The path for a short film, a trailer or a feature: write the project file, build the cast, approve stills, lay the sound, then animate and cut.
A music video starts from a song, and an audiobook from a book. A short film or a film starts from its story: who is in it, where it happens, and the shots in order. In Inkreel all of that goes in one file, the project file. A trailer is made the same way, as a short film.
A studio is one story world. Make it from an IP bible (the template is on the Help page), then give each character, recurring place and prop a reference sheet in Cast. Each speaking character's voice lives on their sheet too. These sheets keep faces, places and voices the same in every shot.
Download the project file template from the project page (or from Help) and fill it in:
You can write it yourself, or give the template and the IP bible to ChatGPT or Claude and upload what comes back. Nothing is invented: what the file doesn't say stays empty.
Press + New project, pick Short film or Film, and upload the file. The brief, the characters, the locations and the storyboard are filled in from it. Or describe the film and press Write a new storyboard: the writer model drafts the scenes from the bible and your brief, using only your own cast.
Each scene is one 5- or 10-second shot, sized to its spoken lines. Edit what happens, who's in it, the place, the framing and the motion; move, split, merge or delete scenes. Approve it when it's right.
Choose How it runs in the brief: Guided (you approve every still and clip), Checkpoints (one budget, you review the cut at the end) or Auto (one confirm, straight through). Every run shows its price first.
Make one still per scene, built from the cast sheets. Redo one with a note, draw on it to fix one part, or reuse a shot the studio already has, for free. Approve them.
In the project's Sound section, make the spoken lines in each character's voice, the sound effects, the ambience and the music, or use your own recordings. Add a finished score as the Soundtrack if you have one.
Press Make the stills and sounds → timeline. The approved stills and every sound land on the editor's timeline first, so you can watch and listen to the whole film, trim it and reorder it while it still costs nothing.
Then Animate the timeline: each still becomes a short clip that starts on that exact picture, and the speaking scenes are lip-synced. The price and a budget show first. Right-click any clip to redo just that shot.
In the editor, trim and reorder, add transitions, effects and text, and use the Sound effects (a comms radio, a phone call, static) on any voice. Export an MP4 at 720p or 1080p, one act on its own for a long film, or the whole timeline for DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut or Premiere.
See the pricing, or read Storyboard first: why approving stills before animating saves money.
