Novel to storyboard

Adapt your novel.Scene by scene, shot by shot.

Give ScreenWeaver your book as a PDF. Your assistant creates the characters, the places and the scenes, then cuts them into storyboard shots. You read every step, and you generate the frames and the film in the app.

Adapt my first chapter See the Dracula example

Up to 300 pages per PDF
Characters, places, scenes, shots
With Claude, ChatGPT or in the app

Dracula · Film

The first page of Dracula by Bram Stoker, chapter 1, Jonathan Harker's journal — Novel · Chapter 1

Case study · Public domain

Dracula, from the 1897 novel to a storyboarded film.

We connected Claude to ScreenWeaver and gave it the whole PDF of Bram Stoker's novel. This is what came out, step by step.

The request
“Here is Dracula as a PDF. Adapt it as a gothic film: create the characters and the places, write the scenes, then cut them into shots.”

01
The novel
The full PDF, in the public domain.
02
The story bible
11 characters, 16 places and 8 objects, each with its sheet.
03
The script
32 scenes written for the screen.
04
The storyboard
177 shots, scene by scene.
A shot of the Dracula film: a carriage on a mountain road at night
05
The film
Generated in ScreenWeaver.

Scenes: 32; Scenes
Shots: 177; Shots
Characters: 11; Characters
Places: 16; Places

The assistant read, wrote and organised. The images and the video were generated in the app. The Dracula script was written in French.

How it works

From the PDF to the storyboard, in six steps.

This is the process as it runs today, with the names of the tools your assistant calls. You read each step before the next one.

01
Open a project
Ask the assistant in the app, or Claude or ChatGPT through the MCP, to create a film or a series. It gives you the link.
No credits
Tools called
- create_project
Set up the MCP
02
Give it the book
Attach the PDF. A PDF with a text layer is read for free. Scanned pages go through OCR, and the assistant asks before reading more than 20 of them. Up to 300 pages are read per file.
Free, OCR about ½ credit a page
Tools called
- extract_file_text
03
Create the cast and the places
The people, places and objects the story needs become story elements, each with a description. You review them in the app.
No credits
Tools called
- list_entities
- create_entities
04
Write the scenes
A novel is not a screenplay, so it is not imported as one: the assistant writes the adaptation scene by scene into your script. The previous version stays in History.
No credits
Tools called
- edit_script
05
Cut the scenes into shots
Each scene becomes shots with an action, a framing, a camera movement and a duration, citing the characters and places in frame.
No credits
Tools called
- create_shots
- update_shot
06
Generate in the app
Open Storyboard to generate the frames, then Production for the video. Generation never starts from the MCP: you decide what to spend.
Credits per frame and clip

Start with one chapter. You see what the assistant keeps, cuts and moves, and you steer the rest of the book from there.

Page to screen

A novel tells. A film has to show.

Adapting a book means deciding what the camera can see. The assistant drafts those decisions, and every one of them stays editable.

Your novel has	A film needs	In ScreenWeaver
Chapters	Scenes, each in one place and one time	The adaptation written scene by scene, with scene headings
Thoughts and narration	Things you can see or hear	Inner life turned into action, dialogue or voice-over, in the script you edit
Hundreds of pages	A running time	A film or a series project, condensed in the script
Descriptions of people and places	Characters and sets that stay the same	Story elements with a description and a reference sheet, cited in every shot
Dialogue inside the prose	Lines with a speaker	Dialogue in standard screenplay format
The reader's imagination	Framing, movement and duration	A shot list per scene that you can reorder, split or merge

The right column is what ScreenWeaver does today. The creative choices stay yours. The full method, step by step: How to turn a novel into an AI film

Before you import

Free to adapt does not mean free to take.

Dracula is free to adapt: Bram Stoker died in 1912, and his novel is in the public domain in Europe and in the United States. Most books are not.

Your own novel is the simplest case. You hold the rights, and your projects stay private.
Someone else's book needs the written agreement of its author or publisher, even for a fan project shared online.
The public domain depends on the country. In the European Union, a work becomes free 70 years after its author's death.
Work from the original text. A recent translation, an annotated edition or a film version can be protected even when the book is free.

Go further

Guides for adapting a book

FAQ

Novel to storyboard questions

Can ScreenWeaver turn a novel into a storyboard?

Yes. You give the book as a PDF to the assistant in the app, or to Claude or ChatGPT through the MCP. It creates the characters, places and objects, writes the adaptation as scenes, then cuts the scenes into storyboard shots. Dracula came out as 32 scenes and 177 shots.

How long can the book be?

Up to 300 pages are read per file, so a longer book goes in as several PDFs. A PDF with a text layer is read for free. Above 20 scanned pages, the assistant asks you before reading them.

Does it write the screenplay too?

Yes. The scenes and the dialogue are written in standard screenplay format, in the ScreenWeaver editor, where you rewrite them like any draft. Each change made by the assistant keeps the previous version in History.

Is it automatic, from book to film?

No. Each step is something you read and change: the story elements, the scenes, the shots. Then you start every generation of frames and video in the app. Asking for one chapter at a time keeps you in control of the adaptation.

Can I adapt a book into a series?

Yes. Ask for a series instead of a film: the project marks its episodes in one script, and you decide where each episode ends.

Do I need Claude or ChatGPT?

No. The assistant built into ScreenWeaver uses the same tools. The MCP is useful if you already work in Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Cursor or VS Code.

How much does it cost?

Reading a PDF with a text layer and writing the scenes and shots cost no credits through the MCP. OCR on scanned pages costs about half a credit a page. Frames and videos are paid in credits when you generate them. The storyboard, the video and the MCP come with the Auteur plan at $39.99 a month, with 6,000 credits a month.

Is my manuscript used to train AI models?

No. Neither ScreenWeaver nor the AI models it runs train on your content. An assistant you connect through the MCP follows its own data settings, which you manage in your Claude or ChatGPT account.