Available today: free screenwriting, and a storyboard generated from your screenplay with Storyboard Beta, $9.99 a month.
Coming: video generation of each shot with the Filmmaker plan, targeted for 30 September 2026.
Examples
A boy caught by a swarm of creatures in a dark cave. A 90s cel look with hard shadows.
The wind steals Hana's letter and Ren leaps to catch it. The same heroine as the scene below, in a second story.
A hall of empty armour and one small figure at the far end. From Lost Garden, a dark fantasy anime series.
Two knights row across a lake in the mist. Episode 2 of the series whose pilot was a finalist at the AI London Festival.
One scene, script to cut
EXT. ROOFTOP, OLD DISTRICT - DAY
Wind over the roofs. HANA (15), pink hair, a plaster on her cheek, yellow raincoat, stands at the ledge. Only her hair moves.
Below her, the whole city under a grey haze. Not one sound comes up from it.
Her eye widens. The pupil tightens. Something moved down there.
HANA
(barely a breath)
It's coming back.
The wind doubles. She plants her feet, clenches her fist and leans into it.
HANA
Not this time.
SMASH CUT TO:
Close-up · the hold
Close-up on Hana, pink hair whipping in the wind, plaster on her cheek, worried eyes, clouds behind. A hold: only the hair moves.
Over the shoulder · the city
Past her blowing hair, the city from the rooftop ledge under a grey haze. Painted background, slow pan.
Extreme close-up · the eye
Extreme close-up of one eye, brown iris, two highlights, the pupil shrinks. Under two seconds, no camera move.
Medium · low angle
Low medium shot, she gasps, mouth open, fringe flattened by the wind, clouds racing behind her.
Low angle · the resolve
Strong low angle, teeth clenched, fist rising into frame, raincoat snapping in the wind. The longest cut of the scene.
Writing anime
Anime cuts last two to three seconds. Write one image per action line, and each line becomes a cut on the board. The scene above is five lines of action and five cuts.
Anime acting lives in the eyes, the mouth and the reaction shot. Write the reaction as action: her eye widens, the pupil tightens. That line is the extreme close-up.
Anime moves little and holds a lot: a face that stays still while the hair moves, a pan across a painted city. Write the holds, and save full motion for one moment per scene.
Give each character one silhouette, one hair colour and one detail that never changes, like Hana's plaster. Put them in the character description so every cut repeats the model sheet.
Structure and pacing
10 %
A hook before any setup: a strange image, a line, a scream.
25 %
The characters in their normal. Holds, small acting, cheap to animate.
20 %
Something breaks in. Reaction shots, eye close-ups, shorter cuts.
25 %
The one sequence where everything moves: action, impact frames, speed.
20 %
A quiet wide, a last line, and the hook for the next episode.
For a vertical episode of sixty to ninety seconds, keep the cold open under three seconds and give daily life two cuts at most.
Shot vocabulary
The most anime cut there is. One eye fills the frame and tells you the feeling.
extreme close-up of an anime character's eye, large glossy iris, two white highlights, clean line art, flat cel shading, hair strands crossing the frame
The character stays still, only hair and clothes move. Cheap, and very expressive.
medium close-up, anime character standing still, hair and coat blowing in strong wind, clouds drifting behind, limited animation, held pose
A painted background seen past a character. It sets the world without a line of dialogue.
over-the-shoulder past a character's hair, wide view of a hazy city from a rooftop ledge, painted anime background, atmospheric perspective
The moment the character decides. Low camera, big sky, foreshortened fist.
low angle, anime heroine clenches her fist and leans into the wind, dramatic foreshortening, cloudy sky, cel-shaded rim light
A few frames of pure graphic shock at the hit. The heart of a sakuga sequence.
anime action impact frame, high-contrast black and white flash, speed lines, smear frames, dynamic camera, fluid sakuga-style motion
Eyes wide, pupils shrunk, a sweat drop. The reaction shot that sells the threat.
close-up anime reaction, eyes wide with shrunken pupils, sweat drop, mouth open, speed lines in the background
The camera slides over a painted image while nothing moves. The classic limited-animation pan.
slow horizontal pan across a detailed painted anime background, no character motion, soft evening light
Two characters face to face against a low sun. The end of so many episodes.
two anime students face each other on a school rooftop at sunset, warm backlight, lens flare, cel-shaded rim light, city below
Light and palette
Anime light is cel shading: one flat base colour, one hard shadow tone and a highlight, with no soft gradients on the characters. The softness goes into the painted backgrounds. The five colours below were sampled from the Hana in the wind cuts. Hair and raincoat are her colour keys: keep their values in every prompt and she stays the same girl.
Hair magenta
#C6587A
Raincoat ochre
#A78548
Sky blue
#7E96BC
Cloud sepia
#B4A090
Ink line
#101B25
Where AI goes wrong
Models glide at 24 frames per second. Anime moves on twos and threes, with holds. Keep camera moves simple in the board, write the holds, and retime to 12 or 8 frames per second in the edit.
Eye size, jaw and hair change between cuts. A model sheet with front, three-quarter and profile views keeps them on model: ScreenWeaver carries characters and references from shot to shot.
Skin gets soft shading and the line disappears. Ask for clean line art, flat cel shading, two-tone shadows, and reject any cut with gradients on the faces.
Lip flap and fingers break first. Anime itself hides them: put dialogue over reaction shots, back views and off-screen lines, and give hands their own cut on the board.
Sub-genres
Rivals, training, fights. Build each episode toward one sakuga sequence, and board the fight move by move.
School rooftops, trains, summer evenings. Long holds, painted skies and small acting, like Hana and Ren.
Machines with a pilot inside. Cockpit close-ups, low angles and one model sheet per machine so the design never drifts.
Another world, its rules and its creatures. Establishing wides and a location reference for every place, like Lost Garden.
More genres
The pipeline
An industry-standard screenplay editor, and more: a visual outline and beat editor, your writing inspirations (notes, photos, audio) kept next to the page, and an AI researcher to support your writing, not replace it.
Shot breakdown generated from your screenplay, manual control over every shot (frame, angle, movement, duration), and generative AI previsualization in one click.
Footage generation pipelines connected to your screenplay and storyboard. Optimized out of the box, fully editable workflow.
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