# How many AI clips does a film need?

**Short answer:** Roughly 6 to 12 clips per finished minute, plus retakes. Our 42-minute feature used 427 shots (about 6 seconds each), and our fast-cut film BROODFALL kept 364 of 972 rendered clips for 10 minutes.

URL: https://arc.katechon.technology/answers/how-many-clips-does-an-ai-film-need
Updated: 2026-10-18

## Measured shot counts

Shots and seconds per shot in our productions:

| Production | Runtime | Shots | Seconds per shot | Clips rendered |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| The Fall of Kalak | 42:11 | 427 | 5.9 | 427 |
| Blood Sun (45 episodes) | 51.6 min of episodes | 268 | 11.6 | 268 |
| BROODFALL (10-minute cut) | 10:09 | 364 | 1.7 | 972 |
| The Wolf Mother | 47:14 | — | — | 431 |

## Rules of thumb

- **Dialogue and drama:** about 12 seconds a shot, roughly 5 clips a minute (Blood Sun).
- **Narrative feature:** about 6 seconds a shot, roughly 10 clips a minute (The Fall of Kalak).
- **Action or trailer cutting:** 1.7 seconds a shot in BROODFALL, using 37% of what was rendered.
- **Retakes:** add 15% for a carefully planned series; double the count for an edit that picks the best moments from many takes.

## Why not fewer, longer clips?

Arc renders clips of 4–15 seconds, and other models have similar limits. Longer clips cost proportionally more, drift more within the shot and are harder to cut. Most of our shots are 5 to 12 seconds, trimmed in the edit. Multi-shot units, where one generation contains a few cuts, can reduce the count; Dragon Rising used 42 such units.

## Turning a clip count into a budget

Multiply clips by seconds by the model's price per second. In Arc a 6-second 720p clip is 57 credits on Seedance 2.0 Mini, 136 on Fast and 451 on Seedance 2.0. The [cost calculator](https://arc.katechon.technology/tools/ai-video-cost-calculator) does the arithmetic for any model.

## Where Katechon Arc fits

Arc plans a film as shots from the start, so the clip count is visible in the script plan before anything is rendered, and the studio estimates credits per clip.

Arc cannot render a single long take beyond 15 seconds; if your film depends on minute-long continuous shots, no current clip-based tool, Arc included, does that well.

## Related answers

- [How much does it cost to make a feature-length AI movie?](https://arc.katechon.technology/answers/how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-an-ai-movie): Our 42-minute feature The Fall of Kalak cost $113 in video for 427 shots, and would have cost about $59 on the budget model alone.
- [How do you make an AI movie?](https://arc.katechon.technology/answers/how-to-make-an-ai-movie): You make an AI movie the way you make any film, but every shot is generated: write the script, fix the look and the cast as reference…
- [How much does one finished minute of AI video cost?](https://arc.katechon.technology/answers/how-much-does-a-minute-of-ai-video-cost): One finished minute cost us $2.26 in video on average across 195 episodes, mostly on Seedance 2.0 Mini and Fast at 720p.
- [How long can an AI video be?](https://arc.katechon.technology/answers/how-long-can-an-ai-video-be): A single generation is usually short: Veo 3.1 makes 8-second clips, Kling 3.0 up to 15 seconds and Arc 4–15 seconds, with a few tools going…
- [How long does it take to make an AI movie?](https://arc.katechon.technology/answers/how-long-does-it-take-to-make-an-ai-movie): Rendering is quick: all 427 shots of our 42-minute feature The Fall of Kalak rendered in 1 day.