Writing a film in Cinema's Story: scenes, shots and dialogue

A film is written before it is rendered. That sentence is the whole design of Cinema's Story tab: the film from top to bottom, one column of blocks you can think in, where every shot block is a shot the engines will render, in the order you wrote them.

This guide walks the Story top to bottom, then shows what the engine actually receives from a shot.

The Story

Open a film at /studio/cinema and you land in the Story. It reads like a flow laid out from top to bottom:

• The Film block comes first: the title, the film's look (the Look button opens the film's settings in the side panel), the Cover button, and the film's notes.
• Then the scenes. A scene is one place at one time: its heading ("Place and time", screenplay style: INT. LIGHTHOUSE, DUSK), who is there (Add character), its own look if it changes the film's, and its notes.
• Inside each scene, its shots, numbered across the film and joined by a dotted line. Add a shot adds the same scene from another angle; the + on the line inserts a shot, a scene or a link.
• @ mentions your characters, places, objects and styles from Elements in any shot's action.

Notes sit everywhere (on the film, on a scene, on a shot) and none of them goes to an engine: production notes, references, a reminder that shot four needs a second take. A film holds up to 24 shots.

Two views: List, the column above, and Storyboard, every scene as a card to see the film at once. Both zoom.

Shots

A shot block holds everything that shot renders:

• Action: what happens. This is the text the engine renders. One subject, one motion, one camera idea; @Mina binds a cast member to her sheet. Add character and Add element put them in the shot too.
• Dialogue: the lines said in this shot, under the action (next section).
• Enhance rewrites the action as a director would, following the shot before; on an empty shot it writes one for you.
• Its camera move, its length and anything it changes of the look show as chips; click one, or select the shot, and its settings open in the side panel (camera move, length, takes per render, Override film settings).

Between two shots, the line says how the second one is made: Continue the shot (it opens on the last frame of the one before), Same scene, new angle (that frame rides as a reference), or nothing, a new shot. The continuity guide covers the links, and the takes and picks guide the rendering side.

Dialogue, inside the shot

Dialogue belongs to a shot, so it lives on the shot's block, not as a separate block you could lose track of. Add dialog adds a line:

• Speaker: one of your characters, or Someone else… for a free name ("The keeper", "Radio voice").
• Manner: how it's said: "whispering", "to herself", "not looking up". Optional.
• Line: what they say.

Enter adds the next line and hands it to the other speaker, the way an exchange goes; Backspace on an empty line removes it. A shot holds up to 30 lines.

A shot's lines ride that shot's prompt, and no other. Two things follow from a speaker being a character:

1. They join the shot's references (their sheet goes with the render so the face matches) even if you did not add them to the cast by hand.
2. With sound on, their voice goes too. On engines that accept an audio reference (Seedance 2.x, Hailuo 3), the first speaker with a voice rides as a spoken sample (the roster voice or clone assigned to the character) and the block says who: "Spoken with the picture — Mina in their own voice." Other voiced speakers, and every voice on other engines, ride as a one-line descriptor ("female voice, warm and low"). A shot linked with Continue the shot opens on the previous shot's last frame and carries no references, so its voices are descriptors only.

Once a shot is rendered, Dub the lines can re-voice them in each character's own voice under the shot in the Edit (no lip-sync).

Dialogue is also where a shot's length gets decided. A five-second clip holds one short line; a ten-second clip holds an exchange. Write the line, then set the seconds to match.

What the engine receives

This is the part worth seeing once. Take this scene and its shot:

INT. LIGHTHOUSE, DUSK
@Mina climbs the last steps of the spiral staircase, out of breath,
slow push-in as she reaches the lamp room.

  MINA (whispering)   It's still lit.

The engine reads the shot as one paragraph: INT. LIGHTHOUSE, DUSK. Mina climbs the last steps of the spiral staircase, out of breath, slow push-in as she reaches the lamp room. Mina (whispering) says: "It's still lit.": the scene's heading, the action, then each line with its speaker and manner.

When it renders, the server adds the film's look as labelled sentences after it. With a look of Film noir · 1960s · Tense · 35mm · Anamorphic · f/1.4 · Neon noir · Practicals, the engine gets, in this order: the shot paragraph above; the cast line binding Mina to reference image 1, and a line keeping her face and outfit as in it; the camera move; lens and gear; lighting; color; the look; the pacing; and a voices line telling the engine how Mina sounds. Her persona (how she thinks, how she talks in chat) never rides a video prompt.

Long shots are safe: past an engine's prompt limit the composer drops pacing, look, color and lens first, and never the action, the cast or the voices.

A writing method that renders

• One event per shot. "She climbs, reaches the lamp, sees the letter, reads it" is four shots. Engines that get four events in ten seconds compress them into none.
• Put the camera in the action or in the shot's settings, not both. "Slow push-in" in the action and Push-in as the camera move is fine; "push-in" in the action and Orbit as the move is a fight.
• Give every scene its place and time. The heading is what keeps a lighthouse a lighthouse from shot one to shot six.
• Dialogue in the lines, never in the action. The action describes the picture; the lines describe what is said. The block keeps them apart for the engine.
• Notes in the notes, not in the action. A production note in the action becomes a rendered production note.

From Video, or from a recipe

You do not have to start blank. In Video, shots chained with Extend or Lead into open in Cinema as a film, ready to cut; on the studio home, Clap plans a short film with you and opens it in Cinema. Ask Clap for one of the six recipes by name (Perfume ad, Music video opener, Horror teaser, Streetwear drop, Romance short, Travel diary) and it opens as a whole film: notes, scenes with their shots and dialogue, and a look. The clip-to-Cinema guide has them.

FAQ

Can I write the whole film before rendering anything?

Yes, and you should. Nothing in the Story costs credits until you render; a film with 24 shots written and none rendered is a free draft. Render shots then asks which to render (missing, changed or all), with the price and the time.

Do the notes go to the engine?

No. Only a shot's action and lines, its scene's heading and cast, and the look are composed into that shot's prompt. Notes on the film, a scene or a shot are for you.

What happens to dialogue on an engine without sound?

The line still rides the prompt as direction (a character mouthing a line, a manner), but no audio is rendered. Engines with a soundtrack, and the Sound switch in the film's settings, decide whether you hear it.

Can a speaker be someone who is not a character?

Yes. Pick Someone else… and type a name. They get no sheet and no voice sample; the engine invents them from the scene.

Open Cinema and write scene one: the render can wait.