How To Make an AI Animated Short Film (Full Workflow)

2026-04-09 · case-study tutorial · Adil · recording, 16:37 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Video generation & shot direction (also: Assets, references & consistency, Prompting & AI assistants) · mode: Tutorial · tags: prompts shared, one creator's experience, fiction, time-bound offer

In this April 2026 tutorial Adil builds an eight-scene animated short on Higgsfield, each scene in a different style, from a bedroom to a cowboy chase, manga, clay and a restaurant ending. Soul Cinema makes the keyframes, Nano Banana Pro fixes them, and a multi-angle prop sheet keeps the watch consistent in every scene. The through-line is his workflow: Claude writes each Seedance 2.0 prompt, and the previous scene's video goes into every new generation so story, characters and style stay consistent.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Intro: Seedance 2.0 goes global, a seven-day Unlimited offer, and the eight-style short film concept

★ Adil says animation used to be studio-exclusive, needing huge budgets and years of training, and now takes a couple of hours and the right prompt. (overstated) — 00:00:00 · also in: The Future of Filmmaking is Here!
★★★ Adil says Seedance 2.0 has just gone fully global on Higgsfield: open to everyone, anywhere, with no waitlist and no business account. — 00:00:00 · Seedance 2.0 · also in: The Future of Filmmaking is Here!, Make an AI Animated Short: Why now: Seedance 2.0 goes global
★★ To mark Seedance 2.0 going global, Higgsfield offers unlimited access to it for seven days. — 00:00:00 · Seedance 2.0, Higgsfield Unlimited · also in: Make an AI Animated Short: Why now: Seedance 2.0 goes global
★★ Adil calls Soul Cinema and Seedance 2.0 on Higgsfield hands down the best combination right now for making an animated short. — 00:00:35 · Soul Cinema, Seedance 2.0 · also in: Make an AI Animated Short: The concept: one story, eight animation styles
★★★ For the hero's first keyframe Adil uses Soul Cinema, which he calls easily the best model for creating a character, with a super basic prompt starting "a cartoon". — 00:00:35 · Soul Cinema, keyframe · also in: Make an AI Animated Short: Scene 1 — The Bedroom

00:00:53 — Scene 1, the bedroom: Soul Cinema character keyframe, the Enhancer, Nano Banana Pro fixes and the watch prop sheet

★★ Adil says four Soul Cinema image generations cost only half a credit, cheap enough to experiment a lot. — 00:01:02 · Soul Cinema · also in: Make an AI Animated Short: Scene 1 — The Bedroom
★★ Adil runs a few batches of Soul Cinema keyframes to find the right one. — 00:01:02 · Soul Cinema, rebatching
★★ Adil's time-saving tip: turn on the Enhancer in Soul Cinema, type something as simple as "cartoon style man waking up in the bedroom" and let it go wild for styles you might never think to ask for. — 00:01:25 · Soul Cinema · also in: Make an AI Animated Short: Scene 1 — The Bedroom
★★★ If a Soul Cinema character looks off, Adil says not to start over: take the image into Nano Banana Pro and swap what you don't like. — 00:01:25 · Nano Banana Pro, Soul Cinema · also in: Make an AI Animated Short: Scene 1 — The Bedroom
★★★ Because the watch appears in every scene of the short, Adil uploads the hero keyframe to Claude and asks it for a prop sheet of a watch in the exact same style instead of prompting blindly. — 00:01:25 · Claude · also in: Make an AI Animated Short: Scene 1 — The Bedroom
★★ Adil prefers Nano Banana Pro for generating prop sheets. — 00:02:01 · Nano Banana Pro
★★ Adil says he will leave all the full prompts of the short film in the description for viewers to try. — 00:02:01 · also in: Make an AI Animated Short: Scene 1 — The Bedroom
★★★ Adil says the most important part of the watch prop sheet is its multiple angles: Seedance 2.0 needs to know the watch from every direction to keep it consistent across the eight shots. — 00:02:01 · Seedance 2.0 · also in: Make an AI Animated Short: Scene 1 — The Bedroom

00:02:29 — Scene 1 animated: Claude writes a 15-second shot-by-shot Seedance 2.0 prompt

★★★ To animate Scene 1, Adil brings the keyframe and the watch prop sheet back to Claude, describes the scene's action and its 15-second length, and Claude turns it into a full shot-by-shot Seedance 2.0 prompt. — 00:02:29 · Claude, Seedance 2.0 · also in: Make an AI Animated Short: Scene 1 — The Bedroom
★★ Adil offers the Claude skill he uses to turn scene descriptions into Seedance 2.0 prompts, linked in the description. — 00:02:29 · Claude, Seedance 2.0 · also in: Make an AI Animated Short: Scene 1 — The Bedroom
★★★ Adil says a basic prompt would give something decent given how advanced Seedance 2.0 has become, but spending two extra minutes building the prompt properly with Claude gives far better results, a step most people skip. — 00:02:57 · Seedance 2.0, Claude · also in: Make an AI Animated Short: Scene 1 — The Bedroom
★★ Adil keeps every scene of the short under 15 seconds, one Seedance 2.0 generation per style, mostly to make editing easier. — 00:03:24 · Seedance 2.0 · also in: Make an AI Animated Short: Scene 1 — The Bedroom
★★ Adil says Seedance 2.0 handles a full scene with multiple angles and different camera movements within one 15-second generation. — 00:03:24 · Seedance 2.0 · also in: Make an AI Animated Short: Scene 1 — The Bedroom

00:03:43 — Scene 2, the cowboy chase: keyframe phrases, Claude with the previous prompt, Seedance with the previous video

★★ In the Soul Cinema keyframe prompt for Scene 2, Adil says two phrases matter most, "French graphic novel style" and "futuristic environment": swapping them gives a completely different scene. — 00:04:13 · Soul Cinema · also in: Make an AI Animated Short: Scene 2 — The Cowboy Chase
★★★ For each new scene Adil uploads the new keyframe to Claude together with the prompt of the previous animation, so Claude knows what happened before and keeps the style, the character and the teleport effect. — 00:04:13 · Claude, keyframe · also in: Make an AI Animated Short: Scene 2 — The Cowboy Chase
★★★ Adil feeds Seedance 2.0 the prompt, the keyframe as a style reference and, most importantly, the previous scene's video; he says this keeps the story, the characters, the style and the portal effect consistent across scenes. — 00:04:43 · Seedance 2.0, keyframe · also in: Make an AI Animated Short: Scene 2 — The Cowboy Chase

00:05:30 — Scene 3, the low poly arena: a two-word Soul Cinema prompt and a Nano Banana Pro edit of the hero

★★ For the low poly arena keyframe Adil's Soul Cinema prompt is just a couple of words ("chibi gladiator, toy, low poly arena"); he says sometimes dead simple is exactly right. — 00:05:48 · Soul Cinema · also in: Make an AI Animated Short: Scene 3 — The Low-Poly Arena
★★★ To match the first character, Adil edits the Soul Cinema arena keyframe in Nano Banana Pro, swapping the hero's hair to black and putting him in a suit: no new generation, just an edit. — 00:05:48 · Nano Banana Pro, Soul Cinema · also in: Make an AI Animated Short: Scene 3 — The Low-Poly Arena

00:07:10 — Scene 4, the cyberpunk rooftop in stop motion and slow motion

00:08:41 — Scene 5, the manga world: a manga character sheet before Seedance

★★ For the manga scene Adil first puts the hero in manga form: he gives Claude the bedroom keyframe and the watch prop sheet, asks for a manga character sheet prompt and generates the sheet in Nano Banana Pro. — 00:08:50 · character sheet, Claude, Nano Banana Pro · also in: Make an AI Animated Short: Scene 5 — The Manga World
★★ Adil says the speech bubbles with question marks and kanji sound effects in the manga scene show Seedance 2.0 understanding how the manga format works as well as its look. — 00:09:49 · Seedance 2.0 · also in: Make an AI Animated Short: Scene 5 — The Manga World

00:10:07 — Scene 6, clay hell

★ Adil says the clay demon's sad pout at the end of the hell scene shows that the characters of these Seedance 2.0 worlds react to the hero. — 00:10:47 · Seedance 2.0

00:11:21 — Scene 7, the wedding crash: a 2D cartoon in a live-action wedding

★★ Adil was not sure Seedance 2.0 could drop a flat 2D cartoon hero into a photorealistic live-action wedding; it did, and he says the clash of styles is what makes the scene funny. — 00:12:14 · Seedance 2.0 · also in: Make an AI Animated Short: Scene 7 — The Wedding Crash
★★★ For the last scene, in a restaurant, Adil uses no Soul Cinema keyframe and no character sheet: he gives Claude only the watch prop sheet and the first video's prompt and describes the ending. — 00:12:14 · Claude, Soul Cinema, character sheet · also in: Make an AI Animated Short: Scene 8 — The Restaurant Ending

00:12:29 — Scene 8, the restaurant: no keyframe, no character sheet, and Anna invented by Seedance

★★ Adil never described what Anna, who walks into the restaurant in the last scene, looks like; Seedance 2.0 invented her completely and kept the whole look of the scene consistent. — 00:13:43 · Seedance 2.0 · also in: Make an AI Animated Short: Scene 8 — The Restaurant Ending

00:14:03 — Full film replay

00:15:57 — Recap of the workflow and sign-off

★★★ Adil sums up the workflow: Claude writes the prompts, Seedance 2.0 executes them, Soul Cinema and Nano Banana Pro give the visual building blocks, and the previous video feeds into every new scene so the story stays consistent. — 00:15:57 · Claude, Seedance 2.0, Soul Cinema, Nano Banana Pro · also in: Make an AI Animated Short: The full film, and the workflow behind it

“Claude writes the prompts, Seedance executes it, and then Soul Cinema and Nanomadana Pro give you the visual building blocks.”

In the description and comments

★★ Higgsfield: Asked whether Seedance 2.0 can be used without a Business plan, Higgsfield says it now can. — creator comment · Seedance 2.0
★★ Higgsfield says Claude is not part of the Higgsfield subscription. — creator comment · Claude
★★ Higgsfield: After viewers found the full prompts of the short too long to paste into Seedance 2.0, Higgsfield says this was fixed and longer prompts can now be used. — creator comment · Seedance 2.0

Threads in this video

rule change · Seedance on Higgsfield — Adil says Seedance 2.0 has just gone fully global on Higgsfield: open to everyone, anywhere, with no waitlist and no business account. (00:00:00)
restate · Which image model should be used for keyframes, edits, text and outfits? — For the hero's first keyframe Adil uses Soul Cinema, which he calls easily the best model for creating a character, with a super basic prompt starting "a cartoon". (00:00:35)
refine · Which image model should be used for keyframes, edits, text and outfits? — Adil prefers Nano Banana Pro for generating prop sheets. (00:02:01)
refine · What does an AI clip, shot or film cost? — Adil says four Soul Cinema image generations cost only half a credit, cheap enough to experiment a lot. (00:01:02)
restate · Should prompts be short or long? — Adil's time-saving tip: turn on the Enhancer in Soul Cinema, type something as simple as "cartoon style man waking up in the bedroom" and let it go wild for styles you might never think to ask for. (00:01:25)
refine · Should prompts be short or long? — Adil says a basic prompt would give something decent given how advanced Seedance 2.0 has become, but spending two extra minutes building the prompt properly with Claude gives far better results, a step most people skip. (00:02:57)
refine · When a generation fails, should you generate more takes, fix the prompt or start over? — If a Soul Cinema character looks off, Adil says not to start over: take the image into Nano Banana Pro and swap what you don't like. (00:01:25)
promised · Adil: leave the full prompts of the AI animated short in the description (2026) — Adil says he will leave all the full prompts of the short film in the description for viewers to try. (00:02:01)
kept · Adil: leave the full prompts of the AI animated short in the description (2026) — The full prompts of Adil's AI animated short are linked in the description. (video description)
refine · How do you keep a location, product or prop the same across shots? — Adil says the most important part of the watch prop sheet is its multiple angles: Seedance 2.0 needs to know the watch from every direction to keep it consistent across the eight shots. (00:02:01)
refine · How do you direct a multi-shot sequence? — Adil keeps every scene of the short under 15 seconds, one Seedance 2.0 generation per style, mostly to make editing easier. (00:03:24)
restate · How do you make a clip longer? — Adil feeds Seedance 2.0 the prompt, the keyframe as a style reference and, most importantly, the previous scene's video; he says this keeps the story, the characters, the style and the portal effect consistent across scenes. (00:04:43)
refine · How do you keep a character the same across shots? — To match the first character, Adil edits the Soul Cinema arena keyframe in Nano Banana Pro, swapping the hero's hair to black and putting him in a suit: no new generation, just an edit. (00:05:48)
first on record · What language and length limits apply to a video prompt? — After viewers found the full prompts of the short too long to paste into Seedance 2.0, Higgsfield says this was fixed and longer prompts can now be used. (creator comment)

Where the stories that moved here went next

Adil: leave the full prompts of the AI animated short in the description (2026) — kept
Seedance on Higgsfield — running; last: milestone, 2026-10-22

Mentioned

Central: AI animated short with a teleporting watch · Claude · Nano Banana Pro · Seedance 2.0 · Soul Cinema

Also: character sheet · Enhancer · Higgsfield Unlimited · keyframe · Seedance 2.0 Claude skill

Also centred on AI animated short with a teleporting watch: AI Short Film – Full Prompt Library: Seedance 2.0 · Seedance 2.0 Just Went Global! (2) · Make an AI Animated Short: The concept: one story, eight animation styles

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