Bring the story, not the clips
Paste or upload your screenplay with Import Script, or start from a premise in the Writers' Room. Cast, locations, props and wardrobe are pulled out of the script for you.
Runway alternative
A Runway alternative built for scripted drama
Runway is a broad creative platform built around its own generative video models, with generation and editing tools in one workspace. ShowMaker Studio does less. It's a production pipeline for scripted drama that keeps one story and one cast together across every shot, scene and episode. If you're making a series with recurring characters, that difference matters most.
How it works01 02 03
Three steps in ShowMaker.
Lock the cast once
Each character gets a character sheet, outfit variants and a fixed voice. Shots cite them as @references, so the same face and the same room go to the model on every shot.
Watch it before you render
Break scenes into shots, generate stills, voice the lines and watch a free narrated animatic. Then pick a video model per shot and render only what's approved.
Side by side
Runway vs ShowMaker Studio
| Runway | ShowMaker Studio | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A creative platform for generating and editing video, images and audio, built around its own models | A production pipeline for scripted drama: script, cast, storyboard, voices, video, edit |
| Starting point | A prompt, an image or a clip | A premise, or a screenplay you import (PDF works) |
| Characters across episodes | Managed by you, shot by shot | Character sheets, wardrobe and a fixed voice stored once and cited by every shot |
| Video models | Built around Runway's own models | Seedance 2.0, Wan 3.0, Veo 3.1, Kling and MiniMax, chosen per shot |
| Dialogue and voices | Audio tools are part of the suite | Every character gets a voice; lines performed with delivery tags and lip-synced via native audio |
| Preview before paying for video | Depends on your own workflow | Free narrated animatic of the whole episode |
| Free plan | See Runway's site for current plans | 200 credits, no card |
What Runway is built for
Runway is a general creative platform. Its own site describes a cloud workspace for generating and editing video, images and audio, an API for developers, and its own family of video models. It's built for people who want strong models and a flexible set of tools, and who will bring their own structure to a project.
That makes it a good fit for single shots, visual experiments, ads, music videos and editing tasks where each clip stands on its own. You keep track of the project yourself, in your edit and your folders. The tool works on one shot at a time.
Runway also serves developers through an API, so many teams use its models inside their own products. That breadth is useful. For a scripted series, though, it means you build the story structure yourself: tracking who is in which shot, which outfit they wore last scene, and which line each clip is meant to carry.
What ShowMaker is built for
ShowMaker Studio starts from the script. A scene is a set of shots tied to dialogue lines, a cast and a location, and every shot cites those as @references. When you generate shot 14 of episode 6, the model gets the same character sheet, the same wardrobe and the same location stills as shot 1 of episode 1. A series shares its cast and assets across every episode.
Around that sits the rest of a production: a screenplay editor with a Script Assistant, Scene Flow (script and storyboard on one surface), voices for every character, a free narrated animatic, per-shot video model choice, and an editor with captions, B-roll and score.
- Writers' Room and Drama Builder to develop the story before you spend on images or video
- Character sheets, wardrobe variants and fixed voices reused on every shot
- Multishot panels that cover several shots of a scene in one take, cut on dialogue
- Seedance, Wan, Veo, Kling and MiniMax models chosen shot by shot
How to decide
If your work is mostly one-off clips, or you want a broad creative toolkit and you're happy to manage continuity yourself, Runway fits that shape. If you're writing scenes with dialogue and characters who have to come back next episode looking and sounding the same, a pipeline that stores the story and the cast does that tracking for you.
Cost follows the same logic. In a drama, what you pay for is attempts per shot. ShowMaker has you approve the script, stills, voices and animatic before video renders, and lets you use cheaper models on wides and cutaways and premium ones on dialogue close-ups.
A practical way to compare: take one dialogue scene from your script, with two characters and a location they return to later. Make it in both tools. Then make the next scene, in the same room, a week later. The second scene shows whether the faces and the room stay the same.
When Runway is the better pick
- You make standalone clips, ads or visual experiments rather than scripted scenes.
- You want a broad creative toolkit and to work directly with Runway's own models.
- You're a developer who wants a video generation API to build on.
Questions
What people ask first.
Is ShowMaker a Runway replacement?
For scripted drama, it can be. ShowMaker covers the steps from script to finished, captioned episode and keeps the cast consistent across shots and episodes. For one-off clips or general creative work, Runway is built for a broader range of jobs.
Can I use Runway's models inside ShowMaker?
No. ShowMaker offers Seedance 2.0 and mini, Wan 3.0, Google Veo 3.1, Kling and MiniMax, chosen per shot. You can still use Runway for individual clips and bring the footage into your own edit.
How does ShowMaker keep characters consistent?
Each character is stored once with a character sheet, outfit variants and a fixed voice. Every shot cites the character as an @reference, so the same identity stills go to the model every time, in every episode of a series.
What does ShowMaker cost?
There's a free plan with 200 credits and no card. Paid plans start at $19 a month for 900 credits. A full 67-second vertical micro drama episode with a consistent cast cost under $7 in credits.
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