Creatomate
API & Integration -> Quick Start

Rearrange scenes in a template

This example shows how to modify and reorder the content within a template before rendering.

Step 1
Create a template

Some situations may require you to edit a template based on a dynamic number of elements. Take for example this slideshow video where the user can put in however many photos they want, and the template adjusts accordingly.With the right template structure, you can set up a single template that is compatible with any amount of scenes. Click the 
Open in editor
button below to open this template in the editor and take a close look at how it is organized:

Step 2
Render a single scene

You'll notice that the template has a composition named 
Scenes
, with nested compositions 
Title-Scene
, 
Intro-Text
, 
Intro-Dedication
, etc. Each of these scenes are placed on the same track.With this structure in place, the scenes can now be referred to as reusable components. Say we only want to include the 
Single-Photo-With-Caption
scene with a different image and caption. This can be done using the 
copy
operator. Essentially, this API call replaces the content of the 
Scenes
composition with a copy of one of its elements.
curl -X POST https://api.creatomate.com/v2/renders \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY_HERE" \
     -d '{
  "template_id": "YOUR_TEMPLATE_ID_HERE",
  "modifications": {
    "Scenes": [
      {
        "copy": "Single-Photo-With-Caption",
        "1PC-Photo": "https://cdn.creatomate.com…/demo/tribute-mpp-01.jpg",
        "1PC-Caption": "A different caption"
      }
    ]
  }
}'

Step 3
Generate the final video

Here's a more comprehensive example, made up of 5 scenes from the template. As you can see, you can refer to scenes regardless of their original order. The 
Single-Photo-With-Backdrop
scene is used multiple times.Let's consider how this API request might be used as part of an application. First, a user submits any number of photos. The app can then distribute the images over the available scenes in the template (one 
Three-Photos
scene and two 
Single-Photo-With-Backdrop
scenes). In this example, the intro 
Intro-Dedication
and outro 
Farewell-Message
scenes are included as well.
curl -X POST https://api.creatomate.com/v2/renders \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY_HERE" \
     -d '{
  "template_id": "YOUR_TEMPLATE_ID_HERE",
  "modifications": {
    "Scenes": [
      {
        "copy": "Intro-Dedication",
        "ID-Name": "Fluff McPaws",
        "ID-Date": "1.1.2000 ~ 1.1.2026"
      },
      {
        "copy": "Single-Photo-With-Backdrop",
        "SPB-Photo": "https://cdn.creatomate.com…/demo/tribute-2p-01.jpg"
      },
      {
        "copy": "Three-Photos",
        "3P-Photo-1": "https://cdn.creatomate.com…/demo/tribute-3p-01.jpg",
        "3P-Photo-2": "https://cdn.creatomate.com…/demo/tribute-3p-02.jpg",
        "3P-Photo-3": "https://cdn.creatomate.com…/demo/tribute-3p-03.jpg"
      },
      {
        "copy": "Single-Photo-With-Backdrop",
        "SPB-Photo": "https://cdn.creatomate.com…/demo/tribute-spb.jpg"
      },
      {
        "copy": "Farewell-Message",
        "FM-Text": "Wishing her all the high places to perch and no vacuum cleaners in sight."
      }
    ]
  }
}'

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