> An installable agent skill for AI Content Drop. Machine-readable copy: > https://aicontentdrop.com/skills/video-prompt-writer/SKILL.md. > Ships with the aicontentdrop package, and is listed in > /skills/index.json.
Writing a video prompt that survives the model
Most disappointing generations are not a model problem. They are a prompt that described a *concept* when the model needed a *shot*.
Decide the job before the words
Is there a specific thing that must be recognisable? A real product, a particular person, a logo, an established character.
- Yes → you need image-to-video. Generate or supply a still of that
- No → text-to-video is fine and cheaper to iterate on.
subject, then animate it. Text-to-video re-invents the subject every run; no amount of prompt detail fixes that, because the model has never seen the thing you mean.
Does it need speech or synced audio? Only some models generate native audio. Filter the catalogue rather than assuming, and if the model cannot do it, plan the voiceover as a separate step instead of hoping.
The structure that works
Describe one shot, in this order:
- Subject and action — who or what, doing one specific thing.
- Setting — where, and what time of day.
- Camera — the shot size and the move: *static wide*, *slow push in*,
- Light — direction and quality: *hard afternoon sun from the left*,
- Treatment — the finish: *shallow depth of field*, *anamorphic*,
*handheld follow*, *low-angle tracking*.
*soft overcast*, *single practical lamp*.
*documentary*, *35mm grain*.
A barista sets a ceramic cup on a wooden counter and slides it forward.
Small independent cafe, early morning. Static medium shot, slight push in.
Warm low sun through a window on the left, soft shadows.
Shallow depth of field, 35mm, natural colour.
That is one shot. It has a subject doing one thing, a place, a camera, a light source and a finish — everything the model needs and nothing it has to guess.
The four habits that separate good prompts from bad ones
One shot per generation. A prompt describing three beats gets you a model choosing between them, or cutting incoherently. Multi-beat sequences are several generations you assemble, not one prompt.
One action. "Walks in, sits down, opens a laptop and smiles" is four actions competing for a few seconds. Pick the one that carries the moment.
Describe presence, not absence. Negative instructions are unreliable. Rather than "no text on the wall", describe a plain concrete wall.
Change one variable per iteration. If you rewrite the whole prompt between attempts, you cannot tell which change helped. Vary the camera, or the light, or the action — not all three.
Length, and why the first second matters most
These models hold a coherent idea for a few seconds and then drift: hands wander, faces soften, backgrounds reinvent themselves. Two consequences:
- Prefer the shortest duration that carries the beat. A clean 5 seconds
- Put the essential content early. If the shot must show the product
beats a 10-second clip whose back half you will cut anyway.
clearly, it should be clear at second one, not arriving at second eight.
Iterating without burning the budget
Credits are flat per generation and charged only on success, so a failed run costs nothing but a rejected-looking one costs full price. The cheap path:
- Rehearse the request shape in the sandbox — no key, no credits:
- Find the prompt on a cheap model (the catalogue starts at 9 credits for
- Re-run the winning prompt on the expensive model once, for the take that
``bash curl -sX POST https://aicontentdrop.com/v1/generate/video \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "X-Sandbox: true" \ -d '{"prompt":"…","model":"kling_3_0"}' ``
video). Composition and action read fine at low cost.
ships.
Quote the cost before step 3 — see ai-video-model-picker.
Diagnosing a bad result
| What you got | The usual cause | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| Subject is not the thing they meant | text-to-video invented it | Switch to image-to-video from a real still |
| Drifts or morphs late in the clip | duration beyond the coherent window | Shorter duration; put the payload early |
| Nothing moves, or it is one slow zoom | no camera or action specified | Name the move and one concrete action |
| Right idea, wrong mood | light unspecified | Give direction and quality of light |
| Refused | content gate | Rewrite; nothing was charged, so do not retry unchanged |
What to hand back
The prompt you used, the model, the credit cost, and — when the first attempt missed — what you changed and why. A user who can see the one variable you moved can direct the next iteration themselves.
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