# AI pre-visualization for indie filmmakers — an animatic workflow > Previz a short film on eroq with Film mode as an animatic, camera moves, lenses, seeds for repeatable takes and exports into Premiere or After Effects. Published 2026-09-07 · eroq.ai — canonical: https://eroq.ai/blog/ai-previz-for-indie-filmmakers Previz exists to answer questions before the shoot day, when answers are still cheap. Does the blocking read from that angle? Does the cut work if the reveal comes one beat later? Is the night exterior worth the truck? A storyboard answers half of that; an animatic answers the rest, because timing is the thing a still cannot show. This is how we build one on eroq in an afternoon, with the credit arithmetic at the end. The overview is on the [short films use case](/use-cases/short-films). ## Film mode is an animatic tool Open [the video studio](/studio/video) and switch to Film mode. It is a progressive [storyboard](/glossary/storyboard): you add one scene at a time, each renders immediately, and the timeline underneath grows up to twelve scenes. Every scene can be edited, re-rendered, reordered or duplicated, and each shoots 1 to 4 takes so you can keep the one that reads best. The assembled player runs the whole sequence in order, which is the only honest way to judge whether your cut breathes. Drafts save as "My films", so the animatic survives the week. Twelve scenes is roughly a scene-and-a-half of a short film, which is the right unit. Previz the sequence you are unsure about, not the whole script. ## Say the camera out loud There are 17 [camera moves](/glossary/camera-move) available as a setting — Static, Slow pan, Push-in, Tracking, Orbit, Handheld, Close-up, Wide, Pull-back, Dolly zoom, Crane up, Crane down, Whip pan, FPV drone, Aerial pull-back, POV and Snorricam — and written directions inside the prompt are detected too, so "wide shot" or "dolly" in the text does the same job as the picker. The rest of the grammar lives in the director's rack, which folds into the prompt server-side: Film type, Era, Tempo, Camera gear, Lens, Aperture, Palette and Lighting. For previz the two that earn their keep are Lens and Aperture. Anamorphic at f/1.4 and clean sharp at f/11 produce two genuinely different films from the same blocking, and deciding that in previz is a decision your DP does not have to make at 6 a.m. Camera gear matters for the same reason — "VHS camcorder" and "IMAX" are different movies. Write each scene as one flowing paragraph naming subject, motion, camera, light and mood, 30 to 80 words. Here is a complete scene from a previz we ran for a night-exterior sequence: > A courier in a wet parka steps off a bus into an empty suburban street at 2 a.m., bus lights pulling away behind her, slow tracking shot from her left at hip height, sodium streetlamp overhead falling through drizzle, everything else in shadow, vintage anamorphic lens at f/1.4, tense tempo, film noir on 35mm film. If a scene lands flat, Enhance rewrites your draft into a director-grade prompt and costs nothing, which makes it the cheapest note you will get all day. ## Seeds, so you are comparing one variable Previz is a comparison exercise, and comparisons need a control. The Seedance engines honor a reproducibility [seed](/glossary/seed): same prompt, same seed, repeatable render. Lock the seed, change one word — "tracking" to "handheld", f/11 to f/1.4 — and the difference you see is the difference you made, not the lottery. A negative prompt is available on the engines that support one, which is how you keep a modern car out of a period street. [Seedance 2.5](/models/seedance-2-5) also supports first and last frame interpolation, which is the closest thing to previzing an actual cut: give it where the shot starts and where it ends, and judge the move between them. ## What an animatic costs Twelve scenes at 5 seconds each, one take per scene: - On [Motion One](/models/eroq-motion-one), 100 credits per 5 seconds — 12 × 100 = **1,200 credits** - On Seedance 1.0 Lite, 60 credits per 5 seconds — 12 × 60 = **720 credits** - On Seedance 1.0 Pro, 140 credits per 5 seconds — 12 × 140 = **1,680 credits** Add a second take on the four scenes you are least sure about and Seedance 1.0 Lite goes to 720 + 4 × 60 = **960 credits** — about $9.60 at the entry pack rate of $10 for 1,000 credits. That is a full animatic for the price of two coffees and a croissant, and Creator ($49 for 6,000 credits) is 6,000 ÷ 960 ≈ 6 of them a month. Lengths are capped by the engine and by your plan — 10 seconds free, 15 on Hobby, 20 on Creator, 30 on Studio and above. Seedance 1.0 Lite runs 3 to 12 seconds, so previz a beat at 3 seconds for 40 credits when all you need is the timing of an entrance. Seedance 2.5 goes from 4 to 30 seconds on Creator and up, at 340 credits for 10 seconds, for the one long take you want to test properly. Failed renders refund themselves automatically. ## Getting it into your edit Every render is saved in your library with the full recipe, so re-rendering the one scene that bothers you next week is a Remix rather than an archaeology project. Download the clips, drop them on a timeline, and cut the animatic against a scratch voice track. If you cut in Premiere Pro or After Effects, the eroq panel is a single extension for both — Premiere Pro 13 and up, After Effects 16 and up. You generate video, images and speech from the panel and the renders import straight into the open project, saved under `~/Documents/eroq`. It is currently distributed unsigned, so it installs in developer mode. When the sequence is stable and you want to re-shoot the whole board after a script change, the [films API](/docs/films) renders every scene of a storyboard in one call, which beats clicking twelve times at midnight. ## FAQ ### How close is previz to the final look? Close enough to decide blocking, timing, lens and palette; not close enough to sign off on a grade. Treat the animatic as a conversation with your DP and your editor, not as a promise to your colorist. ### Can I keep the same actor's face across scenes? Use a Character — a persistent cast entry with a name, a persona, reference photos and a voice, @mentionable in any prompt. The same reference photos carry the same face across images and clips, which is what makes a twelve-scene board read as one sequence. ### Which engine should I previz on? Seedance 1.0 Lite when you are exploring and volume matters, because 60 credits per 5-second scene lets you be wrong a lot. Seedance 1.0 Pro or Seedance 2.5 for the two or three shots you will actually show a producer, since they render up to 1080p and honor a seed. Got a sequence you are not sure about? [Open Film mode](/studio/video), board the twelve scenes, and watch them in order before you book anything.