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Watch tutorial 3 on YouTube

Screenplay to episode: two ways to a series, then the whole episode rendered.
A series is two files: the series config (series.json: the cast, the places, the voices, the look) and a script per episode (ep01.md: every shot in a few lines). There are two ways to get them without writing them yourself:
  • You have a screenplay: Claude, with seriesmith’s script-writing skill, turns it into the two files, and Import series brings them into the editor (parts 1 to 3).
  • You’re starting from nothing: the series wizard asks for the cast, the places and a first shot, and writes the files for you (part 4).
Either way, you then make the pictures and render the episode (parts 5 and 6). To write the script by hand instead, see The script in 90 seconds.

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1. Get the script-writing skill

The skill is the whole script format, and a check, packaged for Claude. It comes with seriesmith: prompts\seriesmith-episode-script.zip in a clone, or in custom_nodes\seriesmith\prompts\ for a Manager install.
Open Settings → Skills, choose Upload a skill, and pick seriesmith-episode-script.zip. It’s then listed with your other skills and used whenever you ask for seriesmith scripts.
The skill carries seriesmith’s build, so Claude can check a script it writes with nothing else installed.

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2. A screenplay, with Claude

1

Settle the series first (if it's a new show)

A page of screenplay doesn’t say how the show is delivered. Decide, or tell Claude: the look (live action, 3D animated, 2D cartoon…), the size you deliver at (1080p, 1440p, 4K), how voices are made (generated from a description, cloned, or your own recording), and the video model. The authoring guide’s Starting a series lists each choice.
2

Hand Claude the screenplay

Attach or paste the pages and ask for it plainly: make this a seriesmith series. Add what you settled above.
3

Let it work

It breaks each scene into shots (where the cuts land and why), writes the series config and the script, and checks the script with the build. A few pages take a few minutes.
4

Read its summary

It says what it made: who is in the cast, where the scenes are, and the defaults it picked. Ask for changes now, while it’s cheap.
5

Save the two files

series.json and ep01.md, in one folder (for example beside the screenplay). That folder is what you import.

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3. Import series

1

Open Project folders

In Advanced mode, open the episode dropdown at the top of the Shots tab → Browse and add new…. This is Project folders. If the folder you keep shows in isn’t listed as a root yet, add it.
2

Import series…

Press Import series…, then Folder… and choose the folder Claude wrote (or Files… for the scripts themselves). Use one series config for every script, or one per episode (a series.json beside a script, or named after it). Choose the show folder it goes into.
3

The episode opens

Each script becomes an episode folder, named from its header. The import says which went in, and why any didn’t (a script with no header, a config that doesn’t build it). The episode opens with every shot listed, and every person and place in Refs.

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4. Or start from nothing: the series wizard

The example is a four-shot bedtime story, Dean and the Little Lost Owl, in a 3D-animated look.
1

Open the wizard

In Simple mode choose A series…, or in Advanced: Project folders → browse to the folder you keep shows in → New series/project….
2

1. Where

The series’ title, Dean’s Bedtime Stories (its show folder is made from the title), and the first episode: ep01, titled The Little Lost Owl.
3

2. Series

Video model FastH3 Omni; the sizes as they come (864×480 for proxies). Under Look, click the 3D animated feature picture: it fills the look line, which stays yours to edit (more in The look builder). Leave the dialogue and pace as they are.
4

3. Cast and places

Add each one, pasting its words on one line.Character Dean, design:
voice: a bright, gentle little boy's voiceCharacter Pip, design:
voice: a small, squeaky, sleepy voiceLocation window_seat, description:
Location bed, description:
The two places share the window, the oak and the nightlight, so a cut from one to the other reads as the same room.
5

4. First shot

Where window_seat; who Dean and Pip; size wide; length 4. What happens:
Dialogue: Dean, Are you lost, little owl?
6

Create

Press Create. The series config and ep01.md are written, the episode opens in Advanced and builds, and the pictures it needs are listed as missing.
7

Add the other shots

Either press + Shot in the Shots toolbar for each (a form, with what the model will be told beside it), or open the Script window (the file-edit icon) and paste them after sh010, then Save:
plate: bed puts sh040 in front of the bed instead of the window seat.

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5. Make the pictures

Renders wait for the pictures a shot needs, so make them first.
1

Open Refs

The Refs tab lists every picture the episode calls for: each character’s four views, each place’s plate.
2

Generate missing

Press Generate missing. Each character gets four views (three-quarter, side, back and face), stitched into the one sheet that goes in with every shot they’re in, so they look the same throughout. Each place gets its plate.
3

Check them

Click a ref to open it. Anything off is fixed one view at a time (References shows how); you don’t have to redo all four.

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6. Render the whole episode

1

Generate missing, on the Shots tab

Back on Shots, press Generate missing: every shot with no take is queued. A batch of more than 8 renders, or any batch on a paid backend, asks first.
2

Watch the queue

Jobs shows each job: the pictures first, the takes queued behind them. You can close the page; the queue keeps running in the server.
3

Play it

The timeline fills as the takes come in. Play all (the play button in the Shots toolbar) plays the cut straight from the takes, nothing exported.

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Next

4 · The script in 90 seconds

Every shot is a few lines of a script: how to write them.

A screenplay scene, worked through

Where the cuts land in a real scene, and why.