Editing the script and scenes

The Script tab in the Video Studio is where you refine the story before rendering. It's a flowing scene document — the same kind of editor used for the comic Script view — not a grid of cards with a separate edit panel. Each scene appears as a block headed "Scene NN", and you edit its fields directly in place.


For an overview of the Script / Storyboard / Video toggle and the rail, see The Video Studio: Script, Storyboard, and Video.



Editing a scene


Click into any field on a scene's block to edit it — narration, dialogue, setting, and so on are all editable directly in the document. There's no separate "Edit scene" panel to open, and changes save automatically. You can also ask Sidekick to rewrite a scene for you in plain language.


Fields you can edit


Field

What it controls

Narration

The voice-over text read aloud in this scene. Directly sets scene length (see below).

Dialogue

Lines spoken by specific characters. Each line has a speaker and text. Add, remove, or reassign lines in this scene.

Action / Description

What is happening in the scene — used by the AI to compose the visual.

Setting / Location

The environment for the scene, picked from your video's Locations.

Characters present

Which characters appear in the scene. Speakers added to a dialogue line are included automatically; silent characters must be added manually here.

Per-character avatar

The specific look (avatar) to use for each character in this scene.

Starting frame / Ending frame

Continuity anchors — a short description of what the camera sees at the very beginning and very end of the clip. Helps the AI maintain visual continuity between scenes.

Model / Time

Per-scene selectors with a live credit estimate — the AI model used to render this scene's clip, and its length. Models differ in how many reference images they accept and which durations they support; a scene carrying more references than its chosen model allows is blocked from rendering. See Choosing a model and scene length.


Storyboard frames for a scene (its opening and closing beat) are managed on the Storyboard tab, not here — see Storyboards.



How scene duration works


Scene duration is not set manually — it is calculated automatically from the word count of the narration and dialogue.


The calculation uses a natural narration pace of 1.4 words per second (roughly 84 words per minute). A 1-second breathing buffer is added after the last spoken word so the next scene's transition doesn't feel abrupt.


The result is clamped to a hard 4-second floor and a hard 15-second ceiling:


Word count

Approximate scene length

0 (silent)

4 s (minimum)

~5 words

~4–5 s

~10–15 words

~8–12 s (soft target range)

19 words

~14.5 s (hard maximum text budget)

20+ words

Scene text is trimmed to 19 words before rendering


Soft target: aim for 10–15 words of narration + dialogue per scene for a well-paced 8–12 second clip. Scenes above 19 words are flagged with a warning in the editor and the narration is trimmed automatically at render time to fit within the 15-second ceiling.


To make a scene longer, write more narration. To make it shorter, reduce the word count. You cannot type a specific duration into a field — the only exception is the scene's Time selector, which lets you pin the clip to one of the chosen model's fixed length options instead of using the automatic word-count calculation. See Choosing a model and scene length.


Once a scene has been rendered


The word-count figure is a prediction of how long the clip will need to be. Once the scene has actually been rendered, its listed duration switches to the real measured length of the clip you have, which is what the timeline and your finished video are built from.


Editing the text of an already-rendered scene therefore does not change its listed duration — the clip on disk hasn't changed, so neither has its length. Your edit is still saved, and the scene will use the new text (and get a new duration) the next time you render it.



Building and adding scenes


New videos start blank, with zero scenes. The primary way to build the script is to describe your story to Sidekick — it drafts scenes directly into the document as you talk, and keeps adding or rewriting scenes as you refine the story with it.


You can have up to 16 scenes per video. Each additional scene increases the total render cost — see Story Video credits and costs.



Removing scenes


Delete a scene directly in the document, or ask Sidekick to remove it for you. Scene deletion is permanent and cannot be undone.



Editing while a scene is rendering


The Script tab is always editable, even while scenes are rendering. Specifically:


  • You can edit the narration, dialogue, or any other field of any scene, and it saves automatically — regardless of whether that scene's render is in progress.
  • If you edit a scene that is currently rendering, those changes will be used the next time you render that scene. The in-flight render uses the script version that existed when it started.
  • While a scene is in-flight, it shows a Rendering… badge. Two actions are blocked for that scene during this window: Delete and Re-Render. All other edits are available.
  • Once a scene finishes rendering, the badge clears and the Re-Render button becomes available again. You can then re-render it with your updated text.


A finished, rendered, or even published video stays fully editable — there's no locked or read-only state. Edit narration, dialogue, or settings any time and re-render the affected scenes to bring the video back in sync.



Scene order


Scenes are ordered by position in the document. Drag-and-drop reordering is disabled — to move a scene, ask Sidekick to reorder it for you.




Updated on: 17/08/2026

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