a production unlike any other requires a new pre-production workflow, built around the unique strengths and challenges of the photographic novel.

Serial storylines, stand-alone vignettes, and one-off guest comics are all part of Night Zero's production scope. The writings are a mix of film script, stage play, and comic-book drafts, all together in a special blend that highlights the needs of the photographic novel process. A finished script is the first piece of the pre-production workflow and the basis for everything that is produced.

Depending on the author and the style of the piece, a script may read like a novella, with detailed descriptions and prose; or like a screenplay, with segmented dialogue and scene breaks; or like a rough comic book, describing the action panel-by-panel. The format of the script plays up the strengths of its narrative, but all scripts are ultimately drafted into shot cards for use in later pre-production and on-location work.

At various times in the past, Night Zero produced from storyboards, shot lists, comic pages, and straight scripts, but none of these methods were suitable for the particular challenges of photographic novel production. Developed specifically for Night Zero, the shot-card system is a unique method of pre-production design that combines storyboarding, comic design, and camera photo tests. Separate cards are drawn for each comic panel, providing a flexible method of layout out frames and sampling page setups during the storyboarding process, a flexibility which allows the design team to (literally) move frames around, trying different orientations and page layouts to find the best fit.

Each shot card represents a photo to be taken on set, matching the aspect ratio and framing that the camera is to capture (similar to a film's storyboards) but not necessarily what will be represented on the finished page (after cropping and panel layout). From these cards come the shot lists, shooting schedules, lighting setups, and draft pages, and after shooting wraps, they are tracked for reference against the rendered photos. The cards for a shoot are the master record of production completion on-set, and are used by the director, assistant director, and director of photography for their respective tasks.

Script completion to shooting can range from just a few days to more than a year, depending on the needs, scale, and purpose of each piece. Once a script is through the prelimanary phases, cast availability and location scouting begin immediately. The script is reviewed and improved over the next few weeks, parallel to costume, prop, and makeup design work. The shoot is locked down with a location and cast between 3-6 weeks out, and a crew is assembled 2-3 weeks beforehand. The longest pre-production time any shoot has had is fourteen months, the shortest pre-production time before shooting is currently five days.