Cut · Heist1:02
The Last Reel
Logline: A retiring projectionist and a nervous usher have one closing night to lift a reel of unreleased footage from the cinema vault before the chain demolishes the building.
A one-minute movie,
scene by scene.
Write the logline. Draft the beat sheet. Shoot every beat in widescreen with your own cast. Cut it with a title card and end credits, then trailer it. Nothing is rendered until you have read the sheet.
- 1Logline
One sentence: who wants what, and what is in the way. Pick a genre and a runtime of one, two or three minutes.
- 2Beat sheet
The drafter writes eight to twelve beats on the genre skeleton. Rewrite lines, change shot sizes, recast, retime. Two credits.
- 3Scenes
Shoot each beat as a widescreen scene with your cast, costumes, props and sets as references. Priced by the second, shown before you shoot.
- 4Cut
Title card, scenes in order, end credits with the cast and your credit line. Two credits. Add a trailer and a poster, then publish.
The Last Reel, a cut in the heist genre, one-minute target. Logline: A retiring projectionist and a nervous usher have one closing night to lift a reel of unreleased footage from the cinema vault before the chain demolishes the building.
Beat sheet · The Last Reel8 beats · 1:00 with cards
- 01Wide · 7s
Closing night. The marquee letters come down one by one.
- 02Medium · 7s
Roderick threads the last reel. "They never asked what was in the vault."
- 03Two-shot · 6s
Danica, usher’s torch in hand: "You have forty minutes."
- 04Insert · 5s
A brass key turns in a vault door that has not opened in years.
- 05Close-up · 6s
Roderick reads the canister label and stops breathing.
- 06Over-shoulder · 7s
A manager’s silhouette in the booth doorway. "Projection’s over."
- 07Wide · 8s
The screen lights up with footage nobody has seen. The room goes still.
- 08Close-up · 8s
Danica, lit by the screen: "Let it run."
Twelve genres, each with a look and a shape
A genre here is a tone block that rides on every scene (light, lens, pace, performance, sound) and a three-act skeleton the beat sheet follows. Change the genre and the same logline drafts a different film.
How genres work- HeistA crew, a plan, and the one variable nobody priced in.
- NoirRain, a bad decision, and a client who is lying.
- Road MovieTwo people in a car with somewhere to be and nothing to say.
- Ghost StoryA house that remembers, and someone who moved in anyway.
- WesternOne street, two people, and the sun going down on both of them.
- SurvivalOne person, one bad place, and a clock made of weather.
- Screwball ComedyFast talk, mistaken identities, and a wedding nobody is ready for.
- Coming of AgeOne summer, one decision, and the person you were before it.
- EspionageA dead drop, a double, and a handler who knew all along.
- Creature FeatureSomething is in the water, the woods, or the vents. Nobody believes the one who saw it.
- DystopiaA clean city, a quiet rule, and one person who stops obeying it.
- TearjerkerTwo people, one unsayable thing, and the afternoon they finally say it.
Cuts, scenes and trailers
Each with the logline or beat that made itTrailer · Noir26s
Rain Check
Logline: A private investigator hired to find a missing accountant realises the woman who hired him is the one the accountant was running from.
Cut · Road Movie1:58
Salt Flats
Logline: Two estranged sisters drive their late father’s pickup across the desert to scatter his ashes at a drive-in that closed thirty years ago.
Scene · Ghost Story10s
Lamp Room
Beat: Hyacinth climbs the last spiral stair into the lamp room with a candle. The lamp is already lit. She says, quietly, "I thought you had gone." Slow push in on her face.
Trailer · Western24s
The Tab
Logline: A drifter rides into a town where the saloon owner has bought every debt on the street, and offers to settle all of them with a single hand of cards.
Cut · Survival1:04
Blue Ice
Logline: A glacier guide separated from her group by a whiteout has one flare, a cracked thermal camera and six hours of daylight to find the orange tent.
Where to start
- Short film maker
Make a short film scene by scene. Write the logline, draft a beat sheet, shoot every beat in widescreen with your own cast and sets, then cut the scenes together with a title card and end credits.
- One-minute movie
A one-minute movie is eight beats of about seven seconds each, shot in widescreen and cut between a title card and end credits. Draft the beat sheet from a logline and shoot it scene by scene.
- Micro film
Generate a micro film from a logline: an editable beat sheet, scenes shot one beat at a time in 16:9 with a consistent cast, and a cut with title and credits. One to three minutes long.
- Trailer generator
Cut a thirty-second trailer from the scenes of a flick you made: pick up to three finished shots, keep the middle five to eight seconds of each, and add a tagline card and a coming-soon card.
- Fake trailer maker
Make a convincing trailer for a movie that does not exist. Write the logline, shoot three widescreen scenes with your own cast, and cut them with a tagline card and a coming-soon card.
- Logline to film
Turn a logline into a short film the proper way: a drafted beat sheet you edit, scenes shot one beat at a time with a consistent cast, and a widescreen cut with title card and end credits.
- Beat sheet generator
Generate an editable beat sheet from a logline and a genre: eight to twelve beats with a line, a shot size, a location and a duration each, following a three-act skeleton and sized to one, two or three minutes.
- Genre film generator
Make a short film in a chosen genre. Twelve genres, each with a tone block for lighting, camera and performance and a three-act skeleton the beat sheet follows: heist, noir, western, ghost story and more.
Questions
- What is a flick?
- A one- to three-minute widescreen film with a beginning, a middle and an end. It starts as a logline, becomes a beat sheet of eight to twelve shots, each shot is rendered as a scene with your cast, and the scenes are cut together with a title card and end credits.
- Does one prompt make the whole film?
- No. A logline makes a beat sheet, which you edit. Each beat is shot as its own scene, which you can reshoot. The cut assembles what you approved. Every step leaves something you can read or watch before the next one costs anything.
- How are scenes priced?
- By the second. Standard quality is 3 credits a second at 480p and 6 at 720p; high quality is 6, 12 and 30 a second at 480p, 720p and 1080p. A beat sheet, a cut and a trailer are 2 credits each; a poster or a library item is 3.
- Who owns the flicks I make?
- You do. What you draft, shoot and cut here is yours to keep, publish or sell under the terms of service. Copyright law differs by country, so for commercial use get advice where you live.
- Can I use my own actors?
- Characters are generated from a written description so that their reference portraits are ones the renderer accepts; real faces cannot be uploaded. Costumes, sets and props can be uploaded or generated.