Creative ideation in the age of AI: How filmmaker Shona Dutta-Charlton turns constraints into creative breakthroughs
In this series, we’re exploring how artists across industries are using Firefly Boards to enhance their creative workflows right at the very start of a project. Each article will put the spotlight on a different discipline — from industrial design to 3D and brand design.
In filmmaking, every minute saved in pre-production translates to more time on set — and more efficient use of limited budgets. For award-winning filmmaker and director Shona Dutta-Charlton, overcoming these challenges meant embracing innovative technology.
Dutta-Charlton has adopted Firefly Boards, with its AI-powered capabilities that introduce a new approach to develop and visualize early concepts, as an essential tool in her pre-production process. It allows her to quickly visualize ideas, streamline planning, and craft compelling visual narratives even when resources and deadlines are tight.
Dutta-Charlton used Firefly Boards to storyboard this short film, which explores the pressure on the UK’s crisis services and shows a day in the life of a crisis counsellor.
From concept to reality: Visualizing a powerful story
Harmless (the UK’s leading suicide and self-harm prevention charity) asked Dutta-Charlton to craft a short film that could be screened at a fundraiser, but her team only received the brief two weeks before the event. This meant she had to quickly transform a script and the limits of the available shooting space into a clear and achievable vision.
“Given the very short lead time, I had to find a way to reach a consensus about the set design and overall look of the film fast,” Dutta-Charlton said. “Yet we also wanted it to be hard-hitting and visually powerful. Thanks to Firefly Boards, we could get the set built and costs estimated with quick tweaks to the brief.”
“Firefly Boards helped me rapidly visualize images for my team when we were incredibly pushed for time. In an industry where time is money and producers have way too much on their plate, it's becoming an essential planning tool.”
- Shona Dutta-Charlton
As a director, Dutta-Charlton always storyboards her scripts first, but detailed hand-drawn storyboards take time, and Dutta-Charlton also had a demanding day job in addition to this project. So she began exploring possibilities in Firefly Boards to help her develop the visual direction, quickly conceptualize the set, and communicate her ideas effectively with the rest of the team under tight time constraints.
The production needed to transform an inspiring but challenging 32,000-square-foot aircraft hangar, donated by Black Hangar Studios, into a dynamic set. However, the construction quote initially threatened to exceed the budget. Dutta-Charlton adapted and by rapidly generating multiple design variations in Firefly Boards found an inventive solution that saved time and money.
Using Firefly Boards, Dutta-Charlton quickly generated images for the film’s storyboard to develop the visual direction of the film and get sign-off for the production. Credit: Shona Dutta-Charlton.
Streamlining pre-production and refining ideas with AI
Dutta-Charlton's approach involved draping massive sheets of dark gauze and muslin from the hangar’s ceiling, creating translucent walls that conveyed both the visual and emotional tone required by the film.
“Looking at my AI-generated images, I realized that hanging fabric could be more than just a budget solution,” Dutta-Charlton said. “What was a solution born of necessity became one of our most powerful visual storytelling tools.”
With Firefly Boards, Dutta-Charlton was able to create iterations of her initial image that helped her team come up with an achievable — and highly original — set design. She also used Firefly Boards to extract influences and styles that captured the feeling she was after, without using anything from the original moodboard image itself.
“Firefly Boards is great for quickly generating variations on an idea. In the future, I’m planning to also use it to speed up pre-production and setup for the films we are producing.”
- Shona Dutta-Charlton
“If you select a Rembrandt painting, for example,” Dutta-Charlton explained, “the AI will highlight one aspect of the image like ‘chiaroscuro effect’ or ‘impasto-like texture.’ Often, it’s just one tiny detail that captures my attention rather than the whole image, and it’s in letting me pick out these details that makes Firefly Boards such a great tool.”
The resulting storyboard not only clarified the creative vision for the film but also attracted a wealth of talented collaborators to the project.
Set designer Bartin Tan making elevation sketches from a Firefly Boards image (top), and Shona Dutta-Charlton filming on the set of the short film for Harmless (bottom left), set that was constructed based on concept images (bottom right).
A measured approach to creative ideation driven by AI
Looking ahead, Dutta-Charlton plans to keep using Firefly Boards for previsualization of screenplay scenes and production design. The tool helps ensure that everyone on the team is on the same page, understands what needs to be built, and can collaborate more effectively, even over Zoom, she said.
For Dutta-Charlton, it was important to note that AI is simply a tool — an efficient way to explore ideas quickly, iterate on designs, and speed up the pre-production phase. It’s not a substitute for the real work that follows: building sets, lighting, directing, and ultimately shooting a film.
“AI should not be generating your final image or video,” she said, “but merely be one step of many in the road to your creation. Almost nothing from those initial generations remains in our final version. The film is an entirely new beast.”
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