Film production, taught
Slate OS takes students from a story idea to a shot list, a schedule and a call sheet, and tells them why each step exists as they take it. It starts with a question, not a blank page, and it never leaves a student with a rule they can’t explain.
Opens Fall 2027Open to Salpointe students and teachers now, select classrooms at Salpointe and in Tucson in Spring 2027, and select schools and teachers in Fall 2027.
Free for students, permanently — the whole pipeline, unlimited projects, no card. What schools pay for
The most intimidating place to start is an empty page. So the Story tab opens on a worksheet: choose what you are making and answer its questions one at a time. Most film tools open on a blank page. This one opens on the first question.
“The blank page is the most intimidating place to start for a writer.”
Ten ways to shape a fiction story, from the Story Circle and the Hero's Journey to Truby's 22 steps, Field's paradigm and kishōtenketsu. Then a worksheet for each of Nichols's six documentary modes, twelve podcast formats, fifteen news formats, ten sports formats, ten music video formats, eight commercial and promo formats, ten social video formats at :15, :30 or :60, and eight public service formats. Not sure which to fill out? Every section opens with a short guide that asks what you have, who it is for and how long it runs, then reads your answers and recommends the worksheets that fit, showing which of your words led there.
Each worksheet is a run of prompts, 864 in all. Every one opens an explanation of what it is asking and a worked example, so a student is never left guessing what a good answer looks like.
Answer a few and the worksheet can draft a script in the format you picked. For news and documentary it leaves a [NEEDED] note where a real person should speak, instead of inventing their words.
A library of 55 dramatic devices in six families, from the ticking clock and the plot twist to symbolism and the match cut. Each is defined, shown in original example scenes with numbered notes, and followed by a spot-the-device practice.
Knowing that a character cue is centred is a rule. Knowing why is what lets a student set a form they have never seen. So the reason sits next to the thing, at the moment it is used.
Click any line of the script and a margin beside it says what that element is, why scripts are set that way, and shows a small example. A character cue is centred so a reader can see who is speaking at a glance, and the margin says so.
The graduation-cap button next to a control, a column or a field opens a short note: what it is, and why it matters on a real production. More than 190 notes, and any of them can be read aloud.
When a line breaks a convention the check says which one and why it exists. Teachers can assign “Check yourself” questions to see whether the reason landed.
As a student shows they have learned a rule, its prompts recede, so the scaffold does not become a crutch.
Every explanation is written text and fixed rules, so each student is told the same thing and it costs nothing to run. The hints are on every plan; the Why margin, convention checks and fading help are part of school plans.
The breakdown comes out of the script, the schedule is built from the breakdown, and the call sheet is assembled from the day, so nothing is retyped. Every panel below is drawn by the application itself. Turn on the highlighter and each part of the page says what it is for.
Real US Letter pages with true 55-line breaks. Tab cycles the element under the caret; the same engine draws the page, the thumbnail and the PDF.
A professional tool has no use for a roster, a rubric or a switch for AI. A class does.
Import a roster, hand out a class code, and see every student’s project without collecting files.
A student turns in their script, worksheet answers and shots. A teacher opens only what has been turned in.
Score against a rubric you control. AI can draft the comments, but nothing reaches a student until the teacher has confirmed every criterion and released it. Released comments sit on the script line, the answer or the shot, with a one-click fix.
Turn AI writing tools off for a class, with exceptions per student. The explanations a student reads are written text, not generated, so every student gets the same answer.
Progress by convention and by student, and a weekly focus, so the next lesson can be about the rule they keep missing.
A writing surface that formats as you type, in screenplay, stage play, podcast, broadcast news or sports — each to its own convention: sluglines for film, centred cues for the stage, segments and sound cues for audio, slugs and SOT cues for a newscast, a run of show with graphic and replay cues for a game. Real US Letter pages, and the exports follow.
Read each scene, tag what it needs — cast, props, locations, sound — and turn a draft into numbered shots with type, angle, movement, gear and duration already suggested. Drag to reorder; the numbering keeps up.
Draw a rough frame in the browser, or upload one, and generate a finished board that keeps your composition. Or generate straight from the shot description when there's no time to draw.
Look at several candidate places for each location and check each against the same list: permission, power, space, light, sound, access, safety. Add photographs and a verdict, choose one, and the call sheet can fill from it.
Group shots into production days, or let the schedule be drafted for you. On the day, tick shots off and leave notes against them so the unit can see where it actually is.
Each production day builds a call sheet: call times, location and parking, weather and sunset, nearest hospital, safety notes, and cast and crew with individual calls. Export the PDF, email it to everyone on it, or push the day to Google Calendar.
Hear the draft before you shoot it. Distinct voices per character produce a table read from the script, and per-shot voiceover turns the boards into an animatic.
Projects update in real time for everyone in them — no saving, no sending versions around. Invite by link, see each other's cursors, and assign characters to the people playing them.
A tool that invents its own formatting is a tool you have to undo later. Slate OS lays out to the conventions a reader already expects, so what a student learns here is what a crew will expect of them.
The same layout engine draws the editor, the page view, the thumbnails and the exported file — so what you send out is what you were looking at.
The parts of pre-production that are transcription rather than judgement. A teacher can switch AI writing tools off for a class.
Sets the plan from a story worksheet on the page as a first draft, in the format you pick. For news and documentary it leaves a [NEEDED] note where a real person should speak, instead of inventing their words.
Reads a draft and returns numbered shots with coverage already suggested.
Keeps the composition you drew and renders it as a finished frame.
Groups shots into production days by location and setup.
Gives each character a distinct voice so you can hear the draft.
Everything it produces is a starting point you edit in place. Nothing is generated behind your back, and nothing is locked.
A class can run a whole production in one place, and an instructor can see the state of every unit without collecting files.
Small crews wearing several hats each. The pipeline does the paperwork that a production office would otherwise do.
Stage play format, character assignment and staged readings, with the same scheduling and call sheets for tech and performance days.
Plan an interview, a package, a newscast rundown or a game broadcast, then write it in the layout a host or a control room reads — slugs, SOTs, sound cues, replays and all. Set up the crew for it too: director, technical director, replay, graphics and spotter.
The tools that cover film production are priced for professionals and assume the craft is already known, so a teacher pays professional prices and then teaches the concepts somewhere else. The case study sets out the problem, the design and what is still unproven.
Writing a script, breaking it down, boarding it and printing a call sheet costs us almost nothing to hand you, so none of it is metered, none of it expires, and none of it will ever cost you.
Unlimited projects and crew, every writing and breakdown tool, all the teaching notes, and PDF exports of your own work with nothing stamped across them. No card, and no clock running — a teacher planning a semester in July cannot build a course on something that expires in October.
Two things cost real money every time they run: AI storyboard frames, and generated table-read audio. Those have an allowance. If running them ever costs more than we can carry, students without a school plan share the real cost of the AI tools — worked out from the bills, shown to the cent, with 30 days' notice and a waiver for anyone who asks.
Minutes a class shares, seats a teacher reassigns each term, a signed student data privacy agreement, and an invoice against a purchase order. Every price is published, because a teacher who has to book a call to learn the number never starts the paperwork.
Pick a worksheet, answer the first question, and the rest of the pipeline is already waiting for it. No card, and nothing to cancel later.