# Plan a video before it is built

> Shape the brief, script and storyboard with your agent, see the credits, approve once, and watch the scenes get made.

Formats Studio docs · Agents · https://formats.app/docs/planner · Updated 2026-10-22

## When the planner opens

When you ask your agent for something new, such as a launch film, an explainer or an avatar video, its first answer is a plan, and the **planner** opens in place of Home instead of an empty editor, with your conversation docked at its bottom. The editor loads behind it. Edits of media you brought, such as captions or trimming pauses, go straight to the editor: there is nothing to plan.

A plan the agent makes once you are already editing shows as a card in the chat instead, with its scenes, the credits it needs, **Change with chat** and **Run plan**.

## The plan, in four tabs

| Tab | What it holds |
| --- | --- |
| **Brief** | The goal, audience, platform (which sets the frame and pacing), pacing, length, tone, call to action, brand kit, and the agent's questions with your answers |
| **Script** | Each scene with its beat, picture, time span, narration, on-screen text, voice, pace, credits and sources. Click the narration to edit it in place; **Enter** keeps it |
| **Storyboard** | A frame per scene and where its picture comes from: your footage, stock, generated, an avatar or a code layer |
| **Assets** | What you gave, what was found and read (each page with its site and the facts taken from it), and what will be made |

The column on the right adds it up: the length against the target, the scenes, frame and voice, and the credits against your balance.

## Change the plan

- Ask in the chat at the bottom, such as **Make scene 2 punchier** or **Give me 3 hooks**, or press one of the suggestions above it. The agent revises the plan in place; options it offers appear under their scene with **Use**. It is the same chat as in the editor: when you open the editor, it moves into the editor's chat column.
- Edit the brief and the narration yourself. The length and credits follow your words as you go.
- Every change, yours or the agent's, is a new version under **Versions**. Click an earlier one to go back to it, and `⌘Z` undoes a change.

## Comments, outlines, voice and pacing

- **Comment on a phrase**: select words in a scene's narration, press **Comment** and write what should change. The comment stays on those words while the text around them changes; your agent reads your comments, reworks the lines and resolves them, or press **Resolve** yourself.
- **Other ways to tell it**: ask for **Give me 3 outlines** and the agent offers whole outlines, each with its idea, scenes and length. **Use this outline** makes it the script; the plan before stays under Versions.
- **Voice and pace per scene**: each scene follows the plan's voice and pace until you pick its own from its **Voice** and **Pace** menus. Press the play button beside a voice, in the Brief or a scene, to hear a sample.
- **Pacing**: the strip above the script shows each scene as a bar across the running length, as tall as its words are dense, with the target length marked. When the music has a tempo, **Cut on the beat** ends every scene on a beat; scenes only ever grow to the next beat, so no line is cut short.
- **Sources**: when your agent researched the video, each scene shows the pages its facts come from; click one to open it.

## Save it as a blueprint

**Save as blueprint**, under Versions, keeps the plan for your next videos: the request that started it, its look (frame, voice, length and caption look), its brief and its scenes. It is saved in your workspace and shows first among the blueprints under the composer, on Home and in the chat. Choose it to fill the composer; when you send, your agent starts the new plan from its brief and scenes. Saving again under the same name replaces it. You can also ask your agent to save a finished project as a blueprint. To remove one, open **More blueprints** (or **Blueprints** in the assistant), hover the saved blueprint and use its delete button; videos already made from it stay as they are.

## Approve and build

Nothing is made or charged until you choose **Approve and build**. Formats checks the plan's credits against your balance first: when it is short, you see how many it needs with **Buy credits**, and nothing is approved. Once approved, the chat runs in Auto and the agent builds that version of the plan, spending up to the credits you approved without asking again.

> **Note:** Credits are the same estimate the paid steps charge: voiceover by its words, avatar video by its length, and generated pictures by their model. Footage, stock, code layers and music made on your Mac are free.

## Watch it build

Once you approve, the planner turns to the **Storyboard**, and each frame shows where its scene stands: **Queued**, **Making** with its progress, then **Ready** with a picture of the scene as built, drawn by the same renderer as your export. A frame lights up once, as its scene is made. The column on the right counts the scenes ready, and you can keep changing the plan while the rest builds.

## Open the editor, and come back

- **Open the editor now** is ready once two scenes are made: the chat slides into the editor's chat column and the editor appears around it, while the build carries on. When everything is made it reads **Open the editor**.
- In the editor, **Plan** at the top of the chat shows the plan scene by scene. Click a built scene to select its clips on the timeline and move the playhead to it: each scene is marked by a range marker over its span.
- **Back to the plan** under the Plan view returns to the planner the same way.

## Related

- [Work with your agent](https://formats.app/docs/agent): Choose Claude Code, Codex or GitHub Copilot, ask for edits in plain words, and review, apply or undo what it does.
- [Generate with AI](https://formats.app/docs/generate): Images, video, music, sound effects and voice from hosted models, priced before you start and added to your project.
- [Plans and credits](https://formats.app/docs/plans): What is free, what credits pay for, what Creator adds, and how credits are granted, spent and topped up.