An AI short film maker that starts from one line

It does the jobs a small crew would: someone writes a script, someone casts it, someone storyboards every shot, someone films the takes and someone cuts them together. An AI short film maker takes all of those on, so the only thing you have to bring is the idea.

nokeep Studio is built around that order. You write one line, such as “a jellyfish the size of a church drifts down a rainy street at dusk,” and Studio works through script, cast, pictures and film, showing you each stage as it lands. You can step in at any point, and nothing is filmed until you have seen what it is going to film.

Step 1: Write the idea. Type what happens, in a sentence. Pick a look, a length and a shape (vertical, square or wide), or leave the defaults. With no idea at all, leave the line empty and the Director pitches three to choose from.

Step 2: Read the script. Studio writes it as takes: what is said, what happens, where the camera is and what is heard in each one. Change any of it by hand, or ask the Director to.

Step 3: Meet the cast. Studio casts the film for you, or you pick people from your own library, from a ready-made cast, or describe someone new in a line. Each character gets a picture in the film’s look, and keeps it for every film you put them in.

Step 4: See the pictures, then film. Studio draws the places and the opening frame of every take, so you see the storyboard before anything moves. When you are happy, press Make the film; the takes are filmed and joined into one film you can watch and download.

The Director is a chat that sits beside your film and knows all of it: the script, the cast, the pictures and the takes. Ask it in plain words, such as “make the ending sadder,” “give the old sailor a beard,” or “cut the second scene,” and it changes the film to match.

It also works before there is a film. Ask it to pitch ideas, to tighten a script that runs long, or to explain why a scene is there. You decide what gets filmed; the Director only proposes.

Studio is for paying accounts: it comes with every nokeep plan, or you pay per film with credits. Before anything is filmed, Studio shows the price of the pictures and the filming, worked out from the script, and that price is the most you are charged.

With credits, writing a film costs 135 credits ($0.14) and a new picture 300 credits ($0.30); on a plan the writing is included. Filming is priced by length, so a longer film costs more than a short one. Credits never expire, and they are not refundable once bought.

Your films are saved on your device, in this browser, not in an account. Our server holds a film only while it is being made or changed, then deletes it within the hour. Use Download to keep a copy anywhere else, or to move it to another device.

Up to 2 films can be drawing or filming at once on one account; another one starts as soon as one of them is done.

One clear image beats a plot summary. “A lighthouse keeper finds a letter in a bottle addressed to her” gives Studio a person, a place and a turn to build on; “a story about loneliness” gives it a mood and little else.

Short films hold one idea. A ten-second film is one moment; a minute can hold a small scene with a beginning and an end. If the idea is bigger than that, make it a series instead, so the same cast can carry it over several episodes.