From a Video clip to a film — Extend, prompt handoffs and the six recipes

A blank film is the hardest one to start. So Cinema has three doors that are not blank: a Video clip you already like, a prompt you already wrote, and six recipes with a whole script and a look already written. This guide is the three doors, and what each one carries across.

Door one: Extend, then edit the sequence

Render a clip in the Video tool: Create, one prompt, one take. If it is the opening shot of something, the result has a button: Extend. Your next render then opens on that clip's last frame (Lead into does the reverse: a new shot that ends on its first frame).

Each shot you chain this way lines up in a Sequence strip, ready to play in order. Edit the sequence opens the shots in Cinema as a new film, on its Edit tab, one shot per clip, already rendered: the prompt becomes the shot's action, the length and the cast come along. Nothing is re-rendered and nothing is charged.

The useful part is that the joins are already made; link the next shot with Continue the shot and it opens on the last shot's final frame the moment you render it, so the film is continuous from the first clip you liked. The engine of the latest shot becomes the film's engine; write the next shot in the Story, set the look, render.

This is the fastest way to a film that starts well: render takes until one is right, then extend. Video takes are cheap to iterate (75 credits for five seconds on Seedance 2.0 Mini), and only the one you keep becomes the spine.

Door two: a prompt

Ask, on the studio home, hands your text to a new film: say "set it up in Cinema" and its Open Cinema → button opens a film whose shot one is your description, unrendered. The engine you named becomes the film's engine; a duration, a camera move and a cast come along when you gave them.

Use this when you have the idea written and want to write the rest before rendering anything. The film opens on the Story tab with one shot; add the others, set the look, then render each shot where you wrote it.

An old /studio/video?mode=film link does the same: it lands in Cinema with the draft as shot one.

Door three: the recipes

Name one of the six to Ask ("set up the Perfume ad recipe in Cinema") and its Open Cinema → button opens it in Cinema as a whole film, written the way Cinema is meant to be used: a brief or a logline and notes for the edit, three shots with their sluglines, actions and lines of dialogue, plus a complete look. The film takes the story's name:

• Perfume ad → Amber. Commercial, dreamy, 35mm film, f/1.4, soft cross light, warm film. A macro of the bottle on black marble (push-in), a woman at a vanity mirror (close-up), the bottle among silk ribbons with room for the logo (orbit) — and a narrator's voice-over line in each scene.
• Music video opener → Neon Run. Music video, 1980s, dynamic, vintage anamorphic, neon glow, neon noir. A singer through a neon alley (tracking), at a chrome microphone (close-up), on a rooftop as the camera cranes up — with a look book list, a line from the treatment and a spoken intro.
• Horror teaser → The Visitor. Horror, tense, VHS camcorder, practicals, bleach bypass — and the one recipe shot as a single unbroken take: shots two and three are linked with Continue the shot, so each one opens where the last one stopped. A hallway, a living room lit by static, a shape at the window (dolly zoom), and three voices in the dark.
• Streetwear drop → Drop 07. Vertical 9:16 for Reels, TikTok and Shorts; commercial, dynamic, clean sharp lens, contre-jour, candy pop. A beat sheet as a numbered list, then the sneaker (orbit), the walk (tracking) and the splash (close-up), with an announcer's hook line.
• Romance short → Same Book. Romance, calm, soft portrait lens, f/1.4, window light, warm film. A bookshop meet-cute and a café conversation — two-line exchanges in eight-second scenes — then a walk under one umbrella.
• Travel diary → Postcards. Documentary, calm, drone, f/11 deep focus, contre-jour, pastel dawn. A coastline, a night market and a cliff at sunset, stitched together by a narrator.

The speakers are free names — Narrator, Nora, Theo. Turn one into a character and @mention them, and they keep their face from scene to scene; give that character a voice, from the library or imported from your own recording, and they say their lines in it. Replace the product with yours, pick the engine, render.

Recipes are a starting shape, not a template you must keep: rewrite a scene, delete one, add a fourth, change the look. They exist so the first render of a perfume ad looks like a perfume ad.

What comes through each door

	Edit the sequence	Prompt handoff	Recipe
Scene one	Rendered shots + prompts	Prompt, unrendered	Written, unrendered
Engine	The latest shot's	The one you named, or the default	The default engine
Look	Blank — set it	Blank — set it	The whole rack, the format, the links between shots
Cast / shot / seconds	Carried over	Carried over when set	Shots, seconds and dialogue written
Continues from the last shot	When you link the next shot	When you link shot two, after shot one renders	Horror teaser only: the others are separate places
Cost to open	0	0	0

A worked session

You want a fifteen-second product film for a launch.

1. Video tool, Create. "A matte black sneaker on wet concrete at night, neon reflections, slow orbit." Three takes on Kling 3.0, 5 seconds — 810 credits. The second one is right.
2. Extend that take: "The sneaker steps off a subway train onto the platform, low angle tracking the foot, sparks of neon on the laces." One take, 270 credits. It opens on the orbit's last frame.
3. Edit the sequence. Cinema opens; shot one is the orbit, shot two the platform, and Kling 3.0 is the engine.
4. Look. In the Film tab, set the rack: Commercial, Dynamic, 35mm film, Clean sharp, f/1.4 wide open, Practicals, Neon noir.
5. Story. Shot three: "Wide, the wearer walks toward camera, static shot, the platform emptying behind them." Link it with Continue the shot and render it, one take, 270 credits. It opens on shot two's last frame. Add a title block later in the edit.
6. Edit. A crossfade between two and three, a lower-third title with the drop date, music from the bin, a one-second fade out. Export at 1080p, save, publish.

Total renders: 1,350 credits, of which 540 were Video takes you did not keep. The film was continuous from the first frame because it started from a take, not a prompt.

FAQ

Does opening a sequence in Cinema cost anything?

No. The shots already exist in your library; the film points at them. You pay for the next scenes when you render them.

Can I continue from a take rendered on another engine than the film's?

Yes — the take is footage. The film's engine (from the look) renders the scenes after it. For the best joins, keep the same engine; for a hard cut, any engine.

Can I turn a recipe into my own?

There is no user-recipe feature yet. Open the recipe, rewrite its scenes and look, and the project on the shelf is yours to keep as a draft — a draft costs nothing.

Where did Film mode's drafts go?

They are on the Cinema shelf as projects, with their scenes and takes intact.

Render a take in the Video tool and look for Extend on the result.