The film follows Maya and Theo through one day on a tropical island: a baby elephant at a jungle river in the morning, a ride and a jump in island waters, a beach bar at dusk. It was made to be a complete, small production that a new user could open and study.
The brief
Four scenes in a 4:3 frame, with one look for the whole film, set once in the project: tropical saturated colors, golden hour light, underwater luminescence, handheld warmth. Because the look lives in the project, no shot repeats it and it can be changed in one place.
Casting it
Five characters: Maya, Theo, a baby elephant called Peanut, a bartender and a fire dancer. The people each have a face row: the same face from several angles on a grey backdrop. Wardrobe is drawn against the face row, one sheet for each costume the story needs.
From then on, no prompt describes a face. A shot says @maya and her pictures go with it.
Characters
@maya
@theo
@ari
@fire-dancer
@peanut
Worlds
@jungle-river
@coral-reef
@beach-bar
Props
@wooden-longtail-boat
@aris-coconut-cocktail
@red-hibiscus-flower
@fire-poi
@theos-phone
The world
Three places: the jungle river, the coral reef and the beach bar. Each is a wide, empty still with nobody in it, described the way a location scout would, so every shot set there has the same geography.
The props that people handle (a phone, a longtail boat, a coconut, fire poi, a hibiscus flower) are each their own picture, attached only to the shots they appear in.
The shots
30 shots across 5 sequences. Each has its prompt, its camera (size, lens, move, angle) and the cast and places attached to it. The first scene alone is 14 shots, opening on a hand brushing wet leaves before it shows a face.
Shots are framed as stills first, so the writing is fixed while a mistake still costs cents.
- SizeMedium wide to wide
- Lens85mm
- MovePull out
- AngleEye level
@ari tucks a flower into each cocktail, then steps out of frame.
The video
Each sequence went to Seedance 2.5 as a whole, with its references, so the place holds across the cuts. The project holds 6 renders and one upscale of a finished take.
A continuous scene covered in 8 shots.
StyleLive-action travel commercial, 4:3, with the image quality of an ARRI Alexa 35 and Canon K35 prime lenses…
SHOT 01A long lens from some distance away, tight on the top of a bamboo fire torch: the flame fills the frame…
SHOT 02Wide on the group, eye level, a wide-angle 18mm lens. Centre: MAYA, small in the space, back to the lens, looking at ARI…
SHOT 03Over ARI's shoulder, onto MAYA, eye level, a long 135mm lens, the background compressed and soft…
SoundA beach bar at blue hour: small waves breaking softly, a gentle breeze, the crackle of the torches…
Never includeNo posing and no looks into the lens, no text, captions, subtitles or logos…
Open it yourself
When you sign up, this project is copied into your own organization, finished. Read every prompt, see every reference, change a line and frame the shot again. What you do to your copy touches nobody else's.
Or read the practice behind it: keeping a character consistent.