“Shot 3 is somewhere else”: a segment stays in one place and one timeline

Why a segment can only be in one place

Each segment is rendered as one clip, from one set of scene references. That is what keeps the room, the people and the light the same from the first shot to the last. A shot set in another room would be drawn against the wrong room, with the wrong people in it, so the site stops it before you pay rather than after.

The same is true of time. A segment is one continuous timeline: no three days later in the middle, no jump back to last year. Both rules are the storyboard side of spatial consistency and the reason the header has a single Location. The segment header.

What you see

1. A note under the storyboard card, before you press anything: Shot 3 is somewhere else (several shots are listed together, for example Shots 2, 4), then A segment stays in one place and one timeline, so this shot can’t be generated. Rewrite it to happen here and now, or move it to its own segment. It sits with the other notes below the text. What each note means.
2. A refusal when you press generate anyway: Shot 3 of this segment shows another place or time — a segment stays in one place and one timeline. Rewrite it to happen here and now, or move it to its own segment. No credits were charged.

Nothing is lost and nothing is charged. Saving the text is never blocked; only making the video is. The note only appears on segments written in the current layout, not on older segments or in ad and remake projects.

What counts as “somewhere else”

• Cross-cutting. The detective in the car, then a shot of the suspect in his kitchen, then back to the car.
• The other end of a call. A close-up of the person who is speaking on the phone, in her own room.
• Narration over another place. A voice-over about the harbour while the picture is the harbour and the segment is in the office.
• A flashback or a time jump. Ten years earlier, the same house, a different light and different faces.
• A different place reached by walking. She leaves the office and arrives at the street: that is a move, so the street needs its own segment.

What does not count: the room staying the same while the camera moves, people leaving or entering the room, a window onto the street, and a car with its passengers (a moving car is one place; see scenes inside a car, bus, train or plane).

Fix 1: rewrite the shot so it happens here and now

Usually the cheapest. Keep the beat, change where the camera is. The cross-cut to the suspect becomes what the detective sees on his phone; the flashback becomes an object in the room.

Write the dialogue as an off-screen voice, not as a face in the picture. Off-screen voices.

Fix 2: give the shot a segment of its own

When the other place deserves screen time, make it a segment. Press Insert on the segment before it, write the new header with its own Location and the shots that happen there, and cut those shots out of the old segment. Each segment is generated and priced on its own, and the composite joins them as cuts. Insert or delete a segment.

1. Copy the blocked shot or shots to a safe place, and delete them from the segment.
2. Select the segment, press Insert, and open the blank card.
3. Either write the shots yourself, or use AI edit on the blank card and say what happens and where.
4. Set the new segment’s location with the @ menu (Scenes tab). If the place has no scene card yet, add one in step 2 first.
5. If the story returns to the first place, insert a third segment for it.

Fix 3: show the other place as a screen

If the other place is only information — a camera feed, a video call, a TV news report, a photo — keep the camera in this place and put the other place on a screen in the frame, as in the table above. The segment stays in one place; the audience still sees the other end.

If the note says a shot is somewhere else and you think it is not

The note comes from how the system read the text. If a shot is flagged and you believe it stays in the room, look for a word that names another place or time — outside the hospital, later that night, back at the villa — and take it out or tie it to the room: through the window, the hospital car park. Press Save and look at the note again; it is worked out from the saved text. If you are unsure, press Generate: a shot that is still somewhere else is refused again, and nothing is charged. If it stays, split the shot out as in fix 2 rather than fighting it.

FAQ

Updated October 26, 2026