# How to make an AI short film with a progressive storyboard > Build an AI short film scene by scene in eroq Film mode — add scenes, pick the best take, re-render, assemble the cut, save a draft and publish it with a cover. Published 2026-09-02 · eroq.ai — canonical: https://eroq.ai/blog/how-to-make-an-ai-short-film-storyboard Most AI short films die in the editor. You render twenty clips that each look great on their own, drop them on a timeline, and discover that the light changes between every cut, the lead has four different faces and the "story" is a mood board. Film mode in the eroq video studio is built around the opposite workflow: you write and render one scene at a time, watch the assembled cut grow, and fix scenes in place before you move on. This guide goes from an empty storyboard to a published film with a cover. ## What Film mode is, and what it is not Open [the Video tool](/studio/video) and you get three tabs: Quick, Film mode (the Cinema tab) and Ads. Quick is one prompt, one clip. Film mode is a progressive [storyboard](/glossary/storyboard): every scene you add renders immediately and lands on a timeline under the composer, up to 12 scenes per film. The cards on that timeline are finished shots with actions attached — Edit, Re-render, takes, reorder, duplicate, delete — not forms to fill in. It is not a keyframe editor. Think of it as a shot list that produces its own footage and plays it back in order. You decide what each shot says; the studio keeps the look consistent and stitches the pieces together in the assembled player. ## Step 1 — pick the look before the first scene The Director's rack — Film type, Era, Tempo, Camera gear, Lens, Aperture, Palette, Lighting — is folded into every prompt server-side. Set it once and it carries across scenes, which is most of what "a consistent look" means in practice. Three combinations that hold up: - **Film noir** · 1960s · Tense · 35mm film · Anamorphic · Monochrome · Practicals. The obvious noir. It works. - **Documentary** · 2010s · Calm · Smartphone · Clean sharp · Warm film · Window light. Found footage that is nicer than found footage. - **Arthouse** · Futuristic · Dreamy · IMAX · Vintage anamorphic · Neon noir · Neon glow. For stories that are mostly light. Pick the engine in the same breath. [Motion One](/models/eroq-motion-one) is open to every account and is the uncensored engine; Seedance 2.5, Seedance 1.0 Pro, Kling 2.5 Turbo and Veo 3 Fast sit on the Creator plan and up, Seedance 1.0 Lite and Hailuo 02 on Hobby and up. Clip length is capped by your plan — 10 s free, 15 s Hobby, 20 s Creator, 30 s Studio and above — so a 12-scene film on a free account tops out at two minutes of footage. For a short, that is plenty. ## Step 2 — write scenes one at a time A scene is a prompt: one flowing paragraph naming the subject, the motion, the camera, the light and the mood, thirty to eighty words. A complete opening scene for a small noir: > A woman in a wet trench coat steps out of a taxi onto a rain-slick street at night, pauses, and looks up at a flickering hotel sign; slow push-in from a wide shot to a medium as she lifts her collar, neon reflections sliding across the puddles, sodium streetlight from the left, steam rising from a grate behind her, a tense and quiet mood. Press Add scene. It renders while you write the next one. If your draft is three words and a feeling, hit Enhance — a free rewrite that turns notes into a director-grade prompt — or Surprise me if you have a look and no story yet. Keep the cast on the scene, not in your head. If your lead is a saved [Character](/studio/characters), add her to the scene's cast and @mention her in the prompt; her reference photos travel with the shot and the face stays the same from scene to scene. Each scene carries its own cast, so a two-hander in scene four does not drag a third person into scene five. ## Step 3 — takes, edits and re-renders Generators are not deterministic, and neither is your first draft. Film mode gives you three ways to fix a scene without disturbing the others: 1. **Takes.** Render 1 to 4 [takes](/glossary/take) of a scene and keep the best with the take picker. Four takes cost four renders — spend them on the shots that carry the story and give the connective tissue one. 2. **Edit.** Reloads the shot into the composer, you change the prompt or the camera move, and Update replaces the footage in place. Nothing else on the timeline moves. 3. **Re-render.** Same prompt, new roll of the dice. For when the prompt is right and the render simply was not. Failed renders refund themselves, so a bad roll costs time, not credits. Reorder scenes, duplicate the ones that deserve a callback, delete what does not survive the rough cut. Then play the assembled cut. Do that every time you add a scene — it is the whole reason the storyboard is progressive. ## Step 4 — save the draft, come back later Save draft stores the film's recipe — look, scenes, takes — under My films, and you can keep several films in flight. Films are also a resource in the API ([/docs/films](/docs/films)): a storyboard you write in the studio can be re-rendered from a script with `POST /v1/films/{id}/render`, which shoots every scene in one call. Every individual render lands in your Library automatically with its full recipe, whether or not the scene makes the cut. ## Step 5 — publish with a cover When the cut works, press Publish. Give the film a title and a cover: upload one, capture a frame from a rendered scene, or let the studio generate a film cover for you. The film goes to the [community](/community) with likes, comments and views. Your prompts, rack settings and engine choices stay private — viewers get the film, not the recipe. A short made this way is a sequence of decisions rather than a pile of clips. Pick a look, write scene one, watch it, write scene two. The AI film maker page lists every Film mode feature in one place if you want the inventory before the practice. ## FAQ ### How many scenes can a film have? Up to 12 per film, each with 1 to 4 takes. Scene length depends on the engine and your plan — from 3 s up to 30 s on Studio and above. ### Do I pay for scenes I delete or re-render? You pay per render. A deleted scene was already rendered; a re-render is a new render. Failed renders are refunded automatically and never count. ### Do I need a paid plan for Film mode? No. Film mode works on every account with Motion One, clips capped at 10 s on the free tier. Hobby and Creator unlock the premium engines and longer scenes. Ready to shoot scene one? [Open Film mode](/studio/video) — new accounts start with 50 free credits.