Are you tired of writing the same old stories? Do you want to create something truly unique? With Story Studio, our new story generation website, you can do just that!
In this tutorial, we'll show you how to create a short video with an original story made with the help of AI, but created by you - the author.
Getting Started
To get started, head over to our website and sign up for an account. Once you're logged in, you'll see the dashboard where you can see a selection of stories. Later, you’ll be able to see your own stories here. Click ‘New Story’ in the top right hand corner to begin creating your story.
Step 1. Creating Your Storyline
The first step in creating your story is to give us your basic idea. Story Studio uses AI to create a fully original story based on your inputs. You'll be amazed at the results!
Story Studio can greet you with a series of questions designed to help you begin creating a story from scratch or leave it open for you to write.
Click the ‘Help me get a story idea’ button if you need help with writing an outline. Click ‘I have an idea’ if you already wrote an outline of your story.
We’ll go with the first option here, as it helps you create an outline. The other option will skip these first steps and take you directly to the outline editor.
First, tell us about who your audience is. This will influence the themes and the tone of the generated story. I want to create a bedtime story for Max, a 5 year-old boy who has trouble falling asleep every night. I’m going to make him the protagonist of the story.
To help us further define how to generate the story, tell the Story Studio why you are creating your story.
Is it to serve a specific function? Is it meant to amuse someone? Have a specific message? Or perhaps it is meant to help to come to terms with a specific issue?
Here, we’re trying to help Max with his problem, which is his reluctance to go to sleep.
Now for the big one: which genre do you want to work with? Is this a high fantasy tale of valor, or is it an account of a meeting of star-crossed lovers? Or is it about a famous historic figure? A star pilot?
The sky is the limit here, this choice is meant not to stifle creativity but to open up the path of imagination. I’m going to go for a ‘Children’s Story’ here, of course.
In this step, you get the first overview of the proposed storyline. The genre selection is at the top, then there is a list of characters in your story, along with a brief description of their character (but not their appearance).
You can have 3 characters or less to make the story concise and coherent. Max is already there, but I’ll add Max’s favourite plushie, the formidable dinosaur Rex.
Below the character area, you will see the story outline. You can edit it as you wish, change individual plot points, the ending, you can make it longer or shorter.
In a word: you can do whatever you like and let your imagination run free. It’s particularly important with children’s stories that everything is just right.
If, on the other hand, you find that the proposed storyline does not inspire you in any way, just click the ‘Try again’ button at the top, and a new story based on your previous inputs will appear. Once you are satisfied that the story is what you wanted, click ‘Create this story’ to proceed to the next step.
Step 2. Basic story parameters
This step is pretty self-explanatory: you have to choose the aspect ratio for your project.
As a rule of thumb, shorter videos of under 60 seconds (meant to be shared as youtube or instagram reels or facebook stories) can be most easily shared in a vertical format. Longer stories are best viewed in horizontal format. '
If your outline consists of 6 to 8 short sentences, it may well be a short reel. If it takes up more than a single line per plot point, it’s likely to be a bit more epic in scope.
Don’t worry, Story Studio will tell you how long your video is likely to be. But it’s important to make the right choice here, as you won’t be able to change it later.
I’ll share the story with Max directly, and I’ll make it a bit longer so I’ll go with the horizontal format.
You should also carefully think of visual styles: which would best fit your story? Just remember that there is some overlap between themes and visual styles here, so if you choose Neonpunk, it may be difficult to set your story in the scenery of lush, rolling hills. For our use case, storybook is precisely what we need so I’ll go with that.
Step 3. Adjusting Character Appearance
Now it’s time to design your characters. Based on the list and general descriptions from the outline step, Story Studio is going to generate a visual description, serving as a prompt to generate the image of your characters in different situations.
Here is our protagonist Max. The image is great, but the visual description is perhaps a bit long and a bit vague.
Remember to be specific and concise. The more particular the description, the easier it is going to be to reproduce a recognizable character. The shorter the description, the more likely it is that each detail is going to appear in your image.
I wanted Max to be a 5-year old boy. Young can mean anything from a child to a teenager, so we’ll have to be more specific here.
Try not to use anything describing emotion. As the story develops, you should be able to have your protagonist react to events with varied facial expressions; specifying any emotions here will make it more difficult.
Here you can see what happens if the age isn’t defined enough. Max is wearing his blue, star-patterned pajamas, but he’s a bit older than we want him to be.
Adjust the prompt and click ‘Generate’ to see a new version of your character. Once you’re certain you have who you want, click ‘Confirm character change’.
You’ll be taken back to the ‘Story Characters’ page. Repeat the same process for all the characters if you’re not 100% happy with their appearance.
Once you’re satisfied, can click ‘Continue to the storyboard’ to go to the editor. Just be careful, because once you move forward, you won’t be able to return to this step and adjust your characters.
Step 4. Editing Your Storyboard
Now we can see our storyline come to life. The storyboard is where you put your ideas into action. It consists of a sequence of images paired with voiceovers, generated by the Story Studio. Musical score will be added in the final step to create a fully immersive experience.
First, let’s discuss the narration. It’s accessed via the speech bubble icon in the top left-hand corner of your shot. This is the text that will be spoken out loud by the speaker. Edit the narration as required.
Once you’re satisfied with the voiceover, you can adjust the image. Click the picture icon below the speech bubble to access the relevant options.
You can choose the character who is in the scene, what the character does, and the location where they find themselves. Remember to keep the prompts short and specific for best results. Click ‘Generate’ to see the results of your changes.
You will always get two images for each generation. Repeat this process until you get an image that fits your story.
Once you went through the entire story and you’re happy with the images and the narrations, you are ready to export.
Story studio generated a title for you. You can edit it if you like. The number next to the little diamond icon tells you what the cost of your story is, and if you click it, you will get an estimated length of your video. Shorten voiceovers if you want a shorter video.
And, if you’re happy with everything - click ‘Export’! Story Studio will start generating your video.
Step 5. Export and Share
You’ll be taken to your video page. Here’ you can get a shareable link to your video, download it, delete it, or change its title.
Take a look at the video we created for Max and his friend Rex the plushie dinosaur!
Conclusion
With Artflow’s new Story Studio, anyone can create their own original story in just a few easy steps. Whether you're a writer, filmmaker, or just someone looking for a fun new project, Story Studio has everything you need to create a story that's uniquely yours.
So why wait? Head over to Artflow.ai and start creating your own AI-generated story today!
