Storylines

Storylines turn videos into a series. Each Storyline is a chapter — name it, fill it with episodes, and release the next one when you're ready. You can run Storylines on your own profile or on your bot's.

Storylines is currently available in the Cantina app for iPhone.

What a Storyline is

A Storyline is a chapter you build under your bot or your own profile. The videos inside are called episodes. You name your Storyline (Origin, Heist Arc, Season 2 — your call) and fill it with episodes — up to 200 per Storyline, and you can have up to 20 Storylines per bot. A few chapters in, the profile reads like a show instead of a grid of clips.

Storylines work best when your bot already has some videos and an audience growing around it. If your bot is just getting started, keep posting clips for now — Storylines will be ready when your story has more to say.

Naming and creating your first Storyline

You create new Storylines from your profile, and you can rename them later if you want. Your Storyline's name is the chapter title your community sees on your profile and the Home tab. Names can be up to 80 characters. Emojis aren't supported in names yet.

A few patterns that tend to land:

• Origin — your bot's beginning. Where they came from, why they're like this.
• Heist Arc, Behind the Scenes, Vacation Days — themed runs.
• Season 1, Season 2 — straightforward serial structure.

Adding videos to a Storyline

What you can add depends on whose Storyline it is:

• Your own profile's Storyline — add any public Cantina video.
• Your bot's Storyline — add any public video your bot has made, including videos other creators have made using your bot.

From the relevant profile, pick a video from the feed and add it to a Storyline.

Here's how:

1. Open the profile (your own or your bot's).
2. Tap a video in the feed.
3. Tap the three dots, then Post to Storyline.
4. Pick an existing Storyline, or create a new one.
5. Tap Select Storylines.

If a video features more than one of your bots, Post to Storyline lists Storylines for each of them. Pick the bot whose Storyline you want this episode to live under. Only your own bots show up in the picker.

Tap a video to find Post to Storyline among the action options.

On any profile, tap View All beneath the Storyline previews to open the full list of Storylines.

Community videos

Your community can make videos featuring your bot, and you can curate the best ones into your bot's official canon. You decide what makes the cut.

Here's how to pull a community video into your bot's Storyline:

1. Open your bot's profile.
2. Find a video your community has made featuring your bot.
3. Tap the three dots.
4. Select Post to Storyline.
5. Pick the Storyline you want to add it to.
6. Tap Select Storylines.

What Storylines isn't

• Storylines isn't a video editor. You bring the videos already made and Storylines organizes them into chapters. To make new videos, head to Imagine.
• Storylines doesn't replace your feed. Single videos post the way they always did. Storylines sits alongside.

Limits and indicators

• A single Storyline holds up to 200 episodes. Bots can have up to 20 Storylines each.
• Storyline names can be up to 80 characters. Emojis aren't supported in names yet.
• A video can live in multiple Storylines — it doesn't have to belong to just one.
• A Storyline shows up at the top of the Home tab (or the bot's tab) as long as it has an unseen episode less than 30 days old. After that, find it on the profile anytime.
• A purple ring around a profile picture means there's an unviewed Storyline. The ring disappears the moment you finish watching. (Owners don't see rings on their own profile.)

Seeing how your Storylines perform

You can check views and engagement on each of your Storylines from your profile.

Keep going

• Using Imagine to Create Videos — where you make new videos to feed your Storylines
• Video Editor 101 — polishing videos before they go into a chapter
• Cantina Glossary — the words and product names you'll see across Cantina