Add chapter cards

Break a longer film into chapters with full-frame title cards in the kit's style.

A chapter card is a full-frame title between shots, such as "Chapter three: Share it". It is drawn in the style of the kit's open, and the film dissolves into it and out again. Cards help a longer film feel like a sequence of short, clear steps.

How a card works

• A card is a line in the storyboard with a card instead of a shot.
• It has no voice-over, and nothing happens in the app during it.
• It stays on screen for 2.8 seconds unless you change it.
• It is made with the open and close, in every shape the film is cut in.
• Every audience's cut keeps the film's cards, except a card with nothing left under it, which is left out too.

Add a card

Cards are added in the storyboard file, films/<film>/storyboard.json, or by asking Claude in Claude Code to add them.

1. Open the storyboard file.
2. Add a line where the chapter starts, with an id and a card, as in the example below.
3. Save the file.
4. Build the film. A build makes any card it does not have yet, with the open and the close.

To remake the cards after changing one (its title, say), click Bumpers under More stages on the film's Files panel, or run showreel bumpers in the terminal (below), then build again.

A card line looks like this:

{
  "id": "c3",
  "card": { "title": "Share it", "eyebrow": "Chapter three" }
}

Remake the open, the close and the cards from the terminal:

showreel bumpers compose

A build also makes any cards that are missing, so you can skip step 4 if you are building straight away.

Card settings

Cards and the voice

Because a card has nothing to say, the voice skips it. On a longer film, the voice is read in parts broken at the chapter cards, which keeps its pauses clean. See Voice takes.

What next

• Edit a storyboard
• Build a film