Reviewing video and documents together means the cut, the storyboard, the script, and the supers doc live in one review surface, so the note "the board promised a wider shot here" lands on the exact moment it applies to. Frame.io spent 2026 converging on this - PDF review with zoom and pan (March), InDesign multipage previews (September) - because the industry's review reality is multimodal: a video project is judged across footage and paper. The practice below works in any tool that keeps docs and images near the video, with one honest boundary stated up front: Frooty keeps Ideas docs and stills inside the project with commenting on stills, but full PDF markup is not a Frooty feature - where that line bites, we say so.
Why together beats separate (the rounds math)
Every artifact reviewed in its own silo adds a coordination round: the board approved in one thread, the script in another, the cut in a third - and nobody notices the divergence until the client watches v2 and asks where the drone shot from the board went. The failure is structural, not careless: approvals that never met each other cannot stay consistent. Teams that review in one surface collapse those coordination rounds into the round they always needed, which is how the two-to-three round norm survives contact with complex projects.
What "together" means in practice
- One project space, four artifacts. Board frames as images, script and supers as docs, the cut as the video version - all addressable in one place, so a comment on the script sits a click from the moment it affects.
- Cross-referencing is the point. The board-to-cut check is a review pass of its own: walk the cut against the board panel by panel, commenting at the timestamp where the cut departs (the picture-lock discipline assumes this check happened).
- Supers get a frame-zoom pass. On-screen text is judged at pixel scale - the reason broadcast workflows give supers their own legal pass (the commercial approval gauntlet dedicates a gate to it). A supers doc next to the cut lets the checker compare intended text against rendered text without a second tool.
- The pre-production loop feeds the edit. Board approved → animatic reviewed → cut rounds begin, each stage's approval carried forward as context, not re-litigated - the sequence the production brief sets up on paper.
The honest tool landscape
| Surface | Video-first review tools | Document proofing tools | General suites |
|---|---|---|---|
| The cut, frame-accurate | Native strength | Not their job | Varies |
| Boards/stills with comments | Common (stills comment without timestamps - timecodes do not apply to a frame) | Partial | Common |
| Script/supers docs in-project | Increasingly (docs or ideas pages) | Native strength | Common |
| Deep PDF markup (redline, page-level approver routing) | The honest gap - Frooty included | Native strength | Varies |
The practical reading: keep the loop in the video-first tool, because the cut is the artifact rounds converge on - and route the occasional deep-PDF artifact (a contract, a compliance booklet) through a document-proofing tool, then reference its outcome in the project space. The failure mode to avoid is the reverse: running the whole project in a doc tool because one artifact demanded it, and losing frame accuracy where it matters most (the proofing/review/approval split maps which surface a given artifact needs).
FAQ
Should storyboards be reviewed with the video cut?
Yes - in the same project space at minimum. The board-to-cut comparison is a real review pass: walking the cut against approved panels, commenting at the timestamps where the edit departs, catches divergence before the client does and protects the rounds budget.
Can I review PDFs and video in the same tool?
Depends on the tool: Frame.io added PDF and InDesign preview surfaces in 2026; document-proofing tools own deep PDF markup; most video-first tools keep docs and stills in-project but stop short of full PDF redlining (Frooty included - docs and stills yes, PDF markup no). Route deep-PDF artifacts to doc tooling and keep the outcomes referenced in the video project.
How do comments work on storyboard frames vs the video?
Comments on stills pin to the image; comments on video pin to a timestamp - there is no timecode on a storyboard panel. Tools handle this by dropping the timestamp requirement on stills while keeping the threaded conversation, so both artifact types collect feedback in one thread surface.
What is the review order for script, board, and cut?
Script approved first (cheapest to change), then boards, then animatic, then cut rounds - each stage's approval carried forward as context. Re-opening an early stage late in the edit (a board change after picture lock) is the most expensive path a project can take.