Getting Started

PrePrompt turns a written script into a visual pipeline — characters, environments, storyboards, and a finished animatic — using AI models curated for filmmakers. This page walks you through your first project.

Before you start

You’ll need an account and a script (or a rough scene you want to visualize).

1. Sign up at preprompt.studio. Verifying your email grants 200 free credits — enough to take a short scene from script to storyboard.

2. Have something to film. A one-page scene, a draft screenplay, or just a moment you want to see. Fountain, FDX, or plain text all work.

Tip

New to writing for visual media? A clear Action line (“INT. KITCHEN — DAY”) and a handful of lines of dialogue are enough. PrePrompt’s AI fills in details you haven’t specified, and you can adjust as you go.

Your first project

The creative loop moves through five stages: Script → Assets → Storyboard → Timeline → Export. Each stage is a Node on the canvas, connected to the next.

1. Create a project. From your Projects shelf, click New Project. Name it and you’ll land on the Flow canvas — an infinite workspace where nodes live.

2. Add your script. Open the Script Node and paste or upload your screenplay. PrePrompt will read it, ask you a few clarifying questions (the Eden step — optional, you can skip), and then analyze the script to extract:

   • Scenes — distinct story sequences
   • Shots — subdivisions of each scene
   • Beats — the atomic units, one per frame you’ll eventually generate
   • Actors, Props, and Sets — everyone and everything your story needs

   Each beat gets a tag like 1.1.3 (Scene 1, Shot 1, Beat 3). You’ll see this notation everywhere.

3. Generate your Assets. PrePrompt auto-creates an Actor, Prop, or Set node for every named character, object, and location. Open each one to generate a hero look (the canonical image) plus wardrobe variants for actors if you need them.

   Approve, reject, or reshot any asset. Rejected assets block downstream generation until replaced.

4. Pass the Director Review Board (DRB). The DRB Node is a quality gate. Every asset must be approved here before the storyboard can run. This prevents a weak actor design from propagating through 50 frames.

5. Generate the Storyboard. Open the Storyboard Node. PrePrompt generates one Frame per beat — organized in a scene/shot/beat grid. Reframe any beat with the crop tool, regenerate individual frames, or batch-regenerate a whole scene.

6. Assemble the Timeline. The Timeline Node turns your frames into a playable animatic. Arrange beats, add voiceover via the Audio Node, add music via the Song Node, color-grade per beat, add transitions and keyframes.

   Hit play. Scrub with J/K/L (reverse / pause / play). You’re watching a rough cut of your scene.

7. Export. From the Timeline, choose your format:

   • PDF Storyboard — beats laid out as a printable booklet
   • ZIP Frames — every frame as a separate image
   • MP4 Animatic — the full video with audio, color, and transitions

What you just made

PrePrompt produces three distinct things:

Frames

A single rendered image for each beat in your script. These are your storyboard panels.

Animatic

Your frames strung together into a timed, scored, color-graded video. The rough cut of your scene.

Assets

The actors, props, and sets you generated along the way — reusable across every scene in the project.

Core concepts worth knowing

You don’t need to master these before you start, but they’ll make everything else click.

Scene, Shot, Beat The three levels of hierarchy PrePrompt uses to organize your story.

Frames & Animatics What PrePrompt actually produces — and how the two are related.

Pipeline & Nodes Why the canvas is made of connected nodes, and how the pipeline flows.

Credits How credits work, what each stage costs, and what happens when generation fails.

Tips for your first project

Start small

A single scene — 6 to 10 beats — is the fastest way to understand the pipeline without burning through credits. Save the feature-length script for session two.

Approve before you storyboard

The hardest lesson is resisting the urge to skip DRB. A disapproved-looking actor will ruin 30 frames. Fix it once, upstream.

Reshot vs. regenerate

If a single frame fails, regenerate it from the Storyboard Node. If a character or set is wrong everywhere, reshot the asset itself from its node — the downstream frames will rebuild with the new look.

Safety blocks are silent sometimes

Certain prompts or content may get blocked by an AI provider’s safety filter. If a generation fails unexpectedly, check the node for a safety warning and reshot with adjusted wording. More on safety blocks →

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to know how to use screenwriting software? No. Plain text works. If you have a Fountain or FDX file, PrePrompt will parse it — but a paragraph of prose describing your scene is also valid input.

How many credits does a typical scene use? It depends on your script length, how many assets PrePrompt generates, and which models you use for images and video. A 6-beat scene with 2 actors and 1 set usually fits inside the 200-credit free tier with room to spare.

Can I reuse actors and sets across projects? Assets live inside the project you created them in. Cross-project reuse is on the roadmap.

What happens if a generation fails? PrePrompt doesn’t charge you for failed generations. Credits are held when a job starts and released (not debited) if it fails. You’ll see a status indicator on the node — retry from there.

Can I edit the final video outside PrePrompt? Yes. The MP4 export is a standard H.264 video; open it in Premiere, Final Cut, DaVinci Resolve, or any editor.

What if I want to skip the AI and just use my own images? Drag any image file onto the canvas — PrePrompt creates an Imported Asset that slots into the pipeline alongside generated ones.

Where to next

Write your script Script formats PrePrompt accepts, and tips for making analysis more accurate.

Design your actors Hero look, wardrobe variants, and how to keep a character consistent across scenes.

Generate frames How the Storyboard node turns beats into visuals, and how to reframe or regenerate.

Edit the timeline Tracks, playback controls, color grading, transitions, and keyframes.