> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.seriesmith.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # The opening and the closing > The show's opening and closing: the intro and outro around every master, the episode's title written on, a montage intro made as its own episode, and a theme song before there's picture. A show opens and closes the same way every week: the theme, the series title, the episode's name. seriesmith doesn't render those inside each episode. They are two clips made once, the **intro** and the **outro**, and every master is wrapped in them, with the episode's title written on by seriesmith. This guide covers how that works, where the clips go, and how to make them: a montage of the season's best shots under the show's theme song. ## What a master does with them A master (the editor's **Export ▾ › Master…**, or `seriesmith master`) is the intro, then the episode, then the outro, as one file; with a [cold open](#a-cold-open), the cold open comes first and the intro after it. **Export ▾ › Titles** does the same with the review cut, into `\publish\`. Export and Play all never add the titles. * **The intro and outro play as they are**, picture and sound. The theme song is the intro's own soundtrack, so put it in the clip. * **The series title is in the clips.** seriesmith doesn't draw it: put it in the picture when you make the intro (a title card, or lettering added in your editor). * **The episode's title is drawn on by seriesmith**, from the script's `= ep05 Title` line, under the series title: it fades in on the intro and fades in and out on the outro. Every episode gets the same font, size, colour and place, so the titles match from week to week. * **The intro and outro are brought to the episode's loudness** (below). * The cut's picture is copied, not re-encoded; only the two clips are encoded to match it. ## Where the clips go By default, seriesmith looks for `_titles\INTRO.mp4` and `_titles\OUTRO.mp4` in the episode folder, then in the show folder above it: ``` Porchlights\ _titles\INTRO.mp4 _titles\OUTRO.mp4 ep01\ ep02\ ``` With no clips, a master is made without titles. To use other clips, name them in the series config's `publish` block, relative to the episode folder: ```json theme={null} "publish": { "intro": "../_titles/INTRO.mp4", "outro": "../_titles/OUTRO.mp4" } ``` **Every episode has its own series config**, so the intro can change wherever you like: * **One for the whole show**: the `_titles` files, and nothing in `publish`. * **One per season**: `../_titles/S2_INTRO.mp4` in the series config of each season-two episode. * **One for a single episode**: a clip in that episode's folder (`"intro": "intro.mp4"`), or `_titles\INTRO.mp4` inside the episode folder, which is found before the show's. ## The episode's title: where and how it's drawn Series settings' **Intro and outro** section sets the episode title's font, size and position, and when it appears on the intro (**Episode title font**, **Episode title size**, **Episode title position**, **Episode title appears**); the rest is in the series config's `publish` block, as `subtitle` (the form keeps what it doesn't show). Every key is optional; these are the defaults: ```json theme={null} "publish": { "subtitle": { "font": "segoescb.ttf", "size": 0.058, "y": 0.56, "color": "#F4E6D0", "glow": "#FFB45A@0.8", "glow_size": 0.008, "intro_in": [-4.0, -3.0], "outro_in": [0.0, 1.0], "outro_out": [4.5, 5.5] } } ``` * **`size` and `y`** are fractions of the frame's height: the text's height, and where its top sits, measured down from the top of the picture (0.56 is just below the middle). The title is always centred across. Line `y` up with the space the series title leaves. Series settings shows both as percentages (5.8 and 56). * **`intro_in`** is when the title starts to fade in and when it's fully on. It stays on until the episode starts. Negative times count back from the intro's end: the default, `[-4, -3]`, starts the fade 4 seconds before the end, so the title comes in at the same moment before the episode whatever the intro's length. A montage intro of 40 seconds plays without it until its last 4. Series settings' **Episode title appears (seconds before the intro ends)** sets it (4 is the default; the fade is a second long). Times of 0 or more count from the intro's start instead (`[4, 5]`: 4 seconds in): use those to time it to the music, the moment the series title lands or a beat after. * **`outro_in` and `outro_out`** are its fade in and fade out on the outro. * **`font`** is a font file, given one of three ways: * **its file name**, `georgia.ttf` (or just `georgia`, any case): found in the font folders of the machine that masters (Windows' own and your user's, macOS' and Linux's). Series settings lists the ones there as you type and says which file it found, or that there's none. * **a path relative to the show folder** (the one holding `series.json`), `fonts/Title.otf`: a copy kept with the show, so every machine that masters it has it. The surest choice. * **a full path**, `C:/Windows/Fonts/segoescb.ttf`. Without one, the default is Windows' Segoe Script; on a machine without it, the master uses the first of Georgia, Arial, Helvetica or DejaVu it finds and says so. A font the series config names that isn't there stops the master, saying so. * **The text** is the episode's title, from the script's `=` line: change it there. ## A cold open A cold open is a scene before the titles: the episode starts, and the intro comes in after it. Mark it in the script, under the sequence's `#` line (or on single shots): ``` # sq01 diner_night cold_open: true ``` A master plays those shots, then the intro, then the rest of the episode. On the timeline, each cold-open clip carries a **Cold open** band, and the last has an **▸ Opening** marker where the intro will go. **Watch it in Play all:** its **Titles** button plays the intro where a master puts it (after the cold open, else before the first shot) and the outro after the last shot, the episode's title drawn on them where and when the master draws it. The cut waits while one plays, so the timeline and the mix keep their times; **Skip** on the clip, or play, moves on. It's a preview: the title is in a stand-in font (the master's is a file on the machine that renders), and the clips play at their own level (a master brings them to the episode's). * **Set it from the timeline.** Right-click the clip the cold open should end on: **In the cut › Cold open ends here**. Every shot from the cut's first up to that one is marked in the script (a sequence's `#` line when all its shots are in it, else each shot's own line), and every other mark comes out. The old script is kept in the episode's `_history\` folder. **No cold open** takes them all out. * **It follows the cut.** The cold open is the cut's first shots, one after another. When you move a clip so a marked shot plays after one that isn't, its band turns red, the timeline shows a red **Cold open** badge (hover it for which shots), and a master refuses until you fix it: **Cold open ends here** on the right clip rewrites the marks to the cut as it is, taking them off every shot and sequence after it. * **The intro goes in on a cut.** A dissolve from the cold open's last shot into the next is refused; take it out there. * **Music across the break** is cut there, as the picture is. The timeline shows an **across the opening** badge when a music item of the mix crosses it, and the master's log says which. End the cold open's music on its last shot (a button on the cut is the classic way into the titles); the first-pass score keeps its cues off the break. * **The break is read from the file being titled.** Every cut assemble writes (an export, a master) has its shot list beside it (`_shots.txt`), and the intro goes in where that list says the cold open's last shot ends, so a take a frame or two shorter than its record doesn't move it. Change the cold open after exporting, and export (or master) again. ## The intro's and outro's loudness Every episode's mix is brought to one loudness (the series config's `sound.loudness`: -16 LUFS and a -1 dBTP ceiling unless you set it, FINISHING.md "The export's loudness"). When a master puts the intro and outro on, each is measured the same way and moved by one gain to that loudness, its peaks held under the same ceiling. A clip made outside seriesmith, at whatever level it came, lands where the episode is. Nothing is compressed and nothing is changed bar by bar: it's one gain, as the mix's. A theme at the same loudness as dialogue can feel louder, being music all the way through. To tuck it under, set how many LU under the episode it sits: ```json theme={null} "publish": { "loudness": { "under_lu": 1.5 } } ``` `"match": false` leaves the clips as they came. The master's log says what it did (`intro sound: -21.3 LUFS, +5.3 dB to -16`). ## Making the intro: a montage as its own episode An intro is easiest made as **an episode of its own** in the show (for example `intro` or `s2intro`): a short cut you can score, preview, change and export like any other, without touching the real episodes. Make a new one per season, or for any episode that needs its own. 1. **Make the episode.** **New episode…** in the show, with a short script: one sequence and a shot per moment of the montage. A shot's `dur:` is how long it holds; the action says what it is ("Dale on the porch at dusk"). 2. **Fill the shots with takes you already have.** Every take is a video file in its episode's `renders` folder (`ep01\renders\sh040\sh040_t03.mp4`). Drag one onto a clip on the timeline and it becomes that shot's take. Drop one **between** two clips and the shot form opens there with its length filled in: write the action and **Save**. Nothing renders, so it costs nothing. Trim each clip on the timeline to the moment you want. 3. **Add the series title as a held picture.** Drop a title card (a png) between two clips: it becomes a shot on the **Hold** model, held still for as long as you drag it. A video model can't spell the show's name reliably, so the title is best as a picture you made. 4. **Silence the clips' own sound.** The takes keep their dialogue and effects. In the sound lanes under the timeline (**Sound**), mute the Dialogue track (**M**), so only the music plays. 5. **Score it.** **+ Cue** in the Refs tab's Music section, over the whole cut, as a **song** with the theme's lyrics, or as a score cue for an instrumental opening. Render its takes and pick one ([SCORING.md](https://docs.seriesmith.com/scoring.md)). ACE-Step and MiniMax Music fit their length to the cue. YuE2 writes a whole song, often two or three minutes, so it runs past the cue's end. The cue window shows the whole take, with the part past the out point hatched. Only the cut's length is heard. 6. **Export it.** **Export ▾ › Export** (or **Export 2x** for the upscales) writes the montage as one mp4 with its mix. Copy it to `_titles\INTRO.mp4`, or point the series config's `intro` at it. Use **Export**, not **Master** or **Titles**, for the intro episode: those wrap a cut in the show's intro and outro, so the intro would come out wrapped in the old one. The outro is made the same way: a few shots under the theme's ending, with room left for the episode's title to fade in and out. ## The song first, the picture after: a held picture A montage is often cut to the music rather than the other way round. To get the song before there's a cut: 1. **Make a scratch episode with a single shot on the Hold model** (`target: hold`), any picture, its `dur:` as long as the song should be (`dur: 60`). It renders in a moment, on this machine, so the episode has a cut of that length. 2. **Make a cue over it**, as a song, render takes and pick one. The cue window gives you the whole song, with its tempo, sections and lyrics. 3. **Lay the song under the real montage.** Each take is a wav in the scratch episode's `sound\\` folder. Import it onto the intro episode's Music lane and cut the shots to it. This works for any music you want before there's picture, not only a theme. You can also make the song in ComfyUI directly, with the same models, and import the file the same way. ## Changing it later * **A new intro for a new season**: a new intro episode, a new file, and its path in that season's episodes' series configs. Masters made after the change use it. * **A custom intro for one episode**: that episode's series config, or a `_titles` folder in its own folder. * **Re-master to apply a change.** A master already made keeps the clips it was made with. This documentation is built and hosted on [Mintlify](https://mintlify.com), a developer documentation platform.