> ## 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 storyboard

> Tutorial 15: an episode blocked in from a story structure, an animatic from dropped pictures, and stand-ins turned into real shots.

From a blank episode to a watchable animatic, without writing a full script first. You'll pick a
story structure and a length, block the episode in with held shots, drop in pictures, and
render them for free on your own machine. Every field is covered in the
[storyboard guide](https://docs.seriesmith.com/storyboard.md).

## 1. Start the episode from a structure

**1. Open the New Episode Wizard**

Choose **New episode**, then under **Start from** press **Block from a structure**.

**2. Fill in the first steps**

Name the episode and add its cast and places, as for any new episode.

**3. Pick a structure and a length**

On the **Structure** step choose **The Change Arc (Three-Act Structure)** and enter **7** minutes.
If the series has no locations yet, say where it opens, in a few words.

**4. Create it**

Press **Create**. The episode opens on the storyboard: three act rows, each beat a bar with
a target such as *0 of 24 shots*, and no shots yet.

> [!TIP]
>
> Already have an episode? Open it and press **Storyboard…** in the Shots tab. If its script has
> no beats, **Lay out beats** places the structure over the shots you have.

## 2. Block it in

**1. Read the beats**

The line under each bar says what should happen there. Hover over the bar for its place in
the story.

**2. Put one shot on every beat**

Press **One per beat** in the toolbar. Each beat now has a held stand-in, and the whole
story exists from start to end.

**3. Add what you need**

Press **+** at the end of a beat to add a shot, or **Fill** to bring it up to its target.
**Fill act** and **Fill all** do the same for more at once.

**4. Set the places**

Click a sequence's green bar to choose its place and cast. To change location partway through
a beat, right-click a sequence's bar and choose **New sequence after…**.

**5. Make it yours**

Double-click a beat's name to rename it. Right-click a beat or act to add your own.
Drag a tile to reorder it.

## 3. Make the animatic

**1. Drop your pictures**

Select your sketches or stills in a file window and drop them on a beat's bar. They fill its
empty stand-ins in filename order.

**2. Place single pictures**

Drop one on the **middle** of a tile to replace that shot's frame, or on a tile's **edge** to
make a new shot there.

**3. Render held**

Choose **proxy** in the editor and press **Render held** in the storyboard's toolbar. It runs on
this machine and costs nothing. Shots still on the gray card render too.

**4. Watch it**

Press **Play all** on the timeline. The animatic plays with every shot at its planned length.

> [!TIP]
>
> With beats in the script, the spotting sheet's **Draft…** can score the blocked episode, so you
> can judge the shape of the music before anything is written.

## 4. Turn stand-ins into real shots

**1. Write the shot**

Double-click a tile to open Edit Shot and replace the beat's guidance with what happens in the shot.

**2. Choose its model**

Pick the model for one shot in Edit Shot, or right-click a sequence, beat or act and choose
**Convert held shots**.

**3. Render**

Render as usual. A dropped picture becomes the first frame on a model that reads one, such
as FL2VA.

> [!WARNING]
>
> Read your shots before you convert them. A stand-in you haven't rewritten still has the beat's
> guidance as its action, and a paid model charges for that render like any other.

> [!TIP]
>
> Changed your mind? Click on the board and press **Ctrl+Z**. Every edit saves to the script at
> once, and undo steps back through them while the window is open.


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