Make a song and a music video

Make a music video from your idea, and the song is made from it too. You can also make a song on the Songs page first, or start from a song file you already have.

Make a music video from your idea

1. Open Music Video.
2. Under Add your song, select Make the song from my idea.
3. Pick the song length: 15 s, 30 s or 60 s. Only the lengths your plan allows show.
4. Write your idea in the story box: what the song is about, its style, and who sings. The singer writes the words from it, in the language of your idea.
5. Select Generate Video. The song is made first, then the video is made with it. The video's price includes the song.

To write the words yourself, use Or write the words yourself on the Songs page under the tiles.

You can also type a music-video idea on Video Story. When your idea asks for a sung song, Generate shows Your idea asks for something different with the music video's price. Select Make the music video to make it at once: the song is written and sung from your idea, then the video is made from the song. Select Make a story instead for a narrated story with no song. The same box tells you when your idea asks for a vertical (9:16) or horizontal (16:9) video and the shape setting is the other one.

Make a song

1. Select Songs in the sidebar, or open Songs.
2. In the box at the top, describe your song: what it is about, how it sounds, who sings.
3. Genre and Mood are optional menus. A pick adds its word to your description. If no genre in the list fits, keep Any genre and describe the style in your own words.
4. Open the menu that shows Auto lyrics and choose the words:
   • Auto lyrics: the singer writes the words.
   • My lyrics: a Lyrics box opens. Write the words the singer sings.
   • Instrumental: no vocals.
5. Select the button that shows the song length, then set Length. The range for your plan shows under the slider.
6. Select Create song. The button shows the price. The price follows the length, so a longer song costs more.

The song shows at the top of your songs with Making your song. You can leave the page meanwhile. When it is ready, you can play it. If it failed, the page says why.

If the page says Your plan does not include song audio., your plan cannot make songs.

Text limits

• The song description: up to 1,000 characters.
• Lyrics: up to 3,000 characters in all, and up to 200 characters on each line. A line ends where you press Enter, so put each phrase on its own line. When a line is longer, the page tells you which line, and no credits are used.

Use your songs

• Make a music video opens Music Video with the song already added.
• More actions (the three dots) has Reuse, Download, and Delete song.
• Reuse fills the form with that song's description, lyrics, and length. A song that is made does not change. To change its lyrics, select Reuse, edit the Lyrics, and select Create song. This makes a new song, at the price on the button.
• Download saves the song as an MP3 file. Downloading needs a paid plan; without one, Download opens the plans.
• After Delete song, a music video made from the song keeps its audio.
• To play a song as background music in another video, add it in the editor. See Turn sound effects and music on or off.

Make the music video

1. On a song, select Make a music video. To use your own file, open Music Video, select Click to upload your song, then Choose Song File. The page takes an mp3, wav, m4a, or ogg file of up to 128 MB from your device. It has no field for a link, so a link to a song on another site does not work.
2. Under Add your song, check the name and length. The song sets the video's timing.
3. Under Describe the visuals, you can describe the scenes, the mood, and what the characters do (optional). It is one box for the whole song. The page has no field for each lyric line.
4. Under Choose project elements, select the characters, locations, and objects that appear (see Make sure your saved characters appear in the video). The singing switch is right under them.
5. Under Animation, pick a preset. The singing switch follows it.
6. Select Generate Video.

If the song is too long for your plan, Song Too Long opens and shows the limit.

What you can change, and when

A music video has no script step. The song is the script: the app takes the words and their timing from your song file, and plans the scenes from them. The singing you hear is the song file itself.

• Before you select Generate Video: everything on the page.
• To change the words: change the lyrics and make a new song (see Reuse above), then make a new music video from it. For a file from outside the app, change the file first.
• After the video is made: you can fix single shots in the editor. See Fix one shot and Fix the singing in one shot below. You cannot edit the words there, add cards, or change who sings a line. The song is the sound of the video, so you cannot add background music to it.
• Add a shot works in a music video. The new shot takes the end of the shot before it, and nobody sings in it. Describe it without spoken lines: a music video has no spoken lines.

Let the characters sing

The Characters sing the lyrics switch decides if a character performs the song on camera.

• It works on Pro and Ultra (paid plans), and is on by default there.
• On Mini and Fast, the switch stays off. The characters act while the song plays.
• No animation makes still images, so nobody sings on camera.
• With the switch on and at least one character selected, pick a Lead singer or Let the story decide. The lead singer sings most lines. Another character sings a line only when the story hands it to them. The page has no control that gives each line to one singer.
• Turn the switch off when the characters must act the story and not sing.

Fix the singing in one shot

You can film one shot again. The singer and the words of each line stay the same.

• A shot made from a storyboard (a new Pro music video) shows Edit video. Write what to change, select See the price, then the button with the price. The new video keeps its part of the song, and the same characters sing the same lines. See Fix one shot.
• Other shots show Re-animate. A shot that sang before sings again, unless you choose Mini or Fast in the box. A shot that did not sing does not start to sing.

The editor cannot give a line to another singer. The singers come from your Lead singer or Let the story decide choice when you make the video.

How Pro films a music video

On Pro, a new music video is filmed from storyboards. Each clip covers up to 14 seconds of your song: first a storyboard of its shots is drawn and checked, then the clip is filmed from it, with your song as its sound. Inside one clip, each shot lasts at least 2 seconds.

• Every clip plays exactly its part of the song, so the song never goes out of time.
• You hear your song, not the sound of the clips.
• To change what happens in a clip, edit its motion description, edit a panel of its storyboard, or use Edit video. The clip keeps its part of the song.
• The price of a Pro music video does not change.

On Ultra and the other presets, music videos are made as before.

For other videos, see Lip sync: when mouths move with the words.