What you'll make
A moody two-character short called The Last Transmission — a lighthouse keeper, a soaked messenger, and a light that blinks back. Two scenes, about a dozen shots, one consistent cast. You will never write a single image prompt.
The one idea that changes everything
Every other AI video tool asks you for a prompt. DeepFiction Shows asks you for a script.
You write (or paste) the story. The system reads it like a film crew would: it extracts your cast, your locations, plans the camera coverage, writes every generation prompt, and shows you the plan — and the price — before a single frame renders. Your job isn't prompting. Your job is directing: review, approve, retake.
Step 1 — Start the project (1 minute)
Click Start this project at the bottom of this lesson. The New Production form opens with the script, format, and style already filled in. Hit Create show.
Tip: Read the script once before you continue. Notice it's just a normal screenplay — character names in caps, scene headings, dialogue. That's all the system needs.
Step 2 — Roll camera on the script (2 minutes)
In the Script phase, press Roll camera — ingest script. For about a minute, the director-brain reads your screenplay and builds a production plan.
When it finishes you'll land on the Breakdown: your cast (Mara and Eli), your locations (the control room, the gallery deck), a director's plan, and scene-by-scene shot lists. Check the budget panel on the right — it tells you exactly what the whole film will cost in credits before you spend anything.
If the breakdown looks right (it usually does), press Looks right → Build canon.
Step 3 — Lock your cast (3 minutes)
The Canon phase is why your characters won't morph between shots. Every character and location gets one reference image that everything downstream must obey.
- Press Generate on Mara. Look at her. Is this your lighthouse keeper?
- Not quite? Regenerate, or Edit prompt to adjust ("older", "sterner", "braid over left shoulder").
- When she's right, press Approve as canon. She is now locked.
- Repeat for Eli and both locations.
Why this matters: every keyframe in your film is generated from these images, not from text descriptions. Approving canon is the single highest-leverage decision you make.
Step 4 — Review the storyboard (2 minutes)
The Storyboard shows every planned shot in order: the establishing wide, the over-the-shoulder dialogue pair, the close-ups. Each card shows which model will render it, which canon references feed it, the dialogue it covers, and its duration.
You can edit any prompt — but for your first film, resist. Open the Storyboard tab.
Step 5 — Compose the storyboard (3 minutes)
This is the film-school secret baked into the pipeline. Press Compose all frames: every shot gets composed as a still image first, in order — and each new angle is composed from the locked previous angle, so the room stays the same room and nobody teleports across the 180° line.
Review the stills (flip to Focus for one at a time). A bad composition here costs 1 credit to redo. The same mistake caught after video generation costs 5–10x that. If a frame is close but not perfect, click it and touch it up instead of recomposing. Lock each frame, then press Ready to generate videos.
Step 6 — Roll camera for real (render time)
Confirm the commit dialog (it shows exact clip counts and credits). Every locked frame gets animated by the video model. Go make coffee — the Footage tab fills in as clips finish, and its filmstrip tracks the whole film.
When they're done: play the timeline. For any shot that misses, you have four controls:
- Approve — it's good, lock it.
- Regenerate — same prompt, new take (you can hot-swap between takes any time).
- Edit — nudge the prompt yourself.
- Iterate — tell the director what's wrong ("too dark, she should look angrier") and it rewrites the prompt for you.
Approve everything, then Picture lock → Export.
Step 7 — Export
Your clips are numbered in timeline order (001_scene1_wide.mp4…), ready for any editor. Or press Assemble preview cut and let the server stitch the whole film for you.
What you just learned
- The script is the input; prompts are the system's job.
- Canon locking is why characters stay consistent.
- Staging stills before footage is where you save your budget.
- Takes are never final — you're always one regenerate away from better.
Next lesson: How the pipeline thinks — what's actually happening at each phase, and where your credits go.