Here's the workflow we use to go from an idea to the shots of a finished short — in an afternoon, not a week.
Updated October 2026: Nolan is now chat-first. The storyboard and built-in timeline editor described in the original version of this post are no longer part of the product, so this walkthrough covers generating the shots in Nolan and cutting them in your own editor.
1. Start with the beats
Open a new chat and write your idea as 5–8 beats, one per shot. Keep each beat concrete: who is in frame, what happens, how the camera moves. Tell Nolan the orientation once (9:16 for social, 16:9 for cinematic) and ask it to keep it for every shot. In Agent mode it will turn the beats into a shot plan with a prompt for each one.
2. Cast your characters first
If your film has a recurring person, ask Nolan to create them before generating scenes: describe the face and wardrobe, approve the look it proposes, and that look becomes the character's Current Look. Name the character in the chat and Nolan uses it for every shot, which keeps the same face across takes.
3. Generate the shots, one approval at a time
When the agent is ready to generate, you get an approval card for each shot showing the model, the length and the estimated credits. Nothing is generated or charged until you approve it, so you can cancel a shot and ask for a change first. Prefer to drive? Switch to Manual, pick the model yourself — Kling 3.0 for stylised motion, Seedance 2 when someone speaks — and send the prompt straight to it. Make two or three takes of a shot if the first isn't right.
4. Cut it together
Every clip stays in its project, under Assets. Download the takes you like and assemble them in the editor you already use — trim, reorder, add music and voiceover there. Nolan does not have a built-in editor today. For a short piece you may not need one: a single Seedance clip can contain several shots with natural cuts, and Seedance 2.5 renders up to 30 seconds in one take.
A few hard-won tips
- One camera move per shot. Two reads as chaos.
- Give the model time words — "slow dolly in over 6 seconds" beats "cinematic".
- Settle the aspect ratio early; switching orientation halfway wastes credits.
- Generate at 720p while exploring, then re-generate the winners at 1080p/4K.