The Complete AI Short Film Workflow Everyone's Missing

2026-03-13 · case-study tutorial · Adil · recording, 26:28 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Video generation & shot direction (also: Pre-production & story, Assets, references & consistency, Post-production & finishing, Audio, voice & music, Prompting & AI assistants) · mode: Tutorial · tags: fiction, prompts shared, giveaway, one creator's experience

Adil makes a three-scene police short film starring himself entirely on Higgsfield, and his rule is to start from a feeling with real emotional stakes rather than from a prompt. He trains a Soul ID on 20 photos, makes cinematic stills in Soul Cinema, then character and prop sheets in Nano Banana Pro so faces and locations stay consistent. Each scene is a Cinema Studio multi-shot with Kling 3.0; he edits in DaVinci, regenerates missing shots and swaps in his own voice with Higgsfield Audio, which keeps emotion and pacing. Bad takes are fixed by iterating: run, look, tweak the prompt, run again.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Adil introduces a short film starring himself, made only with Higgsfield

★★ Adil makes a short film starring himself with his own voice entirely on Higgsfield: Soul Cinema for the images, Higgsfield Audio for the voice and Cinema Studio to animate. — 00:00:00 · Higgsfield AI, Soul Cinema, Higgsfield Audio, Cinema Studio, Adil

00:00:40 — The finished short film: locker room and patrol car scenes

00:02:04 — Start with a feeling: a three-sentence premise and three scenes

★★★ Adil says to start an AI film from a feeling, not a prompt: ask what story has real emotional stakes an audience feels, not what looks cool or gets views. — 00:02:04 · Adil

“Most people start with a prompt. That's the wrong move. Start with a feeling.”
★★ Adil's premise in three sentences, which he calls the whole foundation: a cop with depression has a birthday and his close ones try to cheer him up. — 00:02:04 · Adil
★★ Adil maps the film into three scenes, the locker room, the patrol car and the surprise, as setup, midpoint and climax, and says a short film needs no more. — 00:02:53 · Adil
★★★ Adil trains his Soul ID under Character from 20 photos of himself at different angles and in different light, says more variety gives better results, and then drops it into any scene. — 00:02:53 · Soul ID, Higgsfield AI, Adil

00:03:17 — Soul ID from 20 photos, the hero shot in Soul Cinema, character sheets in Nano Banana Pro, Dave

★★★ Adil says Soul Cinema makes cinematic images by default, with nothing special needed in the prompt. — 00:03:42 · Soul Cinema, Adil
★★ For the hero shot Adil uses a simple Soul Cinema prompt, "a close-up of an American policeman", with his Soul ID selected. — 00:03:42 · Soul Cinema, Soul ID, Adil
★★★ To keep a character the same from every angle, Adil takes the Soul Cinema image into Nano Banana Pro to make a character sheet holding the face, accessories and clothing. — 00:04:09 · Nano Banana Pro, character sheet, Soul Cinema, Adil
★★ For a second character Adil runs the same Soul Cinema prompt without selecting Soul ID, which gives a new person. — 00:04:09 · Soul ID, Soul Cinema, Adil
★★★ Adil says the same simple portrait prompt in Nano Banana Pro would give a plastic look every time, while Soul Cinema gives good grading, skin texture and light by default. — 00:04:57 · Nano Banana Pro, Soul Cinema, AI look, Adil
★ Adil names the partner character Dave and makes a character sheet for him the same way. — 00:05:24 · character sheet, Adil

00:05:40 — Scene 1, the locker room: prop sheet, Cinema Studio multi-shot, the screenshot trick, dialogue in one shot

★★★ After a Soul Cinema wide shot of a locker room, Adil makes a prop sheet of it with the same sheet prompt so the environment stays consistent across every shot of the scene. — 00:05:53 · location reference sheet, Soul Cinema, Adil
★★★ Adil animates each scene as a Cinema Studio multi-shot, which strings several shots with different angles and camera moves together in one generation. — 00:05:53 · Cinema Studio, multi-shot prompt, Adil
★★ In Cinema Studio the character sheet and prop sheet are uploaded as references, and each element can be named, described and given a type. — 00:06:21 · Cinema Studio, Elements, character sheet, location reference sheet
★★ In a Cinema Studio multi-shot each shot gets its own length and camera move: Adil gives shot one seven seconds and a handheld move for a slight shake. — 00:06:21 · Cinema Studio, multi-shot prompt, Adil
★★★ Adil describes the image first and then drops the reference, which he says anchors the model and gives noticeably better results. — 00:06:47 · Cinema Studio, Elements, Adil
★★ Adil shows Kling 3.0 in Cinema Studio putting him into a shot though he was not in the start frame. — 00:07:59 · Kling 3.0, Soul ID, keyframe, Adil, Cinema Studio
★★★ When Kling 3.0 produces a shot that would be hard to make (here from inside the locker), Adil screenshots it and uses it with the prop sheet to start the next generation. — 00:07:59 · Kling 3.0, keyframe, location reference sheet, Adil
★★ Adil writes each dialogue line into the shot prompt with the speaker and how it is said ("funny and loudly", "teasingly", "dryly"). — 00:08:25 · Adil
★★ A four-line exchange between Adil and Dave came out of Cinema Studio in one shot with no cuts. — 00:10:40 · multi-shot prompt, Cinema Studio, Adil
★★ Adil gives the patrol car scene a different look, less cinematic and more raw, as if a dash cam happened to be rolling. — 00:11:09 · Adil

00:11:21 — Scene 2, the patrol car: Claude-written prompts, start frames, dialogue, B-roll and the radio call

★★★ Instead of writing image prompts himself, Adil describes what he wants to Claude in plain words ("improve this prompt") and lets it build the prompt for Soul Cinema. — 00:11:38 · Claude, Soul Cinema, Adil
★★ Adil brings the car-interior image into Cinema Studio as a start frame with both character sheets as elements and a simple prompt, "Adil and Dave enter the car". — 00:12:08 · Cinema Studio, keyframe, Elements, character sheet, Adil
★★ Adil screenshots the frame where both men sit in the car and uses it as the start frame of the next shot. — 00:12:49 · keyframe, Adil
★★ Adil says to check small acting details such as the driver's eyes staying on the road: the moment shows he is emotionally checked out, and it is lost once his eyes move. — 00:14:11 · Adil
★★ Adil generates a few B-roll shots to let a dialogue scene breathe, with prompts from Claude and images in Soul Cinema. — 00:14:11 · Claude, Soul Cinema, Adil
★★★ Adil says Soul Cinema works well with short, simple prompts for inspiration and also with long, complex prompts. — 00:15:03 · Soul Cinema, Adil
★★ Rather than make a new keyframe, Adil reuses one with the car door open, has the character close it at the start to cut in the edit, and runs the dialogue in one take to break up with B-roll. — 00:15:32 · keyframe, Adil
★★ Adil says casual conversations loosen the tension and give a character some lore. — 00:16:29 · Adil
★ Adil brought a bit of his own culture into the dialogue with the Central Asian noodle dish lagman (as heard). — 00:16:58 · Adil
★★ Adil animates the radio B-roll with a dispatch call to pull the two cops out of the birthday talk and back into the job. — 00:16:58 · Adil
★ Adil animates the other two B-roll images with no prompt at all. — 00:17:25 · Adil
★★ Inspired by cop movies, Adil gives each scene its own visual identity, colour grading and camera. — 00:18:38 · Adil
★★ For the wife, Selena, Adil uses Soul Cinema without Soul ID, a close-up of a woman in her mid-20s, and gives her a character sheet. — 00:19:05 · Soul Cinema, Soul ID, Adil, character sheet

00:19:09 — Scene 3, the surprise: Selena, the transition multi-shot, the hallway and the surprise party

★★ To build suspense between scenes two and three, Adil makes a multi-shot that starts in the car and then shows the cops leaving it from the dash cam. — 00:19:34 · multi-shot prompt, Adil
★★ The climax shot switches the lights on to reveal the surprise party, referencing the house location and the close-up of the wife. — 00:21:02

00:22:06 — Editing in DaVinci and regenerating missing shots

★★★ In DaVinci Adil trims some shots, cuts others and mirrors a few whose composition works better flipped; not every generation makes it. — 00:22:06 · DaVinci Resolve, Adil
★★ Halfway through the edit Adil found he was missing shots for scene three and generated them with the same workflow. — 00:22:06 · Adil
★★★ Adil says a missing shot found in post would be a pain on a real shoot (same light, angles, makeup), while with AI "nothing is locked until you lock it". — 00:22:31 · Adil

“Here, nothing is locked until you lock it.”
★★★ Adil splits the film's dialogue into two tracks, one for himself and one for Dave; Selena's single line keeps its voice. — 00:22:31 · Higgsfield Audio, Adil

00:22:51 — Voice change in Higgsfield Audio: his own voice for Adil, a preset voice for Dave

★★★ In Higgsfield Audio you give it your voice by uploading a track of yourself speaking or recording one there; Adil uses one of his videos. — 00:22:56 · Higgsfield Audio, voice cloning, Adil
★★★ Higgsfield Audio's Change Voice processes a whole track and changes only the voice: emotion, pacing and delivery stay the same. — 00:22:56 · Higgsfield Audio, voice cloning
★★ Higgsfield Audio has preset voices; Adil voices Dave with one that is called Dave. — 00:23:25 · Higgsfield Audio, Adil

00:23:40 — The full short film with the corrected voices

00:24:55 — Recap, bad takes and iteration; the short-film concept giveaway

★★ Adil says the film had a lot of bad takes he did not show. — 00:24:55 · Adil
★★★ Adil's rule for bad takes: run it, look at it, tweak a thing or two in the prompt and run it again; iteration is the skill. — 00:25:48 · Adil

“Iteration is the skill.”

In the description and comments

★ Higgsfield: The full prompts of the short film, the character-sheet prompt among them, are shared through the first link in the video's description. — creator comment · character sheet
★ Higgsfield: To keep each character's voice consistent, the channel extracted a separate voice track per character and changed the voices in Higgsfield Audio. — creator comment · Higgsfield Audio
★ Higgsfield: To a viewer who cannot wait for a "Seedance 2.0 version", the channel replies "Very sooooon!", without saying whether it means a Seedance 2.0 tutorial or Seedance 2.0 on Higgsfield. — creator comment · Seedance 2.0

Threads in this video

restate · How do you keep a character the same across shots? — Adil trains his Soul ID under Character from 20 photos of himself at different angles and in different light, says more variety gives better results, and then drops it into any scene. (00:02:53)
restate · How do you keep a location, product or prop the same across shots? — After a Soul Cinema wide shot of a locker room, Adil makes a prop sheet of it with the same sheet prompt so the environment stays consistent across every shot of the scene. (00:05:53)
restate · Which image model should be used for keyframes, edits, text and outfits? — Adil says Soul Cinema makes cinematic images by default, with nothing special needed in the prompt. (00:03:42)
restate · How do you avoid the AI (plastic) look? — Adil says the same simple portrait prompt in Nano Banana Pro would give a plastic look every time, while Soul Cinema gives good grading, skin texture and light by default. (00:04:57)
restate · How do you direct a multi-shot sequence? — Adil animates each scene as a Cinema Studio multi-shot, which strings several shots with different angles and camera moves together in one generation. (00:05:53)
restate · Should prompts be short or long? — Adil says Soul Cinema works well with short, simple prompts for inspiration and also with long, complex prompts. (00:15:03)
restate · Should sound and music be generated with the clip or added in the edit? — Higgsfield Audio's Change Voice processes a whole track and changes only the voice: emotion, pacing and delivery stay the same. (00:22:56)
restate · When a generation fails, should you generate more takes, fix the prompt or start over? — Adil's rule for bad takes: run it, look at it, tweak a thing or two in the prompt and run it again; iteration is the skill. (00:25:48)

Mentioned

Central: Adil · Adil's police birthday short film · character sheet · Cinema Studio · Claude · Higgsfield Audio · multi-shot prompt · Nano Banana Pro · Soul Cinema · Soul ID

Also: AI look · Dave · DaVinci Resolve · Elements · keyframe · Kling 3.0 · location reference sheet · Selena

Only in the description or credits: Seedance 2.0 · voice cloning

Also centred on Adil's police birthday short film: AI Short Film – Full Prompt Library (YouTube video)

← Previous: AI Short Film – Full Prompt Library (YouTube video) · Next → How Higgsfield’s Similarity-Scoring Feature Helps Commercial AI Workflows