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Look and style

Poster

How Poster videos work, and how to pick the sheet style, how each picture arrives, the camera and how fast it cuts.

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A Poster video shows one finished picture per scene, uncovered as the camera drifts across it. Nothing is drawn in front of you: the picture is already complete, and the motion comes from how it arrives, the camera and how often the video cuts.

Pick the Poster card on the create screen, then choose a Sheet style in the Style row. The other Poster options are in the Fine-tune drawer.

Sheet style

Sheet styleWhat it looks like
Sketchnote sheet (default)A worked page: a heading, half a dozen labelled doodles, a banner and one big arrow. The densest of these.
Stick figuresMarker and paper, with every person drawn as a bare stick figure. Objects and scenery stay drawn normally.
Coloured pencilInk cartoons on white sketchbook paper, coloured in with visible pencil hatching. No lettering.
Chalkboard doodleWhite chalk on a dark board, colour scribbled in as open hatching.
MarkerClean black line work with flat colour inside it.
Flat colourFlat shapes with almost no outline. The most modern and least hand-made.
DiagramEvery scene a hand-drawn information graphic: a heading, labelled boxes, arrows carrying labels.

How it arrives

How it arrives sets how each picture comes on screen:

  • Already there (default): no reveal. The finished picture is on screen as the scene opens, and the cut between scenes brings it on.
  • One thing at a time: each drawn thing lands on its own, in reading order, so the picture builds while the line is spoken. The build takes longer with this option.
  • Uncover: one ragged edge crosses the whole picture, the way paper comes off a finished sheet.
  • Write on: each thing is written on with a nib. Suits sheets that are mostly lettering.

Camera

Once the picture is there it holds still, so the camera is the only motion a Poster video has:

  • Slowly closer (default)
  • Slowly back
  • Hold still

There is no sideways pan. The picture is exactly the frame, so panning would move the view off its edge.

How fast it cuts

How fast it cuts sets how often the video changes framing:

OptionPace
SnappyA new framing every two to three seconds. Best for a short video or a light subject.
Steady (default)About four seconds a shot. Quick enough not to feel like slides.
RelaxedAround seven seconds a shot. For a subject that needs room, or a calmer narrator.

A faster setting does not add more pictures. Each scene keeps its one picture and is cut into several framings of it.

Other options

  • Behind them is always Plain paper. Every scene is one whole picture, so the place is inside the picture.
  • Real photos: Drawn only (default) or Allowed, which lets up to two scenes show a real photograph or screenshot on a card.
  • Character: each Poster scene is generated on its own, so anyone who appears is drawn fresh for that scene. If the same person has to carry the whole video, use the Drawn or Painted card instead. See Drawn and Painted.
  • Your own look: upload a reference picture to match a style. See Fine-tuning the style.

To compare Poster with the other formats, see Choosing a look.


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