Hero tips
Work faster in Hero
Short, practical tips for every part of Hero, from your first treatment to the final call sheet. Each one takes about a minute to try.
✍️ Writing
Treatments, scripts, and documents
Check script runtime
Watch the estimated duration while you write to hit a 30- or 60-second cut. It estimates the finished video's running time, not reading time, and updates as you type.
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Import your script
Already have a script? Import the file instead of retyping it. Hero detects its structure, so a Scene / Visuals / Audio table comes in as an A/V script you can storyboard right away.
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Mention your characters
Type @ in any document to link a character, set, prop, or teammate. Mentions stay correct when something is renamed, and you can create a new character right from the menu.
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Number your beats
If you already know the shape of the piece, write it in your treatment as a numbered list of moments. Hero turns each top-level moment into one script frame, in the same order, instead of deciding the frame count itself.
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Use the slash menu
Type / in any Hero document to insert headings, lists, tables, columns, or images without leaving the keyboard. On call sheets, the same menu adds header blocks and the day's schedule.
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Write A/V scripts
For commercials and branded content, use an A/V script: a table with Scene, Visuals, Audio, and On-screen text for every beat. It reads like an agency script and maps cleanly onto storyboard frames.
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🖼️ Storyboards & images
Frames, characters, sets, props, and the Image Editor
Add text to images
Add titles, supers, or labels over a frame in the Image Editor with any Google Font. Text stays an editable layer until you save, so you can restyle it as often as you like.
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Edit, don't regenerate
When you like most of a storyboard, edit the frames that need work instead of regenerating the whole board. Every image edit is added as a new version you can switch back to, while regenerating a board rewrites all of its frames.
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Generate image variants
Ask for two or four variants of an image edit at once, then keep the best. Every variant lands in the filmstrip, so nothing is lost while you compare.
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Get better characters
Give each character, set, and prop a clear description and strong reference images before generating images at scale, since every frame that uses them draws on those references. Fixing an element once beats fixing thirty frames, and Hero offers to update every frame that uses it after you change it.
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Set the look once
Put your visual direction in the storyboard's Style sidebar instead of repeating it in every frame prompt. Style guides every image on the board, which keeps the look consistent and leaves each prompt free to describe just the shot.
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Try Cinema controls
Direct a frame like a DP with Cinema controls instead of describing the camera in words. Set the camera choices once and every Generate uses them, even with the section closed.
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Use PNG layers
Add a logo, lower-third, film grain, or vignette matte to any frame by layering a transparent PNG over it in the Image Editor. Layers show your PNG exactly as it is, so export grain and mattes with partial transparency before uploading. Saving keeps the composite as a new image version you can download.
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🗓️ Schedules
Shoot days, strips, and timing
Add weather strips
Mark sunrise, sunset, rain, or clouds right on your schedule so you can plan golden hour and dodge bad weather. Sunrise and sunset times fill in from the day's location and date, and an orange dot warns you when an exterior lands after dark or in forecast rain.
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Bulk-edit strips
Select many strips at once to recolor them, move them to another date, duplicate, or delete them in one go. It's the fastest way to restructure a schedule by hand.
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Lock schedule moments
Lock the moments that can't move, like a venue's set times or a 4pm speech, before you rearrange anything. Schedule generation and Hero Agent plan everything else around locked strips and never move them.
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Paste from spreadsheets
Moving a schedule over from a spreadsheet? Copy a block of cells and paste it straight into the Schedule grid. Dates, times, durations, and dropdown values are read just as if you'd typed them.
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Pick your columns
Show only the columns and fields your team needs, in the order you want. The layout is shared with everyone on the project, and shotlist PDFs use the same columns.
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Reorganize schedules with Hero Agent
Instead of dragging strips around, describe the schedule you want to Hero Agent in plain words. Start times cascade automatically, and Hero tells you what it changed and flags any day that runs long.
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Search your schedule
On a big schedule, search and filters get you to the right strips in seconds. Narrow by status, team, or storyboard to see just one crew's day or one board's shots.
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Split a shoot day
For days with a morning block, a long gap, and an evening block, add a Break to split the day into Part A and Part B. Each part keeps its own times, break time doesn't count toward the long-day warning, and the call sheet shows a crew call for each part.
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📋 Call sheets
Getting the day's plan to your crew
Customize call sheet headers
Keep only the header blocks your crew actually needs, like call times, location, weather, parking, or nearest hospital. Removed pieces can come back with their old values, so you can tailor every sheet without losing anything.
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Make call sheets fast
Generate a call sheet for each shoot day once your schedule is settled. Hero fills in crew call, location, weather, nearest hospital, cast, and crew from your project, so you only polish what's left.
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Test day versions
Unsync a call sheet from the schedule to try a different version of a shoot day without touching the real plan. The sheet keeps its own copy of the day's rows, so you can make several sheets for the same day and compare them.
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🤝 Sharing & projects
Client reviews, teammates, and finding your work
Find projects fast
Use the Projects page to search, sort, and filter every project you can open. Filter by person, including yourself, to see just the work you're on.
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Invite clients as Reviewers
Invite clients and outside collaborators to a project as Reviewers. They can read everything, comment, set statuses, and upload files to Assets, but can't edit your work, and Reviewers don't take a paid seat.
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Open projects in tabs
Working across several projects? Open each one in its own browser tab instead of clicking back and forth. Your Home page also keeps your recently viewed projects one click away.
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Share links, not PDFs
Share a storyboard, document, call sheet, or deliverable with a public link so clients can view and comment without a Hero account. Their comments stay attached to the exact frame, line, or video timecode, which beats a PDF and an email thread of notes.
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The best way to learn Hero is to use it. Open a project and follow along.
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