Writing a prompt that works

A good prompt has four parts, in this order:

• Subject: who or what is in the shot, described concretely.
• Action: one or two things that happen, not five.
• Camera: static, slow push in, handheld, orbit.
• Look: light, time of day, colour, style.

Prompts can be up to 4,000 characters (Wan 2.6: 1,500). The counter turns red past the limit.

Describe what you want, not what you don't: "no people" often produces people. "No subtitles", "no background music" and "no logo" do help.

Longer clips

• Start with one sentence summing up the clip, then describe it shot by shot, then what must stay the same.
• On Seedance 2.5, time the shots in whole seconds: "0–3s: …, 3–7s: …". The other models ignore timings; number the shots instead.
• One camera move per shot. Slow movements come out cleaner than fast ones.
• Show feelings through the body ("shoulders trembling") rather than naming them.
• Name the style when it matters: "2D anime", "3D animation".

Sound and dialogue

• Put dialogue in double quotes with who says it and how: Lena (calmly): "It was. Until tonight."
• Seedance 2.5 speaks English, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, Malay, Thai, Vietnamese and Arabic. Keep each line in one language and name it if it isn't English.
• Describe sound too: "rain on the window, distant traffic".
• Text on screen can come out misspelt. Keep it short.