How to make an educational video with AI

A lesson in Film Studio goes through the steps on DreamBench’s AI video generator page, with one more on a lesson of two minutes or more: a pilot. Here they are with the buttons you press.

Step 1: Write the lesson brief

1. 1Open Film Studio and pick the length, 2 to 5 minutes for most lessons, and the shape: 16:9 for a screen or a projector, 9:16 for a phone.
2. 2Write the brief: what the lesson teaches in one line, its look, who is in it, then each scene in order with the one idea it teaches. The template below has a line for each.
3. 3Under Who’s in it?, add pictures of anyone or anything that must look a certain way, such as a mascot or a lab, and cite each in the brief with @ and its name.
4. 4Set Film or lesson to Lesson, so the script teaches one idea per scene, in order, ends on a recap and adds no twists. Film Studio offers it when your brief reads like a lesson.
5. 5Leave the switch on Review each step and press Write the script.

Step 2: Read the script

1. 1Check that every scene teaches what you meant, in the order you teach it. A scene that explains the wrong thing costs the least to fix here.
2. 2Press Change under a shot to fix it with a note, or Rewrite with a note to change the whole lesson, then press Approve the script.

Step 3: Meet the cast

1. 1Check every sheet: the characters, the places and the props the lesson needs, in the look you asked for.
2. 2Draw new takes of any sheet that’s off, then approve the cast. On a lesson of two minutes or more, the button reads Shoot the pilot.

Step 4: Watch the pilot

1. 1A lesson of two minutes or more shoots a few of its shots first, about a tenth of it: its opening, in order.
2. 2Play them under Shots. If the look is right, press Shoot the rest: the pilot’s shots stay in the lesson as they are. If it isn’t, press Stop here, having paid for the pilot and nothing more.
3. 3To spend less at once, press Shoot the next shots instead: the lesson goes on a few shots at a time, each part paid alone. Each stop is cut together under Film, ready to download, upscale or continue.

Step 5: Fix any scene, then finish in 1080p

1. 1Watch the finished lesson, press Open shot editor and click any shot that misses: only that shot is made again.
2. 2When it’s right, press Upscale to 1080p under the film. Every shot stays as it is and the whole cut is sharpened; Download 1080p appears when it’s done.

With Review each step on, each step is paid as it starts, and the pilot and the rest add up to the price of shooting the whole lesson at once. Stopping after the pilot costs nothing more.

A lesson plans well when its brief names the idea of every scene; a scene the brief leaves out is one the writer invents. Copy this template, or press Insert a brief template under Film Studio’s composer, which offers it on a film of two minutes or more.

• In one line: what the lesson teaches, and to whom. “How plants turn light into sugar, for first-year biology students.”
• The look: one sentence that goes with every shot. “Black-and-white hand-drawn animation, chalk lines on a dark board, a slow camera.”
• Who’s in it: a guide character, if any, with a few details that stay true in every scene, or a picture under Who’s in it?.
• Where it happens: a classroom, the inside of a leaf, a lab. Fewer places hold together better.
• Scene by scene: one idea each, in teaching order, with what we see. Plan a scene for every 20 to 30 seconds.
• How it ends: the summary, or the question the lesson leaves its viewer with.
• Sound: music, sound effects, or a line someone says, in quotes after its speaker.

Put any number, formula or label you need on screen in your video editor afterward, over the picture. A video model draws letters as shapes and gets most of them wrong.

Long enough for one idea per scene, and no longer. A scene is usually 20 to 30 seconds of a lesson, made of two to four shots of 3 to 12 seconds each.

A lesson longer than one film

Make it in parts, and split it where one topic ends and the next begins. On a finished part, press Continue in a new film: the composer opens with the same cast, the same settings and a brief that starts where that part ends, in its look. Write what happens next, and the next part is shot with the same characters and places.

Most of a lesson’s price is its shots, and a shot costs more the sharper it is. Make the drafts at 480p, where every fix costs the least, and sharpen only the film you keep.

• Seedance 2.5 renders 480p, 720p and 1080p; the other models start at 720p.
• On Seedance 2.5, a five-minute film at 480p, upscaled to 1080p, costs about a quarter of the same film shot at 1080p.
• The upscale sharpens what the shots have; it can’t add detail they never had, so fine lines and small shapes stay soft. When every detail matters, shoot a short test at 1080p and compare.

The upscale is priced by the length of the film and shown on its button before you press it. If it fails, its credits come back.

The look is set once and goes with every shot. Write it in the brief, and the cast’s sheets are drawn in it too, so every scene matches.

• Black and white: say so, and how, such as “black-and-white hand-drawn animation” or “grainy black-and-white film”.
• Color: name the palette, such as “flat illustration in three colors: navy, coral and cream”.
• Two parts of one lesson: Continue in a new film carries the cast’s sheets into the next part and writes the first part’s look into its brief, so both parts match.
• One model for every part: a part made on another model draws its shots its own way.

The same face in every scene is character consistency; how a picture of yours reaches each shot is reference to video.

• Write readable text: labels, formulas, numbers and diagrams come out as shapes. Add them in an editor.
• Check its own facts: the script follows your brief, and a scene can still show something wrong. Read the script and watch every scene before you teach with it.
• Narrate a whole lesson: each shot’s sound is made with its picture, so a voice-over that runs across many shots is best recorded and added in an editor.
• Run longer than 5 minutes as one film: a longer lesson is made in parts.

Say a lesson is AI-made where it could mislead, and never put a real person in it without their consent.

When Film Studio is the better choice

• A lesson told as a story or a demonstration: characters, places and things that move.
• The same characters across many scenes and several parts.
• Fixing as you go: a scene at the script, a sheet at the cast, a shot in the finished lesson.

When another way is better

• A lesson that is mostly text, formulas or charts: slides and a recorded voice-over teach it better.
• A lesson about software: record the screen itself.
• Your own voice over every scene: record it and add it in an editor.

Film Studio’s price depends on the length, the model, the resolution and the sound, and is shown before you start; plans are on the pricing page. Planning many scenes in general is in how to make a multi-scene AI video, and the AI video prompt generator can turn a rough idea into a fuller brief.