Start a video or campaign from a template

A template saves you from setting up the same thing twice. SongPilot has three kinds, and each one starts from a different place in the app:

• Video templates hold a storyboard. You use them from Media, then Videos.
• Social recipe templates describe how a short gets built. You use them when you create a campaign.
• Campaign templates hold a dated timeline of posts. You also use them when you create a campaign.

What your workspace starts with

Every workspace has two starter recipes, marked Starter: Daily clip reel and Artwork + song. There are no starter video or campaign templates, so those lists stay empty until someone on your team saves one. See save and manage your templates for how to do that.

Templates that another workspace has made public can also appear in your lists.

Start a video from a template

1. Open Media, then Videos.
2. Go to the Templates tab. If it shows No video templates yet, save a storyboard as a template first.
3. Find the template and choose Use template. On a phone this button shows only a play icon.
4. The Name your project dialog opens with the template’s name filled in. Change it to something you will recognise, then choose Use template again.

The new project opens with the template’s scenes on its storyboard. Starting a project this way uses no credits. Credits come in later, when you generate frames or clips. See generating clips and what they cost.

What comes over, and what you need to set

The project gets a copy of the template’s scenes, so later changes to the template do not touch it. Each scene keeps its section, timing, shot details, notes, style direction and assigned members.

Check these before you spend anything:

• The song. A project started from the Templates tab has no song yet. Use Add song in the bar at the top of the project. Until you do, generating a storyboard stops with Link a song first.
• The cast. The project’s cast starts empty, even though scenes keep the members assigned to them.
• Scene timing. A template saved from a storyboard keeps the exact start and end times of the song it came from. If your new song is a different length or has a different structure, adjust the scenes. See build and edit a storyboard.
• The shape. The project opens at the shape the template was saved in. A template with no saved shape opens at 16:9 for Lyric Video and 9:16 otherwise.

A Video template made with New Template rather than saved from a storyboard holds no scenes, so its project opens with an empty storyboard.

Start a campaign from a template

1. Open Campaigns and choose New Campaign.
2. The Choose Template step lists recipes and campaign templates. Starters holds the two starter recipes and My Templates holds what your workspace has saved, plus any public templates from other workspaces.
3. To look before choosing, hover over a card and choose View. For a campaign template this lists every post with its platforms and its day relative to the release. Choose Use This Template to pick it from there.
4. Selecting a card moves you straight to Campaign Details. Previous takes you back and clears your choice.

Every campaign you create on this page starts from a template. If nothing there fits, build a recipe or campaign template first, or duplicate a starter and change it.

Create a campaign walks through the details step. Two things are worth knowing now, because they depend on which template you picked.

If you picked a recipe

A recipe keeps posting on a cadence, so the details ask for Posts per day, Days to schedule ahead and which songs it can use. Picking a recipe fills in 3 posts a day for 7 days, which makes 21 scheduled slots.

Picking a recipe also turns on Auto-create, so a recipe campaign can spend credits without you pressing anything else. Before you create it, read the estimate under the switch, which gives the approximate credits per short and per day. You can set a credit limit there. Without one, each post asks for approval first, unless your workspace auto-approves AI spending in settings. You can also turn Auto-create shorts every day off. If it is on when you create the campaign, SongPilot asks you to confirm the spend first. See Auto-create and credit limits.

If you picked a campaign template

The template’s slots become dated posts on your timeline, worked out from the date you enter. You need at least one song and a date. Its Timeline Preview shows the dates before you commit. The date defaults to the release’s planned date if you came from a release, and to 14 days from today otherwise.

Auto-create stays off unless you turn it on, and when you do the page shows the same kind of estimate, per post and for the whole campaign.

Which one to use

• You liked how a video’s scenes were laid out and want the same structure for another song: a Video template.
• You want a steady stream of short posts from your catalog: a Social recipe.
• You have a release date and want teasers, a countdown and follow-ups at set points around it: a Campaign template.

When something goes wrong

If you see Failed to create music video from template, the project was not created. Try again from the Templates tab.

If My Templates shows No custom recipes yet, your workspace has not saved any recipes or campaign templates. Use a starter from Starters, or build one under Templates.

If Still needed appears on the campaign details, it lists what is missing: the name, the songs or the date. Fill those in.

If you can’t find a template you saved, remember that video templates do not appear when you create a campaign, and recipes and campaign templates do not appear on the Videos page. All of them are listed under Templates.

What to do next

To change a starter or make one of your own, read save and manage your templates and build your own social recipe.