Takes, picks and stale scenes — how rendering works in Cinema's storyboard

The Storyboard tab is where a film costs money, so it is worth knowing exactly what a render does — what you get, what is kept, what the edit follows, and what makes the studio tell you a scene is out of date. None of it is hidden; this is the guide to reading it.

A scene card

Each card is a scene from the script, in script order. On it, and in the inspector when you select it:

• the slugline and the action (written in the Script, editable here too);
• shot — a camera move from the 24 in the rack, or none, or the one you wrote in the action ("slow dolly-in" is detected);
• seconds — snapped to the engine's grid and capped by your plan: 15 on Hobby, 20 on Creator, 30 from Studio up, never more than 30;
• cast — up to eight characters whose sheets ride as references;
• takes — how many the next render produces, 1 to 4;
• the price of the next render, before you click.

The header counts scenes, rendered scenes and the running time; the Render N scenes · X cr button renders every scene that has no take yet, in order, and says what that costs before it starts. If the wallet is short for all of them, the button says so and you render one at a time.

What a render produces

A render queues one video job per take on the film's engine — the same pipeline as the Video tool, POST /v1/videos/generations, with the look, the cast, the mentions and, with continuous shots on, the previous scene's last frame as the start frame. Each take is charged separately; a take that fails refunds itself.

Takes land in the scene's options as they finish. A scene keeps its eight most recent takes on the card; older ones are not deleted — every take is a creation in your Library, with its full recipe — they simply leave the picker.

Renders survive you. Jobs in flight are saved on the scene, so closing the tab, reloading, or opening the film on another device picks the takes up when they land. A job older than a day is treated as finished either way: it landed in the library, or it refunded itself.

The pick

One take per scene is the pick — the one in the cut. The latest take is picked automatically when it lands; click any other option to pick it instead. The edit's scene clip follows the pick, so changing it re-cuts the film without touching the timeline. Picking is free; it moves a pointer.

With continuous shots on, the pick is also the frame the next scene chains from. Change it and the next scene is marked stale.

"Changed" and "stale"

Two badges, two meanings:

• Changed — the scene's text, camera or length differs from what the picked take was rendered from. The studio keeps a fingerprint of the render inputs on every take; edit the action after rendering and the card says so. The take is still good; it just does not show the new version. Render again when the edit is meant.
• Stale — the previous scene moved. Its take was re-rendered or its pick changed, so this scene's take opened on a frame that is no longer the end of the scene before. The join moved. Render again, or keep it if the join still reads.

Neither badge blocks anything. They exist so you never export a cut whose scene four is a draft you forgot you rewrote.

Paying only for what changed

The storyboard is built so a fix costs one scene:

• Re-render one scene — its takes are re-queued; every other scene keeps its takes and is not charged.
• Render scenes in any order — with continuous shots, a scene waits for the one before it; without, they render in parallel.
• Takes multiply the price — four takes of a five-second Seedance 2.0 Mini scene are 180 credits; one is 45. Render one take to find the framing, then four takes of the scene that matters.
• Adding a scene is free until you render it. Write all 24; render six.
• A draft is free to keep. Nothing on the shelf bills for existing.

A rough budget for a six-scene, five-seconds-each film with one take per scene: 270 credits on Seedance 2.0 Mini, 360 on Motion One, 1,020 on Kling 3.0. Add a second take on the two hardest scenes and the Mini film is 360.

Reordering, duplicating, deleting

Drag a card and the scene moves — with its whole script section, notes included, so the document stays in the order the film plays. A moved scene is not re-rendered; if continuous shots are on, the scenes around the move go stale, because their neighbours changed.

Duplicate a scene to reuse its settings for a variant; the copy has no takes. Delete a scene and its card and script block go; its takes stay in the library.

Private mode

Cinema keeps every take in the library because the film is cut from them. With the studio's private mode on, it renders nothing rather than store what you asked to keep off the cloud — the button says so. Turn private mode off for the film, or render single clips privately in the Video tool.

FAQ

Do I pay for a take I do not pick?

Yes — every take is a render. What you do not pay for is picking, re-picking, reordering, editing the script, or keeping the draft.

Where are takes older than the eight on the card?

In your library, with their full recipe. The card shows the eight most recent so the picker stays readable; nothing is deleted.

What if I close the tab while scenes render?

The jobs are saved on the scene. Reopen the film and the takes are picked up as they land — on any device.

Why is scene three "waiting"?

Continuous shots are on and scene two has no take yet, or is still rendering. Scene three needs its last frame. It starts by itself.

Open a film in Cinema and render one take of scene one — the badges explain themselves from there.