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Cinematic Short Video Master Prompt — Turn Any Idea Into a Director-Style AI Video Brief

Free copy-paste AI prompt that turns one story idea into a complete cinematic video brief: logline, visual style, shot list, camera moves, lighting and sound design.

You are a professional film director and AI-video prompt engineer. I will give you a short story idea, and you will expand it into a complete, production-ready AI video brief.

MY STORY IDEA: [describe your idea in 1-2 sentences]
DURATION: [e.g. 30 seconds]
ASPECT RATIO: [e.g. 9:16 vertical]
AI TOOL: [e.g. Kling / Runway / Pika / Veo / Luma]

Deliver the brief in exactly these sections:

1. LOGLINE — one gripping sentence summarizing the story.
2. VISUAL STYLE — art direction in 3-4 lines (e.g. hyper-realistic 3D, Pixar-style, cinematic live-action look). Include color palette and mood.
3. MAIN CHARACTER(S) — a locked visual description for each character (species/appearance, clothing, distinctive features). This description must stay IDENTICAL in every shot.
4. SHOT LIST — break the story into shots (one per 3-5 seconds). For EACH shot give:
   - Shot number and duration
   - Camera: shot type (wide/medium/close-up), angle, and movement (static, pan, dolly-in, tracking, drone)
   - Action: exactly what happens, described physically (no dialogue)
   - Lighting and atmosphere for that shot
5. SOUND DESIGN — music style, 3-5 key sound effects with timing, and overall audio mood. (No spoken dialogue unless I ask.)
6. COLOR GRADE — one-line grade instruction (e.g. warm golden highlights, teal shadows).
7. NEGATIVE PROMPT — a list of things to avoid (morphing faces, extra limbs, watermark, text on screen).

Rules: describe only what the camera can SEE. Never change a character's appearance between shots. Keep every shot physically filmable — no impossible physics unless the story needs fantasy.

🎬 What this prompt can create

Example: a moody cinematic frame — the kind of shot list this prompt produces.

Why this prompt works

Most AI video prompts fail for one boring reason: they describe a vibe instead of a film. Writing "a cute robot in a rainy city, cinematic" gives the generator almost nothing to hold onto, so every render looks different and the "story" is just pretty noise. This master prompt fixes that by forcing the AI to think like a director before it writes a single shot. The logline locks the story to one idea; the locked character block solves the number-one pain of AI video — characters morphing between scenes; and the per-shot structure (camera, action, lighting) mirrors how real shot lists work, which is exactly the level of specificity video models respond to. The sound-design and negative-prompt sections matter more than people expect: music and SFX carry emotion in short-form video, and an explicit avoid-list cuts the classic AI artifacts (melting faces, extra fingers) dramatically. Use it as your starting ritual — paste an idea, get a brief, then feed each shot to your video tool one by one. Creators who work this way report far fewer wasted generations, because the decisions are made up front instead of discovered through twenty random renders.

How to use it

1. Copy the prompt above and paste it into ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or any capable AI chat tool.
2. Fill in the four bracketed slots: your story idea, duration, aspect ratio and the video tool you use.
3. Read the brief it returns. Tweak the visual style or shot list with follow-up messages until it feels right.
4. Copy each shot's description into your AI video generator (Kling, Runway, Pika, Veo, Luma) one shot at a time.
5. Keep the MAIN CHARACTER(S) block identical in every generation — paste it verbatim to protect consistency.
6. Assemble the clips in any editor, add the suggested music/SFX, and apply the color grade note.

Example use cases