Continuity is the whole problem
A scene is not a set of images, it is a set of relationships. The same character, the same wardrobe, the same time of day, the same lens language — held across shots that may be built days apart by different people.
Every previs tool in history has solved this by making the artist hold it in their head and their file naming. That works until the third revision, at which point the folder contains character_v4_FINAL_use-this and nobody is certain which shots were rebuilt against it.
The canvas stores those relationships instead of asking you to restate them. A character reference is a node other shots draw from. Changing it changes them, in dependency order, and the shots that do not depend on it are provably left alone.
From treatment to previs
Establish the look
Palette, lens language, grade direction and time of day become nodes before any shot exists. These are the rules everything else inherits.
Build the characters
One identity node per character, with wardrobe as a connected branch so a costume change is a variant rather than a different person.
Build the locations
A place, with its light. Shots set there draw from it, which is why the sun does not move between two shots of the same afternoon.
Board the scene
Each shot is a node fed by the character, the location and its own coverage. The connections are the continuity; the direction is only what is specific to that shot.
Read it as a sequence
The director stage reads the same graph in order, with duration and notes. It is a second reading, not an export — a change on the canvas is a change in the cut.
Revise
A note on the wardrobe changes one node. Every shot with that character re-runs; the establishing wide that does not include them does not.
Where it sits in the pipeline
| Stage | This tool | Your existing tools |
|---|---|---|
| Development and treatment | Look development, tone, reference | — |
| Shot listing | The sequence is the list | Whatever your AD prefers, exported |
| Previs | Yes — this is the core case | — |
| Production | — | Everything |
| Editorial, grade, sound, conform | — | Everything |
This is development, previs and look development. Final delivery goes through your grade, your sound and your conform, and nothing here tries to enter that part of the pipeline.
Honest about the hard part
Long-form continuity remains the hardest unsolved problem in this field, for us and for everyone. A graph does not make a model hold a face perfectly across sixty shots — it makes the drift visible and fixable in one place rather than hunted across forty files.
Expect to intervene. The realistic workflow is that the structure carries eighty per cent and you correct the rest deliberately, which is still a different job from rebuilding a set from scratch after every note.
Questions from production
Can I export an EDL or an XML?
Not in this build. Sequences come out as media and reference. If timeline interchange is what would make this usable for you, say so — that request shapes what gets built.
How does this compare to a 3D previs package?
Different strengths. A 3D previs gives you exact camera, lens and staging with geometry you can measure. This gives you the look, the light and the feel much faster and with no modelling. Serious productions will use both; this one is for the earlier and looser end.
Can the writers room use it?
That is one of the better uses. A visual reference attached to a beat travels between departments considerably better than a paragraph does.
Is anything we build confidential?
Your projects are private by default and are not used as training data. For a production with contractual security requirements, write to us with the requirement — on-premise deployment is on the roadmap under Later and we would rather tell you that than imply it exists.
What happens when a model we relied on is deprecated?
The graph survives. Nodes hold prompts, settings, inputs and previous results, so a project remains readable and re-runnable against a different provider. This is the main practical reason the adapter layer exists.