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Plan an episode from a story structure before anything is written or rendered: pick a structure and a length, see how many shots each beat should have, block the episode in with held stand-in shots, drop in pictures for an animatic, and fill the shots in as you go. The editor’s other buttons are listed in EDITOR.md; the structures themselves are in STORY_STRUCTURES.md.

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The idea in one paragraph

The storyboard is a view of the script, and it edits the script directly. There’s no separate file to save or export: an unfinished storyboard is simply an unfinished script, and it stays an ordinary one you can open in the script editor. Each act is a row, each beat a bar with a target (“3 of 93 shots, about 5:15 to go”), each sequence a bar across its shots, and each shot a tile. A stand-in is a real shot on the hold model, holding a gray card until it has a picture, so a blocked episode can be rendered and watched from the first minute.

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Opening it

  • A new episode: in the New Episode Wizard, choose Block from a structure. Go through where, series, and cast and places as usual, then pick a structure and a length. If the series has no locations yet, say in a few words where the episode opens. The episode opens on the storyboard, with no shots.
  • An existing episode: open it and press Storyboard… in the Shots tab. The episode picker in the title bar switches episodes.
A script with shots and no beats is offered Lay out beats, which puts each of the structure’s beats on the shot nearest its place in the story. Only comment lines are added. A beat at one exact point of the story (a Midpoint) isn’t placed by this: it shows as an empty target to fill or remove. The title bar has the episode picker, the script, and the gear for the series settings, to add cast and places without leaving the board. What you save there is on offer as soon as the settings close.

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Structure, minutes and shot length

  • Structure is the script’s // structure: line. Changing it changes only that line: beats whose names match the new structure take its acts and targets, the others stay as the script has them, and the structure’s remaining beats appear as empty targets. A show’s own format (one with a sound.format in its series config) shows its beats with no targets, because a format has no percentages.
  • Minutes sets every beat’s target and is saved as // duration:. It only moves targets: no shot is added or removed when it changes.
  • Shot length is the typical shot, and the length of new stand-ins.
Hover over a beat’s bar to read what should happen in it. A beat in amber is too short at this length to stand on its own: merge it with one beside it, or pick a longer length or a shorter structure.

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Your own structures

Any episode’s beats can become a structure to start other episodes from: press the bookmark next to Structure. A table opens with the episode’s beats in order, each with its share of the story taken from its real shots, and the acts on the left, each running until the next one starts. The arrow beside a beat starts a new act there. Guidance is what the beat is for: it shows under the beat on the board and is a new stand-in’s action. Timeline shows the same thing with each act containing its beats, each beat as wide as its share. Drag a divider to change two beats’ shares, click one to start or end an act there, and click a beat to edit it. These are guides, and an episode can stray from them. Saved structures appear in the Structure list and in the New Episode Wizard’s Block from a structure, for every show on this machine. A script already naming one picks up its targets. The window shows the file they’re kept in, structures.json beside your settings: copy it to pass them along. A saved structure is for planning only, so a show’s sound.format goes on scoring it as before. To change one, open an episode, save it again under the same name; Delete saved forgets it.

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Blocking it in

A new stand-in joins the sequence the script is in at that point, with the cast of the shot before it, and its action is the beat’s guidance. That text is a prompt for you, so rewrite it. Click a sequence’s bar to change its place, or to set the cast on its stand-ins. A shot someone has worked on keeps its own cast.

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Right-click

  • A shot: edit it, generate it, add a stand-in after it, start a new sequence after it (from the sequence’s last shot only), or delete it. A deleted shot’s takes stay on disk.
  • A sequence’s bar: a new sequence after it, in a place you choose; generate its shots or convert its held shots.
  • A beat’s bar: rename it (or double-click its name), add a beat after it, remove it (its shots join the beat before), generate its shots, or convert its held shots.
  • An act’s row: add an act after it, generate its shots, or convert its held shots. Rename or remove the acts you added; a structure’s own acts keep their names.
Renaming a beat means the score no longer recognises it from the structure’s table, so it gets the generic treatment.

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Moving shots

Drag a tile onto another; a line on its left or right edge shows where it will land. The shot moves in the script and in the open pass’s cut, and it belongs to whichever beat and sequence it lands in. A shot moved into another sequence gets a different seed, so a new render won’t match its old takes.

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The animatic

Drop pictures on the board:
  • The middle of a tile sets that shot’s first frame, whatever its model.
  • The edge of a tile makes a new held shot there, holding the picture. One at a time.
  • A sequence’s bar or a beat fills its empty stand-ins, in filename order (frame2 before frame10). A folder works too. It tells you if there are pictures left over.
Then choose the pass you want and press Render held. It renders every held shot with no up-to-date take, on its picture or its gray card, on this machine for free. The takes land in that pass’s cut, and Play all is your animatic.

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From stand-ins to a model

Change one shot’s model in Edit Shot, or right-click a sequence, beat or act and choose Convert held shots to change all of its held shots at once. Convert replaces target: hold with the model you pick (or the series default), and nothing else. Check what you’re converting: a stand-in you haven’t rewritten still has the beat’s guidance as its action, and that’s what the model would be sent. A paid model charges for that render like any other. A gray card is never sent to a real model. A dropped picture is: FL2VA uses it as the first frame, and a reference model ignores it unless the shot asks for one.

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Generating

Right-click a shot and choose Generate to render it on its own model, in the pass that’s open. On a sequence, beat or act, Generate renders the shots there with no up-to-date take, and leaves the rest. Each is a normal render: it asks before a batch of paid ones, and says when a shot is missing what it needs.

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Undo

Every edit saves to the script at once, with the earlier version kept in the script’s history. Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Shift+Z, or the arrows in the toolbar, step through the board’s edits while the window is open. Click on the board first so it has the keyboard. Saving the script anywhere else (Edit Shot, the script editor) clears these steps, because they no longer lead back from what the script now says. Undo covers the script only: a picture you dropped stays as a take of that shot’s first frame, and a move in the cut has the timeline’s own undo.

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What it writes

Only ordinary script lines, and these comments, none of which the build reads:
// act: is written only for acts you add. A stand-in looks like this: