Ask Zip, the assistant

Zip is the assistant in the side panel of every episode. It knows the episode you are on (its story, clips and cast). You tell it what to change; it drafts the change as a short list, says what that will make again and what it costs, and nothing happens until you press Apply.

Video, about 40 seconds, no sound. The steps below say the same.

1. 1Step 1: Open an episode. On the right edge of the page, press the Assistant button (the orange star). The panel opens, with Zip at the top.
2. 2Step 2: Type what you want in the box at the bottom, the way you would say it to a person: Make Brett's first line warmer. He never says no straight out. Type @ to name a character, a place or a clip exactly. Press Send.
3. 3Step 3: Zip answers, and drafts the change under Changes to make. Each change is one line in plain words, for example Clip 1: new lines, warmer, still a question. Nothing has run yet.
4. 4Step 4: Check the list. Press × on a change to drop it. Ask again in the box if you want something different; the list is updated.
5. 5Step 5: The button under the list says what it will do and what it costs, for example Apply 1 change · regenerates 2 clips and the final cut, with the price. Only what depends on the change is made again: here clip 1, clip 2 because it carries on from clip 1, and the cut.
6. 6Step 6: Press Apply. The change is made and the run starts. When it ends, Zip reports what was made again and what it cost, with an Undo button that puts the episode back as it was before.

• Changes: Make clip 4 shorter. Put Dana in the car scene. Give Nell a line in clip 5. Make the ending land harder.
• Suggestions: press Suggest a few things, or ask What would make this funnier? Zip suggests changes; add the ones you like to the list.
• Problems: when the episode has problems listed, a button such as Fix the 2 problems (it says how many) asks Zip to fix them all.

Tips

• Zip's replies cost a few credits each; only Apply makes or reshoots anything, and it says the price first.
• If a run is already going, Apply waits: the line beside it says why.
• Every applied change is kept in the episode's History (the clock button), so you can go back to an earlier version later.

About the recording: the recordings are made in ShowMaker's rehearsal mode, where the assistant is a stand-in that cannot read the episode. Zip's words in the video were written for this page; the list of changes, the Apply button and the run after it are the app's own.