Getting started: from idea to film

Everything begins in the single prompt box on the home screen, under the word "Ready?". Whatever you have is enough:

• A full script or screenplay — paste it in as-is.
• A story or a few paragraphs describing what happens.
• A one-line idea, e.g. "A shy robot learns to paint in a rainy city."

You can also attach a PDF (a script or treatment) instead of typing. When you're happy, press the send arrow. If you're not signed in yet, runime asks you to continue with Google first — films are saved to your account.

There are two ways to work, chosen right inside the prompt box:

• Automatic — runime writes the whole screenplay from your idea and builds the film for you. This is the fastest path and the best place to start.
• Manual — you open an empty editor and build the shots yourself, scene by scene. You can still ask the AI to write it for you later.

For your first film, leave it on Automatic and just describe your idea.

Next to the prompt box is a row of small controls that shape the film. You can set them or leave them alone — sensible defaults apply.

• Style — the visual look. Options include Cinematic 3D, Realistic 3D, Classic 2D, Anime, Stop Motion, Claymation, Comic Book, Cel-Shaded, Pixel Art, Watercolor and more. Each style has an Example button that opens a famous reference clip so you know exactly what you're picking.
• Orientation / format — Widescreen (16:9), Cinemascope (21:9) or Classic (4:3) for cinema, and Vertical (9:16), Square (1:1) or Portrait (4:5) for social media.
• Length — from about 1 minute up to feature length (75 minutes), or Auto to let the story decide.
• Dialogue — Spoken, Narrated, Silent (no dialogue), or Auto. You can also pin the language the characters speak.
• Quality and Models — the resolution and which AI models do the work. Most creators leave Models on Auto, which lets runime pick the best model for each task.

Don't overthink these on your first run. Pick a style you like, choose Widescreen or Vertical depending on where you'll share it, and leave the rest on Auto.

When you send your idea, runime moves into production and shows a status screen cycling through the stages it's working on — outlining the scenario, planning characters, defining the mood, drafting the music direction, and so on. In Automatic mode it builds the whole film in a sensible order:

1. 1.Screenplay — your idea becomes a proper screenplay, split into scenes and shots.
2. 2.Characters, locations and props — the cast and world are designed as reusable reference boards, so a character looks the same in every shot.
3. 3.Scenes (the storybook) — each shot gets a still image built from those references.
4. 4.Videos — every still is animated into a moving shot.
5. 5.Voices, music and effects — dialogue is spoken with a consistent voice per character, plus a music track and sound effects on their own layers.

This takes a while, and it runs in the background — you can leave the page and come back. Generating uses tokens from your plan, so it's worth having an active plan before you start a longer film (see the Billing page).

Your film opens in the editor, where everything runime made is laid out and fully editable. You don't have to touch any of it — but you can:

• Read and tweak the screenplay, scene by scene, and edit any shot's text.
• Regenerate any image, video or voice line you're not happy with — each attempt is kept as a version you can switch between.
• Adjust characters, locations and audio — swap a voice, redesign a character, or move music and sound on the timeline.

When it's ready, press Play to watch the whole film with sound. To keep it, open Download: you can export the full film as an MP4 (with higher-resolution options) and the screenplay as a PDF. You can also Share a private link so others can watch, optionally protected with a password.

That's the whole journey — idea in, film out. Start simple, watch the result, and refine from there.

A few things that make the first result noticeably better:

• Give a little context. A one-liner works, but naming the main character, the setting and the feeling you want ("warm and hopeful", "tense thriller") gives the screenplay more to work with.
• Start short. A 1–5 minute film finishes faster and lets you learn the flow before committing to a feature length.
• Match style to story. Anime, Claymation and Watercolor each set a very different tone — use the Example button to preview before you commit.
• Pick the format for where it lives. Vertical (9:16) for phones and social, Widescreen (16:9) for a cinematic watch.
• Let it finish, then refine. Watch the whole film once before regenerating shots — small edits go a long way once you can see it in context.