to include uploaded photos, videos and documents.

Set beside that, the Commission publishes one sentence of its own: DFTC strictly ensures the confidentiality of each script. Two documents, quoted as they stand, and no consequence is drawn here from putting them next to each other.

The third line is Adobe's, and it is the structural finding. Its Firefly product description, published 27 August 2026, sets the trigger for its intellectual property indemnity at an export event, being when a qualifying user clicks download or otherwise exports content, and expressly excludes the placement of an output on the canvas before the project is exported. Text to image has been on the covered list since 16 August 2023. A frame looked at inside the tool has not triggered the cover, and downloading the board has. The page applies only where the customer's agreement links to it, excludes beta and non-Adobe-model features, and requires a qualifying plan, so it is a vendor's contractual position rather than a statement of law.

Ownership and a promise to defend are different instruments. Midjourney provides its services and assets as is, without warranties of title or non-infringement, and requires the user to indemnify the vendor. Runway publishes that the user retains ownership and all rights in their creations, on a page that offers no indemnity at all. None of the four vendor indemnity positions read for this article distinguishes internal use from published use.

Each of these is a question, and none of them presumes an answer.

• To the production company, on the tool account. What plan is the account on, and what do its terms say about the images supplied as references. Midjourney publishes that stealth is a paid feature offered on best efforts and that it does not reach a shared Discord space, and what any particular production uses is not something this article establishes.
• To the production company, on the document. Will the boards carry staging, continuity between scenes, camera moves and the shot-by-shot structure the occupational standard describes, or are they concept frames in the sense Pallant and Price define, settings presented as neutral and not populated with characters.
• To the production company, on the sequence. How many frames does the set run to, and how is the same character held from frame one to frame twelve, given that no vendor read for this article publishes how far a result holds.
• To the client side, on the contract. Does the agreement say anything about generative content in materials passed between the parties, which is the point the ISBA and IPA principle addresses as British trade-body guidance.
• To the authority, and only to the authority. Permit terms clause 7.1 already says storyboards can be requested at any time once a permit is running, so the open part is whether boards may or must accompany the script submission itself, and in what format. And does a brand film sit inside the script-clearance scope at all, given that the permit chart names advertisement while the FAQ names TV series, films and documentaries.
• On the filing itself. What happens to the approved document if the creative changes after submission, given that no further amendments shall be permitted once the final script is submitted, that an already-submitted request cannot be adjusted unless the Commission specifically asks, and that Script Terms clause 6 requires written notice and fresh approval before any change to an approved script is implemented.

A storyboard is a document that leaves. Published standards say it exists to be signed off by somebody who did not draw it, and then to be executed by somebody else again. In this region, Abu Dhabi names it for any production, Saudi Arabia for films and documentaries, Dubai Airports inside the letterhead request, and Dubai in permit terms clause 7.1, which lets the Commission require storyboards and other filming materials at any time on request. Dubai runs a second gate ahead of that one, the entire script and, for films and TV serials, an itinerary of scene shots, approved before a permit application is made. It publishes that no further amendments are permitted once the script is filed, and, on the same page, that an already-submitted request cannot be adjusted unless the Commission specifically asks. The clocks say one working day for a permit and up to 25 business days for a script, free of charge. The tools read here publish how many references may be attached and none of them publishes how far the result holds. And on Midjourney's default terms, content is publicly viewable and remixable, with the licence covering what goes in as well as what comes out.