Skip to content

What are elements?

An element is a reusable building block of a Popcorn movie. The agent uses elements as part of its production process — characters get cast, sets become locations, props show up on screen, voices read narration, soundtracks score scenes, sound effects punctuate beats.

You can let the agent create elements on the fly for each movie (it always will, if you don’t specify). Or you can create them yourself, save them to your library, and reuse them across many movies.

TypeWhat it representsUsed for
🧬 CharacterA person, creature, or personaOn-screen hosts, narrators, talking-head ads, recurring cast
🏠 SetA location or environmentWhere shots take place — kitchen, studio, desert, neon city
🎭 PropA physical objectHero products, recurring objects (a coffee cup, a phone, a tool)
🔊 VoiceA specific voiceNarration, character dialogue, host voice
🎵 SoundtrackA piece of musicBackground score for scenes
🔊 Sound effectA discrete audio cueStings, transitions, punctuation
  • Consistency. A @Milo character looks and sounds the same in every video. A @StudioKitchen set is the same kitchen every time.
  • Speed. Elements skip the design step. The agent uses what’s already defined instead of generating fresh.
  • Branding. Recurring characters and sets are how a creator’s videos start to feel like theirs instead of generic AI output.
  • Cost. Reusing existing elements means fewer credits spent on regenerating reference images and voices.

The fastest way: in any chat, type @ and pick the element from the dropdown. See @-mentions.

Popp will then use that element wherever it makes sense — your character as the host, your set as the location, your soundtrack as the score.

You can create an element three ways:

  1. From the sidebar. Click the + next to Characters, Props, Sets, Soundtracks, Voices, or Sound Effects.
  2. From a movie chat. Tell Popp: “Make a new character: a 30-year-old marketing strategist named Luna…” and the agent will create it as a local element on the current movie. You can then promote it to global.
  3. From the Characters library. On the characters page, browse trending characters and create new ones from there.

Each element type opens an element chat for refinement — Popp guides you through filling in the properties (appearance, voice, personality for characters; description, lighting, atmosphere for sets; etc.).

See the per-type pages for details: