Describe the scene’s narrative job first
Begin with what the viewer must understand from the scene. Then specify the subject, action, environment, time or period, composition, viewpoint, light, palette, and continuity anchors. A useful brief says “top-down cutaway showing airflow through a cracked door, with arrows labeled intake and escape” rather than “cinematic masterpiece, ultra detailed.”
Use concrete nouns and relationships. Lens language can influence composition in some systems, but it cannot replace a clear subject or guarantee physically correct geometry. Request only details that matter at vertical-video size.
Write exclusions as factual and editorial boundaries
Instead of a generic list such as “no blurry faces, no bad hands,” identify what would make this particular scene unusable: no modern objects in a historical room, no company logo, no legible invented medical label, no real person’s likeness, no extra limb obscuring the demonstrated action. Review output even when an exclusion is written; prompts are not enforcement controls.
For recurring subjects, maintain a continuity sheet with defining features, proportions, clothing, environment, palette, and approved reference frames. Record acceptable variation so the story can change perspective without changing identity.
- Narrative purpose and required visible fact
- Subject, action, environment, and period
- Composition, viewpoint, light, and palette
- Continuity anchors and permitted variation
- Factual, rights, and safety exclusions
Review truth before aesthetics
Check whether the scene misstates scale, anatomy, product details, historical setting, text, identity, or causality. A visually appealing image that depicts the wrong mechanism is a failed scene. Label illustration or reconstruction when a reasonable viewer could mistake synthetic media for real evidence.
Revise one dimension of the brief at a time when diagnosing failures. If the subject is wrong, adding more style adjectives makes the source of improvement harder to understand. Keep approved and rejected examples with the reason for future briefs.
VidiPrompt workflow example: brief three scenes for a solar-eclipse Short
Scenes must show alignment and scale conceptually without presenting decorative rays or impossible orbital geometry as scientific evidence.
- 1Define each scene’s job: establish bodies, show alignment, explain the moving shadow.
- 2Write subject, viewpoint, labels, palette, and scale limitations for every scene.
- 3Generate the VidiPrompt draft and compare visuals with the scientific source.
- 4Reject misleading geometry or invented labels even if the frame looks polished.
- 5Keep approved scene notes as continuity guidance for the final sequence.
Review questions
- Can the viewer infer the correct relationship from the frame?
- Are text, scale, period, and identity details accurate enough for the claim?
- Is synthetic illustration disclosed where necessary?
Pre-publish checklist
- Narrative job before style terms
- Concrete subjects and spatial relationships
- Scene-specific exclusions
- Continuity sheet for recurring subjects
- Factual and disclosure review at full resolution
Common failure modes
- A provider name or quality adjective is mistaken for a scene plan.
- Generic negative prompting replaces output review.
- Photorealism causes an illustration to be mistaken for evidence.
- Every variable changes at once during prompt iteration.
Primary sources
- Disclosing use of altered or synthetic content
YouTube Help — Current YouTube disclosure requirements for realistic altered or synthetic media.
- AI-generated content
TikTok Support — Current TikTok guidance for labeling and handling AI-generated or significantly edited content.