Getting started with CineFlow

CineFlow is a web app for planning film and video productions. A CineFlow project brings together a script, a shot list, a shooting schedule, callsheets, documents and whiteboards, a gear list, and your cast and crew, with live collaboration and read-only sharing built in.

Create an account

Go to the sign up page (Create an account from the sign in page).
Sign up with Continue with Google, or fill in First name, Last name, Email, and Password, then click Create Account. Passwords need at least 8 characters with upper and lowercase letters and a number.
Enter the 6 digit code from the verification email and click Verify & continue. Use Resend if the code does not arrive.
Optional setup steps follow: upload a photo, pick your role, claim a username, choose an appearance, and answer a few questions about how you plan to use CineFlow. You can skip profile setup with Skip for now and continue on the Free plan with Continue on Free.
On the final screen, pick a starting point or click I’ll explore on my own to go to your dashboard.

To sign in later, go to the sign in page and use Continue with Google or your email and password. Remember me is checked by default; uncheck it to end your session when the browser closes. Use Forgot password? to reset by emailed code.

The dashboard

After signing in you land on Home, your dashboard. It has two areas:

Documents: loose creative documents that belong to you and are not attached to any project (whiteboards, diagrams, beat boards, slides, and text documents).
Projects: your productions, shown as cards with a cover image, a status pill, and scene and shot counts.

From the dashboard you can create documents (New Document) and projects (New Project), and turn documents into a project when an idea becomes a production. See the Dashboard guide.

Create your first project

Click New Project in the top bar.
In the Initialize Project wizard, enter a Project Name (required) and optionally a Project Type, Project Stage, and Default Currency, then click Next.
Optionally set Shoot Dates, Director, Director of Photography, and Aspect Ratio, then click Next.
Review the Digital Spec Sheet and click Create Project.

You land on the Project Overview. Full details are in Create a project.

You can also create a project from a written brief: drag a brief file onto the New Project card on the dashboard and CineFlow builds the project for you. See Import a brief.

The workspace layout

Sidebar (left): navigation. On the dashboard it shows Home, Notifications, and sections for Platform (Contacts, Equipment), Projects (Starred, Archived), and Documents (Whiteboards, Documents, Diagrams, Beat Boards, Slides). Inside a project it lists the project pages: Project Overview, Script, Documents, Shot List, Cast and Crew, Gear, Schedule, Callsheets, and Project Settings.
Top bar: the sidebar collapse toggle on the left, the search field in the center, and, inside a project, the collaborator avatars, the Share button, and the page’s primary action on the right.
Search: click the center search field or press Cmd K (Ctrl K on Windows) to search. Inside a project it searches shots, scenes, script, gear, people, and callsheets. See Navigation and search.
User menu: click your avatar at the bottom of the sidebar for Profile, Personalisation, Settings, Customize sidebar, theme controls, and Log out.
Help: click Get Help in the sidebar footer to open the Assistant, ask questions, and contact support. See Navigation and search.

On phones, CineFlow shows a mobile layout with a bottom navigation bar instead of the sidebar. The same pages and data are available; page actions move into the top bar bubbles and a More menu.

The mobile layout is still being built, so parts of it are unfinished. Once you have finished setting up your account, the next time you open CineFlow on a phone in a browser you see a short note saying so, above the page, suggesting you open the same link on a desktop for the whole product. It is withheld while you are still being set up, so it never lands on top of onboarding. Dismiss it once with the X and it does not appear again on that account, on any device. It never appears in the desktop app or in the iOS app, and never in a browser window 768 pixels wide or wider. A desktop browser window narrower than that gets the mobile layout, so the notice can appear there too.

The desktop app

CineFlow also ships as a desktop app for Apple silicon Macs and 64-bit Windows PCs. It is the same app with tabs, split view, and automatic updates; your data is the same either way.

Install on Windows

Download the installer (CineFlow_<version>_x64-setup.exe) from https://downloads.cineflow.cloud/desktop/updater/windows.
Run it. Windows SmartScreen shows Windows protected your PC because the Windows build is not yet code-signed. Click More info, then Run anyway.
Approve the administrator prompt. CineFlow installs for all users under Program Files and adds a Start menu entry. If the WebView2 runtime is missing, the installer fetches it.

Install on Mac

Download the app from https://downloads.cineflow.cloud/desktop/updater/mac, unpack it, and drag CineFlow to Applications.

Tabs

Project pages open as tabs in the title bar, grouped by project; standalone documents open in a Documents group. Cmd T (Ctrl T on Windows) opens the picker to open another project or document, Cmd W closes the current group (if that project is in split view, the first press returns it to one pane and a second press closes the group), and Cmd 1 to Cmd 9 switch groups.

Split view

Inside a project, press Cmd \ (Ctrl \ on Windows) or click the split button at the right end of the tab strip to show two pages of the project side by side. The current page pairs with another open page of the project, or opens Project Overview (or Shot List) as a second tab when nothing else is open. You can also right-click a tab and choose Open in split, left or Open in split, right, or drag a tab below the tab strip onto the left or right half of the window. To put a standalone document beside a project page, open the picker (Cmd T) and click Show beside the current page next to the document, or right-click the Documents group and use Show in split.

Only one pane is focused at a time. Click a pane to focus it. The top bar, breadcrumb, window title, and keyboard shortcuts follow the focused pane, and the other pane recedes under a translucent veil.
The focused pane is where a page opens. With a split open, choosing a page in the sidebar loads it into the pane you are focused on, and so does a link inside a page, a result from the command palette, or arriving at a project you had left in split view. If that page is already in the other pane, focus moves there instead of showing it twice. Whatever the pane was showing stays open as a tab, one click away on the tab strip.
Rearranging a split keeps a project page exactly as you left it. Changing what a pane shows, opening or closing the split, and swapping the two panes all keep anything you had typed into a project page and not yet saved, along with your place on the page, in both the pane that changes and the one that does not. The page you move out of a pane stays open as a tab with everything still in it.
A document shown in a pane is the one exception, and only when it leaves the split. Its contents are safe, because a document saves as you type and is stored with the document rather than with the pane, but the view is rebuilt: where you were scrolled to, where the canvas was pointed, and what you had selected all start fresh when you bring it back.
Drag the divider to resize; each pane keeps at least a fifth of the width.
Right-click a tab for Show in left pane, Show in right pane, and Close split; right-click the project’s group for Swap panes. Press Cmd \ again or Cmd W to return to one pane.
The same document cannot be shown in both panes.

Updates

A few seconds after launch the app checks for a new version. If one exists, a Software Update dialog offers Update now or Later. Later holds until the next launch. Update now downloads the update, verifies it against CineFlow’s signing key, installs it, and restarts the app; on Windows it may instead ask you to quit and reopen CineFlow. To check by hand, use Check for Updates… in the CineFlow menu on a Mac or the File menu on Windows.