The Timetable – 60 Episodes – Bible + Storyboard

On a rail line where a printed timetable is the only surviving law, the newest conductor discovers that keeping the train on time holds the settlements together – and that the schedule is quietly counting down to a stop no one has ever heard of.

Meri Vane, twenty-three, has been a conductor’s apprentice for four years and has never once been given the run alone. The line’s last senior conductor disappeared on the stretch between the Sink and Terminus Nine, and the Dispatcher – a voice on a hand-cranked radio who prints the timetable every season – promotes her into the seat because there is nobody else. She is handed the printed hour the way a priest is handed a book: sixty stops, sixty arrival minutes, no alteration permitted under any circumstance. The settlements along the line depend on the train, and the train depends on being exactly on time, because the arrival minute is the only law they still share. On her first night north she finds a second schedule glued face down beneath the first, dated tomorrow. By the third stop the whole line is four minutes out of true, and she is the only person who thinks that is a problem.

Part A – the script bible

• Logline, premise, setting and the story engine that generates episodes
• World rules written as hard story constraints
• Character bible – 5 roles, each with a stated voice and a stated arc
• Relationship map
• Three-act structure with act-by-act episode ranges
• Turning points mapped to episode numbers
• Episode hook map for episodes 1-10: the closing beat of each episode
• Three written scene samples
• Marketing copy you may reuse on your own platforms

Part B – the storyboard

• Episodes 1-5 broken down panel by panel
• Every panel gives shot size, camera move, panel duration, the drawn action, the dialogue, the sound cue and the transition out
• Panel budget for episodes 1-20 with effect and motion counts
• Full art asset list: character sheets, background plates, props and effect overlays, with reuse notes

Series facts

• 60 episodes at 60-90 seconds per episode
• Genre: Apocalypse & Survival
• Vertical 9:16, motion-comic panel animation
• Production tier: Low
• Board 4 episodes per week with 2 boarders; line art 4 days per episode, colour 2, composite 1. 60 episodes in 12 weeks with a 5-person team

Production notes

• Cast: 9 speaking roles, 5 principal (3 male, 2 female), 4 supporting
• Backgrounds: 5 standing backgrounds: cab interior, ash plain, Cold Harbor platform, Kiln Bridge station, gorge rail end; 4 swing backgrounds
• Key props: Printed timetable on a leather strap, sixty brass stop weights, the console clock, Dole’s fire shovel, Petra’s arrival document
• Cost tier: Low – one interior, one exterior, and a train that never actually moves on screen
• Art assets: 22 character sheets (5 principal x 4 expressions x 1 pose, plus 8 supporting), 9 background plates with 3 parallax layers each, 12 prop cutouts, 8 effect overlays (ash drift, steam, ink-fade on the timetable, brake glow)
• Panel load: 852 panels across 60 episodes at 13-17 panels per episode; the cab interior carries 41 of the 60 episodes with no redraw

Format note: this is a complete development package for a vertical motion-comic series, not a finished shooting script. Episodes 1-5 carry full panel dialogue; from episode 6 the budget and hook map carry the beats and you write in your own register.

Delivery and licence

• Instant download. One plain-text package file, no software required.
• Licensed for development, adaptation and production of the material described above.
• Adaptation, translation and sub-licensing require the extended licence supplied with the All-Access Master Library.
• Because the files are delivered immediately and cannot be returned, all sales are final once the download link has been used. See our Refund Policy.