Module 1 · Foundations — what Runway is Lesson 3 of 15
The screen: where every control lives
A tour of the interface you will live in — a gallery of your assets, a generation panel with a prompt box and reference frames, and a set of tools for cutting, masking, slowing and extending. Every panel has a reason to exist, and half of them are the difference between a chat and a system.
The concept
The interface of Runway is a gallery of your assets, a generation panel with a prompt box and reference frames, and a set of tools for cutting, masking, slowing and extending. That sentence is worth slowing down on, because the single biggest cause of bad output is not a bad prompt — it is a good prompt typed into the wrong place.
The history list is your memory of what worked. Name your conversations. The temporary or private mode is for anything you would not want in an account's history. The settings panel holds the personal instructions that apply to everything, which is where your context belongs rather than repeated at the top of every message.
Do this once, properly: generate the same eight-second shot twice — once from text alone, once from a reference frame with a described camera move — and compare. It takes fifteen minutes and saves you those fifteen minutes every week after.
Worked example
The reference frame and camera-motion controls are where the craft is: a still you supply plus a described camera move beats a longer prompt every time.
Your practice task
Spend fifteen minutes doing nothing but clicking. Open every panel, rename one conversation, and save one setting you will want again. Fluency with the screen is what stops you re-explaining yourself every session.
Do this before moving on. Reading a solution teaches the shape of it; typing it teaches you.
Key takeaway
The interface of Runway is a gallery of your assets, a generation panel with a prompt box and reference frames, and a set of tools for cutting, masking, slowing and extending.
Keep your place in this course
A free account saves which lessons you have finished and unlocks the certificate. The lesson itself stays free to read.
Create free account or sign inCourse complete
You finished every lesson.
Your certificate is ready, and the projects you built are the proof to attach to an application.
Almost there
15 lessons left of 15
Finish every lesson to unlock the certificate. Each one ends in a practice task — do them and the final project brief writes itself.