Cygnus vs Shai

Cygnus turns screenplays into video sequences with consistent characters across frames, supporting a workflow from initial concept through review and export. The stages cover concept, script, character and location references, storyboard, video, timeline, review, and export. Scripts can be imported from Final Draft, PDF, Fountain, plain text, treatments, or outlines. Reference images are used to maintain character appearances across storyboard frames and clips. Collaborators can comment, annotate, and approve work through shareable review links. Listed exports include Premiere Pro, After Effects, Frame.io, and PDF, plus Premiere XML and EDL. Video generation produces 1–15 second clips at 720p, while extensions add 2–10 seconds to a source video. Cygnus recommends projects of 1–5 minutes, 3–10 scenes, and 8–35 shots; longer work can be divided into acts or sequences. Browser access is available, alongside a notarized macOS app requiring macOS 14 or later. The free plan includes 200 credits per month, two projects, and watermarked 720p exports. Paid plans include commercial-use licensing for generated content.

Shai is an online pre-production tool for film and advertising creatives, from script breakdown and storyboards to AI video generation. Upload a script or creative document to generate a storyboard with AI-made images and production details. Shai can also extract a shot table with timing, cast, locations and other details. Users can upload their own images, edit generated outputs, and adjust the breakdown and planning. A storyboard can become a video animatic where users experiment with actions and camera movements; AI video is for premium users. Shai says it connects with different video-generation models. The free access plan covers the first nine storyboard scenes and includes 200 Shai credits for creating and editing images, with no credit card required. Shot lists can be downloaded as PDF or Excel files. Shai says uploaded material, including storylines, characters and dialogue, is not used to train its models or generate similar narrative content, and its terms say users own content created with the service. The web tool requires no local download, but the terms do not guarantee uninterrupted access.