# Cinematic Prompt Guide — Making AI Video Look Like a Real Movie A working reference for writing prompts (Runway, Kling, Veo, Luma, Sora-style tools, Midjourney/SDXL for stills, etc.) that produce shots with the look and grammar of professional cinema, not "AI video." The core idea: a real cinematographer never says "make it look cool." They specify **shot, lens, light, color, movement, and texture** as separate, deliberate choices. Do the same in your prompt. --- ## 1. The Anatomy of a Cinematic Prompt Every strong prompt stacks these layers, roughly in this order: ``` [SHOT TYPE] of [SUBJECT + ACTION], [LENS/DOF], [LIGHTING], [COLOR GRADE / FILM STOCK], [ENVIRONMENT/ATMOSPHERE], [CAMERA MOVEMENT], [TEXTURE/FINISH], [MOOD IN ONE PHRASE] ``` Example applying the formula: > Medium close-up of a detective lighting a cigarette in a rain-streaked doorway, shot on 50mm with shallow depth of field, single hard key light from a streetlamp with deep shadow fill, desaturated teal-and-orange grade emulating Kodak Vision3 500T, steam rising off wet asphalt in the background, slow push-in, subtle 35mm film grain and soft halation on the highlights, tense and lonely. Everything below is a menu you pull from to fill in each bracket. --- ## 2. Shot Type & Framing | Term | What it does | |---|---| | Extreme wide shot (EWS) | Establishes scale, location, isolation | | Wide shot (WS) | Full body + environment | | Medium shot (MS) | Waist-up, conversational | | Medium close-up (MCU) | Chest-up, emotional but still grounded | | Close-up (CU) | Face fills frame, intimacy/tension | | Extreme close-up (ECU) | Eyes, hands, an object — heightened detail | | Over-the-shoulder (OTS) | Dialogue, POV of relationship | | Point of view (POV) | Puts the viewer inside a character | | Low angle | Subject looks powerful, imposing | | High angle | Subject looks small, vulnerable | | Dutch/canted angle | Unease, disorientation | | Bird's-eye / overhead | Geometry, pattern, god's-eye scale | --- ## 3. Lens & Camera Language - **Focal length:** 24mm (wide, environmental), 35mm (naturalistic, most "cinematic default"), 50mm (neutral, human-eye), 85mm (compressed, flattering close-ups), anamorphic 40mm (oval bokeh, horizontal flares) - **Depth of field:** shallow depth of field / creamy bokeh, deep focus (everything sharp, Kurosawa/Wes Anderson-style), rack focus (focus shifts mid-shot) - **Aspect ratio:** 2.39:1 (anamorphic widescreen, "epic"), 1.85:1 (standard theatrical), 4:3 (boxy, intimate or retro), 9:16 (vertical, for short-form) - **Camera/format look:** "shot on ARRI Alexa," "shot on 35mm film," "IMAX-scale composition," "vintage 16mm home-movie look" --- ## 4. Lighting Design - **Three-point lighting** — clean, controlled, standard interview/drama look - **Practical lighting** — light sources visible in-frame (lamps, neon signs, candles, car headlights) motivating the light - **High-contrast / chiaroscuro** — deep blacks, hard falloff, classic noir - **Motivated lighting** — "lit only by [X]" (a phone screen, a fridge door, moonlight through blinds) - **Golden hour** — warm, low, long shadows, nostalgic - **Blue hour / day-for-night** — cool, moody, twilight - **Volumetric light / god rays** — visible light shafts through dust, fog, or smoke - **Top light** — interrogation-room harshness - **Rim/backlight** — silhouette separation, halo effect --- ## 5. Color Grading & Film Stock Emulation | Look | Feel | |---|---| | Teal and orange | Modern blockbuster, high contrast skin-vs-shadow | | Bleach bypass | Gritty, desaturated, war/thriller | | Kodak Vision3 500T emulation | Warm, slightly grainy, night-friendly, prestige drama | | Kodachrome / Ektachrome emulation | Saturated, nostalgic, 70s look | | Monochrome high-contrast | Noir, art-house | | Pastel, low-contrast | Dreamlike, memory, romance | | Bleak cool grade, crushed blacks | Dystopian sci-fi | | Technicolor saturation | Classic Hollywood, fantasy | Add "with visible film grain" or "clean digital, no grain" to control texture separately from color. --- ## 6. Camera Movement - **Static/locked-off** — stillness, tension, observational - **Slow push-in (dolly in)** — building emotional intensity - **Pull-out (dolly out)** — revealing scale or isolation - **Tracking shot / Steadicam** — smooth follow, immersive - **Handheld** — urgency, realism, documentary energy - **Crane/aerial rise** — grandeur, scene-opening - **Whip pan** — energy, transition, comedic or kinetic beats - **Orbit / arc around subject** — dramatic reveal, dimensionality - **Rack focus during move** — draws attention mid-shot Be explicit about speed: "slow, deliberate push-in over 4 seconds" reads very differently than "quick handheld push-in." --- ## 7. Texture & Finish (the details that sell "real film") - Film grain (specify stock/format: 16mm grain, 35mm grain) - Lens flare (anamorphic horizontal streak vs. soft circular flare) - Vignette (subtle darkened corners) - Motion blur on fast movement - Chromatic aberration at frame edges - Slight lens breathing / imperfect focus pull - Dust and scratches (for a deliberately aged/archival look) Skip all of these for a clean, hyper-real "modern digital" look instead — the absence is also a style choice. --- ## 8. Genre Style Templates **Neo-noir thriller** > Low-angle medium shot of a woman walking through a parking garage at night, 35mm lens, hard sodium-vapor practical lighting casting long orange shadows, high-contrast teal-and-orange grade, thin fog drifting through the frame, slow tracking shot following from behind, visible 35mm grain, tense and watchful. **Sci-fi dystopia** > Wide establishing shot of a rain-soaked megacity street at night, anamorphic lens with horizontal blue flares, neon signage as the only light source, cool desaturated grade with crushed blacks, volumetric light through steam vents, slow crane rise revealing scale, subtle chromatic aberration, oppressive and vast. **Intimate character drama** > Close-up of a man's face at a kitchen table, 85mm lens, shallow depth of field, soft window light as key with warm practical lamp fill, Kodak Vision3 500T emulation, static locked-off camera, gentle film grain, quiet and unresolved. **Western** > Extreme wide shot of a lone rider crossing an open plain at golden hour, 24mm lens, deep focus, warm backlight with long shadows, Kodachrome-style saturation, dust drifting across frame, very slow push-in, dry and mythic. **Documentary / vérité** > Medium shot, handheld camera with natural imperfection, 35mm lens, available window light only, neutral color grade with minimal saturation, slight motion blur on movement, observational and unstaged. --- ## 9. Copy-Paste Starter Prompts **Rooftop conversation, dusk** > Two figures on a rooftop at dusk, medium two-shot, 35mm lens, shallow depth of field, blue-hour ambient light mixed with warm window glow from below, muted teal grade, light breeze moving their clothing, slow orbit around the pair, subtle film grain, reflective and quiet. **Chase through a market** > Handheld tracking shot following a runner through a crowded outdoor market, 24mm lens, natural harsh daylight, warm saturated grade, motion blur on background crowd, fast whip pans between obstacles, energetic and chaotic. **Empty diner at 3am** > Wide static shot of an empty diner interior at night, 35mm lens, deep focus, buzzing fluorescent practicals with one flickering bulb, desaturated cool-green grade, visible 16mm grain, absolute stillness, lonely and liminal. --- ## 10. Keeping a Short Film Consistent Across Shots Single-shot prompts are easy; a coherent short film is a continuity problem. - **Lock a style sentence** (lens + grade + grain) and paste it, unchanged, into every shot's prompt for the film. - **Use reference images** where the tool supports image-to-video or character/style references, instead of re-describing a character's face and wardrobe from scratch each time. - **Write a shot list first** (in a doc, not the video tool) — shot type, location, action, one-line intent — then convert each line into a full prompt. This is what keeps geography and pacing sane across 8–12 clips. - **Use negative prompts** to suppress common AI-video tells: "no warped hands, no text artifacts, no morphing background, no illogical extra limbs." - **Match motion direction** across cuts (screen direction / the 180-degree rule) so characters don't visually flip sides between shots. --- ## 11. Common Mistakes - Stacking too many conflicting styles in one prompt ("noir but also bright and colorful and dreamy") — pick one coherent look per shot. - Describing *plot* instead of *image* ("he realizes she was lying all along" isn't something a camera can show — describe the visible expression/action instead). - Forgetting camera movement entirely, which defaults most models to a generic slow push-in. - Overloading a single shot with multiple actions — one clear action per generated clip reads far more cinematic than a run-on sequence. --- ## 12. Quick Reference Cheat Sheet `[Shot] of [subject/action], [lens + DOF], [lighting], [color grade/stock], [environment detail], [camera movement], [grain/texture], [one-word/phrase mood]` Current (2026) tools worth knowing for this kind of work, each with a different strength: Runway (finest per-shot creative control), Kling (strong, stable, production-ready motion), Veo (leading camera work plus native audio/dialogue), Luma (fast, polished output), Seedance (best for multi-character scenes). Capabilities shift often, so it's worth a quick check of each tool's current model page before locking in a production plan.