How to Use the AI Screenwriter to Generate Structured Scripts and Shot Drafts
Most creators don't get stuck because they lack ideas. They get stuck because the idea in their head refuses to become something they can actually shoot. You know the feeling: you can picture the opening shot, you can hear the music, but the moment you sit down to write, the page stays blank.
The AI Screenwriter inside 墨川导演台 (MiniMax H3 AI Director Studio) is built to solve exactly that gap. Instead of treating writing and shot planning as two separate chores, it turns a conversation into a structured script and a shot draft — and then actually saves it into your script library so you can keep building. Think of it less like a chatbot and more like a junior co-writer who never gets tired and always takes notes.
Below is a practical, step-by-step walkthrough. 🎬
What the AI Screenwriter Actually Does
Before we touch the buttons, it helps to understand the shape of the output. The AI Screenwriter works through dialogue, and it produces a six-part script structure plus a shot draft (storyboard draft). In other words, it doesn't just hand you prose — it hands you something that already looks like a shooting document.
It also supports five languages: Chinese, English, Spanish, Arabic, and Japanese. So if you're making content for a multilingual channel, you can draft in the language your audience will hear, or draft in your own language and adapt later.
The most important detail: when the AI replies, it doesn't just print text into the chat window. It writes the draft into your script library. That distinction matters. A lot of AI writing tools leave you copy-pasting between tabs. Here, the conversation and the asset are the same workflow — the chat is the drafting desk, and the script library is the filing cabinet.
If you want to see the current feature set in detail, the official site is the safest reference: www.ymcdirector.com. Anything about limits, model behavior, or setup specifics is best confirmed there or via customer service WeChat ymcandai, since these things evolve.
Step-by-Step: From Blank Page to Shot Draft
Here's the workflow I'd recommend, in order.
Step 1 — Set up your project first.
Don't start typing into the screenwriter cold. Head to the Project Library (项目库) and create a project. Projects organize your generation tasks and versions, and they're where single-shot and batch generation will live later. A little front-loaded structure saves you a lot of scrolling later. It's the difference between a tidy desk and a floor covered in sticky notes.
Step 2 — Open the AI Screenwriter and talk like a director.
Now open the AI Screenwriter and describe what you want. You don't need a perfect logline. You need the essentials: who's in it, where it happens, what the emotional turn is, and roughly how long it should feel.
A useful mental template is: *character + situation + conflict + tone + length*. For example, "A night-shift convenience store clerk notices a customer who never blinks. Tone: quiet dread, not gore. Keep it short and punchy." That's enough for the AI to start shaping the six-part structure.
Step 3 — Let it generate the script and shot draft.
The AI will reply with a structured draft. Read it as a first pass, not a final cut. You're looking for whether the beats land and whether the shot draft gives you something shootable — framing ideas, action, and continuity you can actually work with.
Step 4 — Refine through conversation.
This is where the tool earns its keep. Instead of rewriting from scratch, you steer. Ask for a colder ending. Ask it to compress the middle. Ask it to make the second beat more visual and less dialogue-heavy. Each round, the AI replies and the draft updates in your script library.
Step 5 — Confirm it's in the Script Library.
Go check the Script Library (剧本库). You should see your script, its episodes, and the storyboard cards. From here you can manage, import, or create new scripts. This is your source of truth going forward.
Step 6 — Move toward generation.
Once the script and shot cards look right, you're ready to think about visuals. That's where AI Image (AI 制图) comes in — text-to-image and image-to-image to generate first frames, last frames, and character reference images for your shots. The shot draft you just made becomes the brief for those frames.
Practical Tips That Save You Rework
A few habits make the screenwriter dramatically more useful.
Write for consistency early. If your story has recurring characters or locations, set them up in the Asset Library (资产库) — characters, scenes, props, and reference videos. Uploading reference images for characters and scenes is how you keep a face or a room looking the same across shots. Do this before you generate a lot of frames, not after. Fixing consistency later is like repainting a wall you already furnished.
Use the six-part structure as a checklist, not a cage. The structure is there to make sure you have a beginning, a turn, and an ending — not to make every video feel identical. Bend the beats to your genre.
Draft in the language of delivery when you can. With five supported languages, you can write closer to the final voiceover or dialogue. That reduces translation drift later when you move into AI Voiceover (AI 配音) with IndexTTS 2.5 and its emotion control.
Keep the shot draft honest about scope. It's easy to let the AI write a ten-location epic. If you're making a short, tell it to stay in one or two locations. Constraint breeds better shorts.
Think about audio while you write. The Audio Library (音频库) handles voice cloning, lip sync, background music, and sound effects. If you know a scene will lean on a music cue or a specific line delivery, note it in the script so it survives into production.
Check your logs when something feels off. The AI Log / System Log (AI 日志 / 系统志) lets you see generation logs and system status in real time. When a generation behaves unexpectedly, this is the first place to look — much faster than guessing.
Where This Fits in Your Whole Pipeline
The screenwriter isn't an isolated toy. It's the front door of a larger studio. Once your script and shot cards exist, they feed into the Project Library for single-shot and batch video generation, and into AI Image for frames and references. The main model is MiniMax H3, and cloud inference runs through ComfyUI workflows that support reference-image consistency, shot continuity, and batch queuing.
You can run this in three modes: local deployment on your own GPU machine, cloud deployment connected to a GPU server you rent, or API calls that plug the studio's capabilities into your own setup. Cloud deployment supports general cloud GPU providers including AutoDL, Alibaba Cloud, Tencent Cloud, and Xiangongyun, plus custom SSH servers — with local tunnel ports isolated so multiple users don't collide.
If you're testing on Xiangongyun, the flow is: register at their site with invite code B1H9M6 (you must register fresh and enter the code), get verified, then send your Xiangongyun account ID to customer service. Once your test account is opened, you'll see the director studio image, deploy an instance with it, click SSH on the instance to grab the host, port, and password, and paste those into the Cloud Deployment page. Click Verify SSH, then Start Cloud ComfyUI, wait for the green success indicator, and you're ready to write a script and test a video. For the exact current steps and any account questions, confirm with customer service WeChat ymcandai.
And if you prefer buying through a storefront, search 「杨墨川AI」 on Taobao. You can also find 杨墨川 on Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and WeChat Channels. Support email is info@ymcdirector.com, and the blog lives at blog.ymcdirector.com.
Start Small, Then Scale
The fastest way to learn the AI Screenwriter is to make one very short piece this week. Pick a single location, one character, one turn. Run it through the six-part structure, refine it in two or three conversational passes, confirm it landed in your script library, and generate a couple of frames from the shot draft. That loop — write, refine, confirm, visualize — is the whole skill.
Once it feels natural, you'll stop dreading the blank page. You'll sit down, talk to your co-writer, and walk away with a script and a shot list you can actually shoot.
For setup details, current capabilities, and anything not covered here, the official site and customer service are your best sources. Head to www.ymcdirector.com, or reach out on WeChat at ymcandai.
