Quentin Tarantino explained that he prepared Reservoir Dogs using written shot lists. In his account of working with Andrzej Sekula, he noted that he did not use drawn storyboards and that he described the framings and camera movements he wanted to use. That testimony makes it possible to be precise about which planning materials can be attributed to the film.
A storyboard organizes a sequence through panels; a shot list can handle part of that preparation in words. The director used writing to anticipate what the camera should do and then discussed the solutions with the cinematographer. The result also depended on what the actors did within the space and the time available to film it.
The concentration of conversations in the warehouse makes that preparation especially important. Listening to someone can mean looking at the person speaking, observing a reaction, or keeping several people within the same frame. Planning the scene requires deciding which relationship matters most at each moment. The interviews and script directions offer examples of that work without needing to assume a collection of original sketches.
The answer about the storyboards is found in Tarantino's own testimony. In an interview conducted at Cannes and published by Positif in September 1992, reprinted in the December 2022 Blu-ray Downlow review of Reservoir Dogs , he explained that he did not draw them: he prepared detailed shot lists and compared his ideas with Sekula. He described the camera's position and movement in text.
Written planning before shooting
A shot list makes it possible to organize the images needed to cover a scene. It can indicate who appears, from where they are seen, and when the framing changes. The description focuses on a shooting task; the storyboard adds a graphic representation. They are different documents, although both can help think through the relationship between an action and the camera.
Tarantino explained another side of that preparation to Paul Zimmerman in his 1992 interview for Orbit , preserved by the Quentin Tarantino Fan Club. He said he had written the chase shot by shot. The example shows that some visual decisions could already be built into the script, before being separated out into a specific filmmaking tool.
The version dated October 22, 1990, reproduced at IMSDb, contains point-of-view and movement notes. In the stretch of Pink's escape, for example, it suggests following the run with the camera. That direction describes a written intention. To determine what remains in the released film, one has to look at the edit, because a draft screenplay can also contain actions or solutions that are changed later.
The pages and the interviews therefore provide evidence of visual preparation. By themselves, they do not identify a sheet that later circulated as original material. A drawing based on a frame can reconstruct a shot accurately and still be a later interpretation. Its date and origin are necessary to know what relationship it has to the production work.
Deciding what to watch during a conversation
Planning becomes especially challenging in the warehouse in Reservoir Dogs : much of the action consists of talking and listening. The camera can keep two men in the frame so that an accusation and its reply share the same space. It can also move closer to one and leave the other voice offscreen. Those choices change where the viewer looks for information.
One line of dialogue does not force an immediate cut. Sometimes the listener's reaction explains the situation better than the speaker's face. Keeping Orange stretched out within the composition also reminds us of an urgency the others may be putting off. The image still carries information even when the dialogue is concerned with something else.
The written lists could anticipate that distribution of attention, but working with Sekula made it possible to discuss other solutions. The collaboration Tarantino described leaves room between the initial idea and the finished image: a proposal can be revised because another position or movement makes the relationship between the actors clearer. Knowledge of the location and the performance adds conditions that planning must turn into practical decisions.
The film lets us study the result of those decisions; the testimony explains part of the process. The difference matters when looking for its storyboards: the material documented by the director is a plan made with words, developed in dialogue with the crew. The precision of the final framing does not require every image to have existed first as a drawn panel.
A dialogue scene makes the preparation visible even when the camera stays still. What matters is who enters the frame, how far they stay from another character, and what happens while they listen. Stillness can preserve a power relationship that a cut would separate. Observing that arrangement helps explain what kind of decisions the shot list had to resolve.
It is also useful to distinguish the narrative sequence from the order of work. A list can organize what needs to be filmed without yet expressing the final duration of each image. Editing uses the material gathered to decide when a reaction lingers and when new information arrives. That is why describing a frame is not enough to reconstruct its full function.
The case of Reservoir Dogs is useful for studying that continuity between writing, shooting, and editing. Words anticipate an image, the actors occupy the space, and the film determines how long we see it. Each phase adds concrete conditions to preparation that the director had begun in writing.