This walkthrough takes you from a blank composer to a finished video.
1. Open chat
Go to chat and describe the video you want. A single sentence works — “a 30-second ad for a cold-brew coffee brand, energetic, for Instagram” — but the more intent you give, the closer the first cut lands. See Writing great prompts.
If you are not signed in yet, you can type first; the account wall appears when you generate.
Around the composer you’ll find:
- Aspect ratio — 16:9, 9:16, 1:1, 4:5, or 2:3. The visible selection is used on Send.
- Enhance (on by default) — expands a short brief into a fuller creative brief, preserving the specifics you wrote. Turn it off to use your text as-is.
- Attachments — product photos, a person’s photo, a music track, documents (cap 5). See Uploads & assets.
- Decide for me — on an unbound session, Send picks the matching catalog workflow (video vs images vs audio) so you do not have to browse first.
Put duration in the prompt (“a 30-second ad”, “about 90 seconds”). There is no separate Duration chip; the brief pins length for planning. Broadcast lengths (“:30 TV spot”) stay frame-exact.
2. Send
Press Send. If this is a new generation, the empty hero stays “What are we making?” while the session mints — you can keep typing. Browse / Build / Edit stay gated until the session exists.
Wavemaker may show matching workflows; you can pick one or let Decide for me continue. Suggest is the browse path when you want to choose.
3. Watch it build
The activity feed shows planning, script, storyboard, scene stills, quality reviews, clips, narration, music, and assembly. Multi-scene videos take several minutes; lanes run in parallel and each still/clip passes review before it is accepted.
If a known character or product needs a reference photo, the run parks and asks you to attach one — it does not invent a celebrity lookalike and ship.
4. Refine
When the video appears in OUTPUTS, watch it, then change it without a full restart:
- Redo / Replace / Remove on a scene (More menu when the production is idle).
- Animate a still, Extend a clip, Edit with an instruction.
- Use as input to attach a file to the next Send.
- Typed production edits (dialogue, music, add scene) when the run-group is idle.
Each change is scoped. For lineage (which still seeded which clip), open Nodes. More in Editing & refinement.
5. Files and share
Finished media lands in Files (the session’s generation folder). Download from the preview sheet or the library. See Exporting & sharing.