How long does a short film take to make here?

Drafting a beat sheet takes under a minute. Each scene renders in a few minutes, and you can shoot several beats at once. A one-minute flick with eight beats is usually cut within an hour of writing the logline, most of which is you reading takes and deciding what to reshoot.

Do I write the beats or does the drafter?

Either. The drafter writes a first pass from your logline and genre for two credits, and you edit it freely. You can also add a flick with no draft at all and type every beat yourself.

Who owns the flicks I make?

You do. The beat sheet, the scenes, the cut and the trailer are yours to download, publish or sell, within the terms of service. Because copyright treats generated work differently depending on the country, check with a lawyer where you live before relying on it commercially.

Is there a free trial?

New accounts receive two credits, enough to draft one beat sheet and read it. Shooting scenes needs a plan or a credit pack.

What if a scene is not what I wanted?

Shoot the beat again. Credits for a scene are spent once the render starts, so an unwanted take is not refunded, but the previous take stays in your library and you choose which one the cut uses.

Heist · 1 minute target

A short film maker that works the way films are made

Flicks does not turn a sentence into a movie. It turns a sentence into a beat sheet, the beat sheet into scenes, and the scenes into a cut. You stay in the chair for every step.

Write your logline See public flicks

The Last Reel, a cut in the Heist genre. 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.

Start with a logline, not a wish

Every flick begins with one sentence: who wants what, and what stands in the way. That sentence is the logline, and it is the only thing you have to bring. Pick one of twelve genres and a runtime target of one, two or three minutes, and the drafter writes a beat sheet to fit: eight beats for a one-minute movie, up to twelve for three minutes. Each beat is a single continuous shot with a line of action, a shot size, a location and at most three people in it.

The beat sheet is a document, not a black box. Rewrite a line, swap a close-up for a two-shot, move a beat earlier, give it more seconds. Nothing is rendered until you say so, and the running total at the top of the sheet tells you how long the cut will be before a single credit is spent on a scene.

Shoot each beat as its own scene

A beat becomes a scene when you shoot it. The scene is rendered in 16:9 by a video model that takes reference images: your characters, their costumes, a prop they hold and the set they stand in all come from your library, so the same faces and the same room carry from beat one to beat eight. Standard quality is enough for most flicks; high quality unlocks 1080p for the shots that matter.

Scenes are priced by the second and the price is shown before you press the button. A six-second beat at 720p standard costs 36 credits; the same beat at 480p costs 18. If a take is not right, shoot it again. The old take stays in your library and the beat links to the newest one.

Cut it, title it, credit it

When the beats you care about are shot, the cut assembles them in order between a two-second title card and a four-second end-credits card. The credits card lists every cast member who appeared, plus a credit line you write yourself. The cut is a single 1920 by 1080 file with sound, ready to download or to publish on its own page here.

A trailer is a separate cut: pick up to three finished scenes, keep the middle five to eight seconds of each, and the studio brackets them with a tagline card and a coming-soon card. Trailers top out at thirty seconds and cost two credits, the same as the main cut.

What you need and what you do not

You need a logline and an account. You do not need actors, a camera, a location or editing software. You do not need to write prompts for a video model either, because the beat sheet is the prompt: the genre tone, the shot size and the cast references are added for you when a beat is shot. What you keep is the authorship. The structure is yours, the lines are yours, and the choice of what to reshoot is yours.

Made the same way

Each with the logline or beat that made it

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.

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.

Questions

How long does a short film take to make here?: Drafting a beat sheet takes under a minute. Each scene renders in a few minutes, and you can shoot several beats at once. A one-minute flick with eight beats is usually cut within an hour of writing the logline, most of which is you reading takes and deciding what to reshoot.
Do I write the beats or does the drafter?: Either. The drafter writes a first pass from your logline and genre for two credits, and you edit it freely. You can also add a flick with no draft at all and type every beat yourself.
Who owns the flicks I make?: You do. The beat sheet, the scenes, the cut and the trailer are yours to download, publish or sell, within the terms of service. Because copyright treats generated work differently depending on the country, check with a lawyer where you live before relying on it commercially.
Is there a free trial?: New accounts receive two credits, enough to draft one beat sheet and read it. Shooting scenes needs a plan or a credit pack.
What if a scene is not what I wanted?: Shoot the beat again. Credits for a scene are spent once the render starts, so an unwanted take is not refunded, but the previous take stays in your library and you choose which one the cut uses.

Start with the sample logline, or your own

The studio opens with this logline, genre and runtime filled in. Change anything.

Write your logline