# Writing a film in Cinema's script editor — scenes, dialogue and blocks > A guide to the Script tab in Cinema. Notion-style notes, scene cards that become storyboard scenes, dialogue written inside each scene, and how a scene turns into an engine prompt. Published 2026-09-26 · eroq.ai — canonical: https://eroq.ai/blog/cinema-script-editor-screenplay-blocks A film is written before it is rendered. That sentence is the whole design of Cinema's Script tab: a document you can think in — notes, lists, to-dos — that also *is* the storyboard, because every scene block in it is a scene the engines will render, in the order you wrote them. This guide walks the editor top to bottom, then shows what the engine actually receives from a scene. ## The document Open a film at [/studio/cinema](/studio/cinema) and you land in Script. It behaves like a Notion page: - Type to write a paragraph. `/` opens the block menu; the `+` in the margin adds a line below with the menu open on it. - Blocks: paragraph, three heading levels, bullet and numbered lists, to-do, quote, callout, divider — and one that is Cinema's own, the **scene**, which carries its action *and* its lines of dialogue. - Drag any block by its grip. Bold, italic, strikethrough and code inline. - `@` mentions your characters, places, objects and styles from [Elements](/studio/elements), as chips. Everything outside a scene card is yours: production notes, a shot list, a to-do of props, a reminder that scene four needs a second take. None of it goes to an engine. A film holds up to 400 blocks. ## Scene cards A scene card holds everything that scene renders: - **Heading** — the slugline, screenplay style: `INT. LIGHTHOUSE — DUSK`. Optional, but it does two things: it labels the storyboard card, and it opens the scene's prompt, so the engine knows where it is. - **Action** — what happens. This is the text the engine renders. One subject, one motion, one camera idea; `@Mina` binds a cast member to her sheet. - **Dialogue** — the lines said in this scene, written right under the action (next section). - **What the engine reads** — fold it open to see the scene exactly as it is sent. Each scene block is one storyboard scene. Add a scene block and a card appears in the Storyboard tab; delete it and the card goes (its takes stay in your library). Reorder scene blocks and the storyboard reorders. Drag a scene's card in the Storyboard and its whole *section* in the script — the notes between it and the next scene — moves with it. There is one scene block per scene, always; the editor reconciles the two if a draft ever disagrees. Camera move, duration, takes and the scene's cast are set on the card in the Storyboard, not in the script — they are render settings, not writing. The [takes and picks guide](/blog/takes-picks-and-stale-scenes-in-cinema) covers that side. ## Dialogue, inside the scene Dialogue belongs to a scene, so it lives in the scene card — not as a separate block you could lose track of. Under the action, **+ Line** adds a line: - **Speaker** — one of your characters, or **Someone else…** for a free name ("The keeper", "Radio voice"). - **Manner** — how it's said: "whispering", "to herself", "not looking up". Optional. - **Line** — what they say. Enter adds the next line and hands it to the other speaker, the way an exchange goes; Backspace on an empty line removes it. A scene holds up to 30 lines. The same lines show in the Storyboard's scene panel — one list, edited from either place. A scene's lines ride that scene's prompt, and no other. Two things follow from a speaker being a character: 1. They join the scene's **references** — their sheet goes with the render so the face matches — even if you did not add them to the card's cast by hand. 2. With sound on, their **voice** goes too. On engines that accept an audio reference (Seedance 2.x, Hailuo 3), the first speaker with a voice rides as a spoken sample — the roster voice or clone assigned to the character — and the card says who: "Spoken with the picture — Mina in their own voice." Other voiced speakers, and every voice on other engines, ride as a one-line descriptor ("female voice, warm and low"). A continuous shot opens on the previous scene's last frame and carries no references, so its voices are descriptors only. Dialogue is also where a scene's length gets decided. A five-second clip holds one short line; a ten-second clip holds an exchange. Write the line, then set the seconds on the card to match. ## What the engine receives This is the part worth seeing once. Take this scene card: ```text INT. LIGHTHOUSE — DUSK @Mina climbs the last steps of the spiral staircase, out of breath, slow push-in as she reaches the lamp room. MINA (whispering) It's still lit. ``` Its **What the engine reads** shows the scene as one paragraph: `INT. LIGHTHOUSE — DUSK. Mina climbs the last steps of the spiral staircase, out of breath, slow push-in as she reaches the lamp room. Mina (whispering) says: "It's still lit."` — the slugline, the action, then each line with its speaker and manner. When it renders, the server adds the film's look as labelled sentences after it. With a look of *Film noir · 1960s · Tense · 35mm · Anamorphic · f/1.4 · Neon noir · Practicals*, the engine gets, in this order: the scene paragraph above; the cast line binding Mina to reference image 1, and a line keeping her face and outfit as in it; the camera move; lens and gear; lighting; color; the look; the pacing; and a voices line telling the engine how Mina sounds. Her persona — how she thinks, how she talks in chat — never rides a video prompt. Long scripts are safe: past an engine's prompt limit the composer drops pacing, look, color and lens first, and never the scene, the cast or the voices. ## A writing method that renders - **One event per scene.** "She climbs, reaches the lamp, sees the letter, reads it" is four scenes. Engines that get four events in ten seconds compress them into none. - **Put the camera in the action or on the card, not both.** "Slow push-in" in the action *and* Push-in on the card is fine; "push-in" in the action and Orbit on the card is a fight. - **Slugline every scene.** The setting sentence is what keeps a lighthouse a lighthouse from scene one to scene six. - **Dialogue in the lines, never in the action.** The action describes the picture; the lines describe what is said. The card keeps them apart for the engine. - **Notes above the scene, not in it.** A production note in the action becomes a rendered production note. ## From Video, or from a recipe You do not have to start blank. A Quick result's **Continue as a film** opens Cinema with the take as scene one and its prompt as the action; the home page's prompt box hands its text to a new film the same way. The six recipes on the shelf — Perfume ad, Music video opener, Horror teaser, Streetwear drop, Romance short, Travel diary — each open as a whole script: notes, callouts, lists, three scene cards with their dialogue, and a look. The [Quick-to-Cinema guide](/blog/quick-clip-to-cinema-film-recipes) has them. ## FAQ ### Can I write the whole script before rendering anything? Yes, and you should. Nothing in the Script tab costs credits; a film with 24 scenes written and none rendered is a free draft. Render from the Storyboard when the writing is done. ### Do the notes and to-dos go to the engine? No. Only what is inside a scene card — its heading, its action and its lines — is composed into that scene's prompt. Everything else is for you. ### What happens to dialogue on an engine without sound? The line still rides the prompt as direction (a character mouthing a line, a manner), but no audio is rendered. Engines with a soundtrack — and the sound toggle in the look — decide whether you hear it. ### Can a speaker be someone who is not a character? Yes. Pick **Someone else…** and type a name. They get no sheet and no voice sample; the engine invents them from the scene. [Open Cinema](/studio/cinema) and write scene one — the render can wait.