Two numbers decide the cost of a story film: how many scenes the director writes and which video tier animates them. Everything else (screenplay, cast, voices, music, editing) is small next to the video. Once you understand how length becomes scenes and when each charge happens, the price line in the wizard stops being a surprise and becomes a tool.
Length to scenes
The length target sets a budget in seconds, and the director fills it with scenes whose durations come from a fixed list. Draft and Standard scenes are 5 or 10 seconds; Cinema scenes are 4, 6 or 8 seconds. A 60-second target becomes roughly 6 to 8 scenes, a four-minute story around 30. If the scenes add up to much more than the target, the director merges scenes rather than trimming sentences.
The director never cuts a story to fit. If the target is short it selects fewer events and writes shorter narration, keeping the spine of the story intact. That is deliberate: a four-minute story compressed into ninety seconds by speeding up narration is not a shorter film, it is a worse one. Auto measures the text at about nine characters of narration per second and suggests a length; if you pick a fixed target that is clearly too short, the wizard says so before you spend anything.
What is charged when
- At creation: the director run and up to five character sheets. If the story has fewer than five cast members, the unused sheet slots are refunded automatically.
- At production: one keyframe and one video clip per scene, one lip-sync per spoken line, narration recording, music and the final edit. The full amount is shown on the Ready screen before you confirm.
- On failure: anything that fails on our side is refunded to the wallet by the nightly refund job. A failed keyframe never triggers the video step, so a scene that goes wrong fails cheaply.
Reading the price line
The quote in the wizard shows two figures: what is charged now, and an estimate of production based on the suggested scene count. The Ready screen replaces the estimate with the exact figure computed from the real scenes and the real number of spoken lines. Your plan multiplier is already applied in both figures: Standard multiplies costs by 1.3, Basic by 1.0, Pro by 0.8. Editing a scene card on the Ready screen updates the price immediately, so you can see what a longer duration or an added scene costs before you commit.
Where the money goes
Per scene, the video clip is by far the largest item. The keyframe before it is one image generation, a small fraction of the clip. Lip-sync is charged only for scenes with a spoken line. Narration, music and the edit are shared across the film and small. This is why the tier choice matters more than anything else: the same thirty scenes on Cinema cost far more than on Standard, while the screenplay and cast cost the same either way.
Keeping it cheap while you iterate
- Produce a one-minute version first; check style, voices and pacing. Most creative decisions are visible in the first minute.
- Fix scene prompts or lines on the cards, regenerate only those scenes. Regenerating the whole film re-runs every clip.
- Keep the cast to the characters who actually speak or recur. Crowds belong in scene prompts, not in sheet slots.
- Use Draft or Standard for animatics; move to Cinema only for the final film, and only if motion matters more than the drawn look.
- Create the full-length film from the same text once you are happy. The screenplay step is inexpensive and the cast can be reused.
Pricing principles
Every operation is priced from its real provider cost with a fixed margin, and the pricing page reads the same live table the app uses. There are no hidden fees; the token cost you see is the one that is deducted. Tokens come from your plan's monthly allowance first, and from packs when the allowance runs out. Some operations include a few free uses per month, which the cost table shows next to the operation.
Frequently asked
Why does the Ready price differ from the wizard estimate? The estimate is based on the suggested scene count; the Ready figure is computed from the scenes the director actually wrote and the lines actually spoken.
Are the character sheets refunded if I never produce the film? No. The screenplay and the sheets are the work done at creation; only unused sheet slots and failed generations are refunded.
Does a longer film get cheaper per second? No. Video is priced per clip, and there is no bulk discount; a four-minute film costs roughly four times a one-minute film at the same tier.
What happens if a scene fails during production? That scene's charge is refunded by the nightly job and the film is finished with the remaining scenes; you can regenerate the failed scene afterwards.