> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.cyberun.cloud/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# How it works

> A one-page walkthrough of a project from script to exported cut, through the five sections of Cyberun Studio.

A Studio project moves through five sections, in the order a film
crew actually works. You can revisit any section once it's populated,
but the first time through a new project the recommended path is
straight down the list.

```mermaid theme={null}
flowchart LR
    Story["Story<br/>script and structure"]
    World["World<br/>characters, places, props"]
    Assets["Assets<br/>locked references and variants"]
    Shots["Shots<br/>composition, takes, rough cut"]
    Dubbing["Dubbing<br/>music, voice, sound effects"]
    Export["Export<br/>finished cut"]

    Story --> World --> Assets --> Shots --> Dubbing --> Export
    Shots -.->|edit then only<br/>affected shots re-render| World
    Shots -.->|edit then only<br/>affected shots re-render| Assets
```

The dotted arrows are the loop you'll actually live in once a
project is underway: a shot reveals something about the world or an
asset, you fix it once at the source, and only the shots that
referenced that source re-render. This surgical re-render is the
practical payoff of Studio's asset-first design.

## 1. Story

Paste or type a script. Studio reads it and proposes a structure:

* **Stages** — the high-level beats of the story (opening, turn,
  resolution).
* **Beats inside each stage** — the smaller narrative units, the
  size of "she walks across the room and picks up the photo".

You review the proposed structure, edit anything that's off, and
approve it. From this point on, every other section knows what the
story is and which beat each shot belongs to.

You are not committing to a final structure here. The structure is
editable for the life of the project; what you're doing in this
section is giving the rest of Studio a starting frame.

## 2. World

A story has a world. The World section is where you describe it:

* **Characters** — name, appearance, attire, voice, and any
  continuity notes ("always wears the locket", "left arm in a sling
  from stage 3 onward").
* **Locations** — the places the story happens in, with reference
  images and notes on what's distinctive about them.
* **Props** — objects that matter to the story.
* **Factions and relationships** — who's allied with whom, who
  knows whom, who hates whom.

The World section is the source of truth for every shot. Editing a
character's appearance here updates the locked reference that every
later shot will use.

## 3. Assets

Where World captures *who* and *what*, Assets captures *the look*.
For each character, location, or major prop, you lock a reference:

* One or more reference images that define the visual identity.
* Notes on what must stay the same between shots and what is free
  to vary.

Once an asset is locked, you can ask Studio for a **variant** of
it — the same character in a different outfit, the same location
at a different time of day, the same prop seen from a different
angle. You name the dimension you want to vary (angle, time of day,
weather, location, costume); Studio generates the variant from the
locked reference, so the identity is preserved while only that one
dimension changes.

This is the part where most AI video pipelines lose continuity. In
Studio, every variant traces back to one locked reference, so the
character on shot 2 and the character on shot 27 are the same
character.

## 4. Shots

Shots is the workshop. Here you:

* **Build the shot board.** Each beat becomes a row; each shot
  becomes a card on the row.
* **Compose each shot.** Pick which assets appear in the shot,
  describe the camera intent (framing, lens, movement), and
  generate the opening frame.
* **Direct the take.** A *take* is one generated version of the
  shot. Generate one or more takes from the composed opening frame.
  If a take captures what you wanted, accept it. If not, refine the
  composition and generate another take.
* **Chain shots into clips.** A shot can be a single short clip or
  a sequence chained together for longer continuous motion.
* **Assemble the rough cut.** A *rough cut* is a first assembly of
  shots in order, before audio polish. Drag the accepted takes into
  the order you want them to play.

The shot board can also flag continuity issues on a take — for
example, if a character's wardrobe in the generated take has
drifted from the locked asset, the take is marked for review
before it goes into the cut.

## 5. Dubbing

Sound is the last layer:

* **Music.** Describe the cue you want — style, mood, tempo, key,
  duration, and optional lyrics — and Studio composes it. Different
  cues can be assigned to different ranges of the cut.
* **Voice.** Provide a reference voice sample and Studio can speak
  any line in that voice. Multiple languages are supported for
  voice cloning so you can localise without recasting.
* **Sound effects.** Studio listens to the video and proposes
  effects that match what's on screen — the door creaks when the
  door opens. You approve, refine, or replace each effect.

When the audio layers are in place, the rough cut becomes the
finished cut.

## Export

Export is in development. Today the primary artifact is a **handoff
package**: a downloadable JSON manifest of the selected takes, with
each shot carried as a unit — its story trace, selected take, clip
summary, camera intent, sound plan, and readiness. The manifest
records, per package, whether an assembled video is available.

A single assembled **MP4** of the rough cut is available as an early
alpha path, produced locally from the selected takes and the
temporary audio. When local assembly isn't available, the package
keeps a watchable web preview as the truthful fallback, so you can
still review the cut in order. More finished render output is on the
roadmap.

## Concepts

Two ideas come up across every section.

### Asset-first

Single-prompt video tools take a sentence and try to generate
something that matches it; if the next clip doesn't line up with
the last one, the only fix is to roll again.

Studio inverts that. You lock the visual identity of each
recurring element — character, location, prop — before you start
generating shots. Every shot then resolves that identity through
the lock, not through a sentence of text.

The practical consequence: editing a character changes one
reference, not twenty shots. Re-renders are surgical, not whole-
project.

### Story structure vocabulary

Studio uses a deliberate vocabulary for the layers of a project,
so the same word means the same thing everywhere in the product:

| Term      | What it means                                                                   |
| --------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Story** | The whole project — one Studio project, one story.                              |
| **Stage** | A top-level chapter of the story. A short film has three to six stages.         |
| **Beat**  | A narrative unit inside a stage. "He walks over and shakes her hand" is a beat. |
| **Shot**  | A single camera framing. A beat is built from one or more shots.                |
| **Clip**  | A continuous segment of footage. A shot can be one clip or a chain of clips.    |

When something in the product mentions a "beat" or a "shot", it
means this exactly — there's no overlap or aliasing between layers.

## Next

* [Request access](/studio/request-access) to start a project of
  your own.
* For early-access enquiries write to
  [sales@cyberun.cloud](mailto:sales@cyberun.cloud).