The idea
Live today with StoryMachine and Fairground
Meet the StoryMachine and Fairground team, live
Friday 9 October, 3.30pm UK time, online. How to win The Greenlight and StoryMachine's challenges. Any tools welcome. Bring your questions.
Watch it here at 3.30pm- --hrs
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One moment…
← The Big Sell · Advertising trackStoryMachine
Brand challenge · London 2026 · Set by StoryMachine
Make the film that launches StoryMachine.
One video. Any tools. US$500 in cash for the best one. Show the world what creative intelligence is, and make it impossible to scroll past.
Entries close in
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Come back with
Three directions
Before the expensive part
Which one lands?
The brief
Explain it to someone who has never seen it. Make them want it.
StoryMachine is creative intelligence for video: a team of creative agents that works with you to research, cast, direct and audience-test several directions for a film, before production begins. Your job is its launch video. The theme is unlocking creativity.
- Make
- 1 video
- Prize
- US$500 cash
- Tools
- Any you like
- Entries close
- Midday, Sunday 11 October
What is creative intelligence, and how does StoryMachine deliver it?
What your film must show
Four things. Hit all of them.
The creative intelligence engine
Driven by brain scans. It lets you test previs ideas with different audiences before you make the full video.
The real-time model
Bring any idea to life in real time, and direct it with your voice and by typing.
The creative agent team
A team of creative agents working with a person who stays in charge. Human collaboration is at the very heart of it.
The real thing
Screenshots and screen recordings of StoryMachine in action, and its key features explained so a newcomer gets it.
Better planning equals better outputs.
Ways in
Eight ways in. Steal one, or beat them all.
How you tell it is up to you. Funny, cinematic, strange, dead simple: all welcome. These are sparks, not rules.
- The expensive mistakeOpen on a film that cost a fortune and landed flat. Rewind. Show how it goes when you test the idea first.
- Meet the crewIntroduce the creative agents like the line-up in a heist film. Then reveal who is really running the job: you.
- One sentence inStart with a single spoken line. Watch it become a film, live, without a cut.
- ActionNever show the product until the person in the chair says the word. Then show everything.
- Two cuts, one audiencePut two directions side by side and let the audience decide. Make us want to know which one wins.
- Before the expensive partA countdown. Every big decision gets made before the first final frame does.
- The ad about the adMake your launch video in StoryMachine and let us watch you do it. The making is the film.
- Out loudDirect the whole thing with your voice. No typing on screen, just someone calling the shots.
Make it land
- Win the first 3 secondsOpen on the most surprising picture you have. Explain afterwards.
- Show it workingA screen recording of StoryMachine doing the thing beats a slide describing it.
- One idea per shotIf a shot is carrying two points, cut it in half.
- Finish on the nameEnd on the StoryMachine logo and storymachine.ai, added in the edit.
There is no length rule. Short enough to watch twice is a good place to aim.
Brand files
Everything you need to make it look like StoryMachine.
The logo, the colours, the fonts, the paper texture and a title card. Use them as they are, and add the logo and any text in the edit so nothing comes out garbled.
Download the whole kit (.zip)Logo
StoryMachine
StoryMachine
Keep the logo's proportions. Don't recolour the tiles one by one, outline them or add effects. On a busy picture, put the logo on a panel of Paper first.
Colours
- StoryMachine blue
#304580The logo and the main colour. Buttons, labels and rules. - Ink
#15223FHeadlines and body text. - Cream
#F2ECDCThe page ground. Warm paper, never pure white. - Coral
#CF6452The one accent. Small solid shapes only, never body text. - Night
#14213BDeep navy for dark scenes, with white text. - Paper
#FAF7EERaised panels, and behind the logo on busy pictures. - Light blue
#5E75B9The logo tiles on dark backgrounds. - Note yellow
#FFF3A8The person's own idea: the sticky note on the canvas.
- Mint
#DFF3E7 - Pink
#F7D9D2 - Lilac
#E9DCFB - Coral on dark
#FF8D78
Lots of cream and blue, with coral saved for one small thing per frame. The pastels are for light fills only.
Fonts
Newsreader · SemiBold · headlines
You’re the Director.
Set it tight: letter spacing around -0.04em and line height just under 1.
Get Newsreader →DM Sans · everything else
Creative intelligence for video
Body text in Regular, the name in Bold.
Labels in capitals, spaced wide
Get DM Sans →Both fonts are free from Google Fonts, to install on your computer for your editing software.
Texture and title card
Say it like StoryMachine
Do
- StoryMachine: one word, with a capital S and M.
- Talk to “you”. The viewer is a director, not a prompter.
- Short sentences that say what happens. “You’re the Director.”
- StoryMachine's own words: canvas, card, direction, previs, make, credits.
- Calm and exact. Confidence comes from being specific.
Avoid
- Story Machine, Storymachine or SM.
- AI-powered, magic, amazing, revolutionary, unleash.
- Exclamation marks and emoji in anything written as StoryMachine.
- Redrawing, recolouring, outlining or adding effects to the logo.
- Coral for body text, and gradients as decoration.
Every file
- LogoPNG, see-through background, for light backgrounds
- Logo for dark backgroundsPNG, see-through background
- MarkSVG, StoryMachine blue
- MarkPNG, 512px, see-through background
- Mark for dark backgroundsSVG, light blue
- Mark for dark backgroundsPNG, see-through background
- Square iconSVG, the mark on a square
- Title cardPNG, 1200 x 630: the logo and “Creative intelligence for video”
- Paper texturePNG, 256px tile that repeats
- Colours and fontsOne sheet with every colour code and both fonts
- NewsreaderThe headline font, as a web font file
- DM SansThe font for everything else, as a web font file
- Brand notesThe logo, colour and wording rules as plain text
The prize
US$500
In cash, for the best ad.
How to enter
Seven steps. Then it's in.
- Make your Big Screen Hack profile, if you haven't already. It takes about two minutes. Make your profile →
- Share your card to unlock your partner credits, including your StoryMachine code. It's on your profile.
- Use StoryMachine, and capture screenshots and screen recordings of it in action as you go.
- Download the logo, colours and fonts from the brand files on this page.
- Make your launch video with any tools you like, on your own or as a team.
- Submit it on the entry form: go to bigscreenhack.com/submit, tick The Launch and add the link to your video.
- Get it in before midday (UK time) on Sunday 11 October. Early submissions are guaranteed to be judged.
Entries close in
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Hear from StoryMachine
This is optional. It doesn't affect your entry or your credits, and you can untick it at any time. StoryMachine's website · Our privacy policy
Make your profile or sign in to tick this.
The rules
The small print, in full.
For this challenge
- Your video must explain StoryMachine's key features.
- It must explain the brain scan-driven creative intelligence engine, which lets you test previs ideas with different audiences before you make the full video.
- It must explain the real-time model, which brings any idea to life in real time and lets you direct it with your voice and by typing.
- It must show the creative agent team, with human collaboration at the very heart of it.
- It must feature screenshots and screen recordings of StoryMachine in action.
- Use any tools you like to make the video, within the terms of each one.
- This challenge has its own prize. To win The Big Sell as well, your ad must also meet that track's rules, including its Christmas or Black Friday theme.
For every track and challenge
- Entry is free.
- Enter on your own or as a team. You don't need a ready-made crew: you can find collaborators among the people taking part.
- Entries close at midday (UK time) on Sunday 11 October. Early submissions are guaranteed to be judged.
- Unless the brief says otherwise, you can make something new during hack week or enter work you've already made, as long as you hold the rights to it.
- You keep what you make. Big Screen Hack gets the limited rights in the chapter terms to judge, screen, promote and archive your entry, and everyone in your team must have the authority to grant those rights.
- Before any public screening, you tell us who owns the script, which AI models you used, any material shot with real people, permission for anyone's likeness, the music rights and any territory restrictions.
- Sponsors' challenges are judged separately from the independent main jury.
- Partner credits are one code per person for each partner, redeemed on the partner's own platform.
- The shortlist premieres on Friday 16 October at the IMAX.
The full rules for the event, including what you need to tell us about how your entry was made, are in the participant guide.
StoryMachine
You’re the Director.
Go and make it.