Shots and takes · Manual · storyboard.show

Scenes: a setup, framed once

Before any shot is designed, the scenes are set up. A scene is one continuous moment in one place — where you are, what time it is, how it's lit, who's there and where they stand. Two shots in the same place at different times of day are two scenes. Your Notebook already lists them, with their setup.

Press the + on the Scenes row and name the scene — your notebook's scenes are there as one-tap names, and a name that matches one lets Nila fill the setup from it. Then walk the scene: environment, cast, staging, props, blocking, camera, lighting, time of day — and the master frame, the still every shot in that scene starts from. When the frame is set, Nila asks: add another scene, or start the shoot?

The Scenes row on the trail: one frame tile per finished scene showing its master frame, name and shot count, then a dashed + Add scene tile. — The Scenes row, after Casting call, Location scout and Prop shop. A finished scene collapses to its master frame; the + after it adds the next one.

A scene tile's right-click menu: Expand scene, Edit scene, Add a variant, Add scene. — Right-click a scene tile: expand it to lay its setup chips out ahead of the frame, edit the scene, add a variant, or add another scene.

An expanded scene on the Scenes row: the scene's name chip and its setup chips — location, cast, props, blocking, camera, lighting, time, frame — laid out left to right, ending in the frame tile. — An expanded scene reads the way it was made: the setup chips first, then the frame they produced. Right-click any chip to edit just that step.

A shot is three cards

For each shot on the shotline, Nila asks three things, and a finished shot's row is those three chips: the scene, the motion, the take. After two or three shots it's muscle memory.

Scene — which scene the shot is in (the Notebook's pick is preselected) and which of its frames it starts from. Same frame is the default and free.
Motion — what happens and how the camera moves, on one card: the beats, the camera lane, the cut. Nila drafts it from your notebook; you edit chips.
Take — the video is rendered from the frame you chose, following the motion. Roll again for options.

The Motion card

The Motion card is a small timeline over the take's runtime, with two lanes. Nila fills it from the Notebook — the shot's beats, its scene's camera note, the transition — and you adjust chips rather than rewrite paragraphs. Hover the finished motion chip on the shot row to read the beats and camera moves back.

Top to bottom: the start frame and its reframe options, the Action lane, the Camera lane, the cut and the motion lock.

Action lane — tap the rail to add a beat: who (a cast member, a prop, or the scene), does what (walks to, turns to, looks at, picks up, puts down, sits, stands, reacts, enters, exits, or your own words), to what, and an optional note. Each beat shows as that subject's avatar on the rail; drag to retime. Up to six per shot.
Camera lane — moves as bars under the beats. Tap a bar for the move (push, pull, pan, tilt, orbit, track, crane, zoom, handheld, hold), what it's on, how strong, and when. Add a move, or open recipes… to fill the whole lane with one of the twenty presets in a tap. Gaps between bars hold.
Cut — how the shot ends so it cuts cleanly into the next one. Seeded from the notebook's transitions.
Motion lock — how tightly the take holds the start frame: Locked, Natural or Lively.

Reframes and variants

Every shot starts from one of its scene's frames, and the Motion card opens on that choice: the scene's master, reframes and variants as chips, all free to pick. When the shot needs a different framing of the same moment, pick the view — close-up, medium close-up, medium, medium-wide or wide — and choose Reframe for this angle. Nila composes a new still of that instant from the master, never a crop, so a close-up keeps the face. It's saved to the scene for any later shot to reuse.

The start-frame block at the top of the Motion card: the current frame's thumbnail, the scene's frames as chips, the five views, and the Reframe for this angle button with its cost. — The start of the Motion card: pick a frame the scene already has for free, or reframe the moment for this shot's angle.

A variant is a new still with one described change — "she stands up", "the gate is open". Right-click a scene chip and choose Add a variant, type the change, and the frame joins the scene like any other.

Takes and re-rolls

A take is one generated video for the shot. Roll another if you want options; every take is kept, and you pick which one the timeline uses. The phone preview in the shot row plays the current take.

A phone-shaped preview on the canvas playing a shot's current take, framed as it will appear on the platform. — The take preview, framed the way the platform will show it.

Model — the video model decides quality, motion and cost per second. The included models depend on your plan; the cost shows on the button before you click.
Duration — a take's length comes from the shotline; change it there.
Ambient — the natural sound of the setting, rendered with the take. Switch it off for a silent take. No speech is rendered either way; that's the Editor's job.
Modifiers — things to keep out of the shot (text, extra people, morphing). Nila pre-selects sensible ones; add your own.

Refining a finished shot

Right-click a finished shot's marker and choose Expand shot to lay out its three decisions — inspect them, then right-click any chip and choose Edit this step. The card opens in that chip's place, the row makes room for it, and nothing else on the board moves. Save, or close it with the × in its corner (or Esc) to put the shot back exactly as it was. Rewind to shot resets that shot and every shot after it, and asks first. When every shot is lit, Nila's last card offers Move to Editor.

To change the setup itself, right-click the scene's tile on the Scenes row and choose Edit scene: Nila re-walks just that scene's questions, and the shots keep pointing at it. Compose a new master when the change should show in the still. The same × cancels a scene edit and restores the scene. Changed the scene in the Notebook instead? Apply from Notebook on the same menu fills every step of the scene from its Notebook entry in one go, with no cards and no chips dropped.