How to turn your life story into a movie

To turn your life story into a movie, pick the five to eight moments that changed your life, write each one as a short scene with who was there and what was said, and keep the whole thing to the length you want: about 150 words for every minute of film. In Nima's Long-form Video you paste that text, between 150 and 10,000 words, and it becomes an animated film: every person drawn once from how you describe them, every place built once, each speaker given a voice, and your own words read by the narrator.

Your first trailer is free.

Last updated 4 November 2026

Can I make a movie about my life?

Yes, and you do not need footage to do it. A film about a life can be made three ways:

Animation suits a life story because the moments that matter most rarely have a camera on them: the morning you left home, the kitchen you grew up in, a person who is gone. Drawn, they can be on screen again.

How to tell your life story in 5 minutes (or 2, or 10)

Decide the length first, then pick the moments to fit it:

• One moment, one scene. A day, not a decade: the day you arrived, not the years you spent there.
• Start late. Open on the morning of, not the year before.
• Keep one line someone said. The sentence you still hear is the one to film.
• End where you are now, or on the person you are telling it to.

Write it as scenes, not as a summary

A summary says "In 1998 I moved to Toronto and found work." A scene says "The bus left me on Bay Street at six in the morning with forty dollars and my aunt's address on a napkin." The second one can be filmed.

• A place and a time of day.
• The people there, each described once: age, hair, what they wore.
• One thing that happens.
• A line someone said, in quotation marks.

Nima keeps your words. The narrator reads your text, and the people in it speak only the lines you wrote for them. Nothing is cut unless you agree. If you only have the idea, describe it in a few lines and Nima writes it into a story on the page, which you read and change before anything is drawn.

The people in your story

Every person is drawn once from how you describe them, and you approve each one before anything moves. Leave a note on any picture and it is redrawn. Describe people the way you remember them.

If someone appears at two ages, a child in one scene and a grown man in another, write them as two people ("Tomas at eight", "Tomas at forty") so each age is drawn once.

If your story names people who are alive, ask them before you post it.

Step by step

1. Write the moments. Five to eight scenes, about 150 words for each minute.
2. Paste them. Open Long-form Video and paste the text. You can start writing without an account.
3. Pick a look. Detailed claymation, felted wool, comic book ink, acid pencil, or paper love, which is cut paper.
4. Approve the people and the places. Every person and every place is drawn once and kept for the whole film.
5. Pick the voices. Each speaking person gets five voice auditions, each reading one of their lines.
6. Watch your free trailer. 15 to 20 seconds of your story, first as a storyboard with the voices, then animated, free.
7. Make the film. On a plan, scene by scene, with notes in each round. Download it or share it with a link.

Who it is for

• A parent's birthday, told from the stories they tell at dinner.
• Your children or grandchildren, who will want it later more than they know now.
• A memoir you have written, a chapter at a time.
• A family's story, see how to make a family history video.

What it costs

Films are made on a monthly plan metered in minutes of finished film, with one, two or five rounds of notes on each film. The plans are on the pricing page. Film length follows the text at about 150 words a minute with the narrator on.

A five-minute life story uses five minutes of a plan.