How To Direct an AI Short Film Like a Filmmaker (Full Workflow + Prompts)

2026-07-07 · blog how-to · Higgsfield · original

Topic: Video generation & shot direction (also: Pre-production & story, Assets, references & consistency, Prompting & AI assistants, Post-production & finishing) · mode: Tutorial · tags: prompts shared

Higgsfield's blog breaks down how it made "Santiago", a two-minute short film about a footballer who missed the most important goal of his life, made with Seedance 2.0 in 4K and with Claude writing every prompt. The method starts with a script of shots no longer than 15 seconds each, then locks the characters, locations and props early so all eight scenes look like one film. Scene by scene it covers directing techniques: describe what you want, since Seedance 2.0 ignores negative prompts; open with a short wide shot so characters stay in place; and time your whip pans.

What is said

Scenes 1 to 8: dutch angles, match cut, wide establish, continuous take, whip pan, flashback, over-the-shoulder, final crane

What is said

★ — how much it matters to the source.

★★★ Higgsfield made "Santiago", an emotional short film about a footballer who missed the most important goal of his life, end to end in Higgsfield with Seedance 2.0 in 4K, with Claude Fable 5 writing every prompt. · Seedance 2.0, Claude Fable 5
★★★ Higgsfield built every scene of "Santiago" from three ingredients, characters, locations and props, and advises locking them early and reusing them everywhere so a two-minute film looks like one movie, not eight random clips. · character sheet
★★ For "Santiago" Higgsfield made characters and locations in Soul Cinema, product-style props in GPT Image 2 and every video in Seedance 2.0 4K, all inside Cinema Studio. · Soul Cinema, GPT Image 2, Seedance 2.0, Cinema Studio
★★ Higgsfield shares the Claude Skill that writes the Seedance 2.0 prompts of "Santiago": it splits scenes into shots and picks the framing, close-ups and wides, like a director of photography. · Claude, Seedance 2.0
★★★ Higgsfield says an AI film needs a screenplay because it lists the characters, locations and props to build; it described the idea to Claude and asked for a 2-minute script with every shot at most 15 seconds, one Seedance 2.0 generation per shot. · Claude, Seedance 2.0
★★ Higgsfield makes the hero's character sheet (full body front and back plus a close-up headshot) on grey with soft shadowless light, saying it keeps the win rate high with no dark faces or glare, and calls clean input the main secret of cinematic AI video. · character sheet
★★ Higgsfield generates the therapy room of "Santiago" in Cinematic Locations at a 3/4 angle, written into the prompt, to give the camera depth to move through, with warm tones, low sun and shallow depth of field setting the mood.
★★ Higgsfield swaps the player number on the football kit sheet and replaces the crest with a non-IP logo with one line in GPT Image 2. · GPT Image 2
★★ Higgsfield combines two references, the final kit and Santiago's character sheet, into the younger, match-ready flashback version of the hero. · character sheet
★★ Higgsfield generates the World Cup stadium empty at night, saying crowds at the still stage add mess and Seedance 2.0 fills the seats later from the prompt. · Seedance 2.0
★★ Higgsfield generates the tournament ball of "Santiago" as a clean product-style sheet so it stays identical in every shot it appears in.
★★ To make the 7-year-old Santiago with the same face, Higgsfield advises attaching the adult character sheet and letting Claude write the de-aged version. · Claude, character sheet
★★ Higgsfield gives the 80s Spanish street pitch of the flashback a deliberately warm golden-hour palette: cold tones for the painful memory, warm ones for the good one.
★ Higgsfield changes the young fan's outfit to the Santiago kit in GPT Image 2 with two inputs and the instruction "keep the kid, change the uniform." · GPT Image 2
★★★ To write the prompts, Higgsfield uploads the skill in Claude under Customize → Skills, opens a fresh chat, attaches the script and every locked asset, and gives an element list naming each asset (@santiago, @stadium …). · Claude · first in: 2026-06-22, 3-Step Workflow To Make Ultra-Realistic AI Ads
★★ Higgsfield advises adding each asset under Elements with exactly the same name as in Claude's element list, so every prompt the skill writes attaches the right images automatically. · Elements, Claude · first in: 2026-06-22, 3-Step Workflow To Make Ultra-Realistic AI Ads
★★★ Higgsfield says Seedance 2.0 does not take negative prompts: writing "he is NOT crying" makes it do the opposite. · Seedance 2.0
★★★ Instead of a negative prompt, Higgsfield advises telling Seedance 2.0 what is wanted: a dry face, anxious eyes, lips tightly pursed. · Seedance 2.0
★★ Higgsfield shoots the first therapy scene on dutch angles with no space between the character and the edge he looks toward, which it says makes the hero read as trapped, a move directors use for someone losing their grip.
★★ Higgsfield locks the 180° line in the prompt, the psychologist always screen-left and Santiago always screen-right, so their eyelines match.
★★ Higgsfield says a character who appears only once in a film can be prompted from scratch with no character sheet. · character sheet
★★ For a match cut into the flashback, Higgsfield attached the last frame of the previous scene, Santiago closing his eyes, so the next scene starts from the same exact position.
★★★ Higgsfield opens a multi-shot scene with a half-second wide establish as the fix for characters teleporting between takes: positions anchored in the first frame hold in Seedance 2.0 for the whole video. · Seedance 2.0
★★ Higgsfield prompts hands as lived-in, with pores, veins, scars and ragged nails, saying plasticky-perfect hands break the illusion. · AI look
★★ Higgsfield shoots the penalty as one continuous super-handheld take and adds one line, "Add slow-mo with a speed ramp during the kick", to freeze time as the ball flies and snap back at the save.
★★★ For a whip pan, Higgsfield advises giving the whip a duration and labelling the subjects ("0.5 seconds, from Subject A — WHIP motion-blur transition — to Subject B settle"), and ending on the shot type it started on.
★★ When a character writes something on camera, Higgsfield advises spelling out the exact text in the prompt, or the result is scribbles. · AI look
★★ For the run-and-gun handheld childhood sequence, Higgsfield adds hard physics locks to the prompt so the ball keeps real weight through every touch.
★★ For the flashback's voiceover, Higgsfield generated a separate office shot just to get the spoken line, then laid it over the flashback.
★★ Higgsfield's editing rule: never jump straight into dialogue after a flashback; give the character a beat to process, and split the line across the reverse shots with held pauses.
★★ Higgsfield says Seedance 2.0 4K gave usable takes on the first batch for the final continuous crane shot of "Santiago", with almost no slop on the objects. · Seedance 2.0, AI look

Threads in this video

restate · How do you keep a character the same across shots? — Higgsfield built every scene of "Santiago" from three ingredients, characters, locations and props, and advises locking them early and reusing them everywhere so a two-minute film looks like one movie, not eight random clips.
refine · How do you keep a character the same across shots? — Higgsfield makes the hero's character sheet (full body front and back plus a close-up headshot) on grey with soft shadowless light, saying it keeps the win rate high with no dark faces or glare, and calls clean input the main secret of cinematic AI video.
restate · How do you keep a location, product or prop the same across shots? — Higgsfield built every scene of "Santiago" from three ingredients, characters, locations and props, and advises locking them early and reusing them everywhere so a two-minute film looks like one movie, not eight random clips.
refine · How do you keep a location, product or prop the same across shots? — Higgsfield generates the tournament ball of "Santiago" as a clean product-style sheet so it stays identical in every shot it appears in.
refine · Which LLM should be used to write video prompts? — Higgsfield shares the Claude Skill that writes the Seedance 2.0 prompts of "Santiago": it splits scenes into shots and picks the framing, close-ups and wides, like a director of photography.
restate · How do you write the script for an AI film? — Higgsfield says an AI film needs a screenplay because it lists the characters, locations and props to build; it described the idea to Claude and asked for a 2-minute script with every shot at most 15 seconds, one Seedance 2.0 generation per shot.
refine · Which image model should be used for keyframes, edits, text and outfits? — Higgsfield swaps the player number on the football kit sheet and replaces the crest with a non-IP logo with one line in GPT Image 2.
refine · How do you put a new outfit on a person in a photo? — Higgsfield changes the young fan's outfit to the Santiago kit in GPT Image 2 with two inputs and the instruction "keep the kid, change the uniform."
refine · How do you brief an AI agent to make content? — To write the prompts, Higgsfield uploads the skill in Claude under Customize → Skills, opens a fresh chat, attaches the script and every locked asset, and gives an element list naming each asset (@santiago, @stadium …).
refine · How do you direct a character's acting in a video prompt? — Instead of a negative prompt, Higgsfield advises telling Seedance 2.0 what is wanted: a dry face, anxious eyes, lips tightly pursed.
refine · How do you direct a multi-shot sequence? — Higgsfield opens a multi-shot scene with a half-second wide establish as the fix for characters teleporting between takes: positions anchored in the first frame hold in Seedance 2.0 for the whole video.
refine · How do you make a transition between two shots? — For a whip pan, Higgsfield advises giving the whip a duration and labelling the subjects ("0.5 seconds, from Subject A — WHIP motion-blur transition — to Subject B settle"), and ending on the shot type it started on.
refine · How do you avoid the AI (plastic) look? — Higgsfield prompts hands as lived-in, with pores, veins, scars and ragged nails, saying plasticky-perfect hands break the illusion.
refine · How do you keep on-screen text and fonts intact in a generated video? — When a character writes something on camera, Higgsfield advises spelling out the exact text in the prompt, or the result is scribbles.
refine · How do you get precise motion (dance, action, choreography)? — For the run-and-gun handheld childhood sequence, Higgsfield adds hard physics locks to the prompt so the ball keeps real weight through every touch.
refine · How do you make a voice-over for a video? — For the flashback's voiceover, Higgsfield generated a separate office shot just to get the spoken line, then laid it over the flashback.
refine · Is generating video in 4K worth it over 1080p? — Higgsfield says Seedance 2.0 4K gave usable takes on the first batch for the final continuous crane shot of "Santiago", with almost no slop on the objects.

Mentioned

Central: Claude · Santiago (production) · Seedance 2.0

Also: Concepts: 180-degree rule · AI look · character sheet · dutch angle · match cut · negative prompt · product sheet · speed ramp · whip pan

Events: World Cup

Products: Cinema Studio · Cinematic Locations · Claude Fable 5 · Elements · GPT Image 2 · Seedance prompt Claude Skill (Santiago) · Soul Cinema

Also centred on Santiago (production): This is How I Made an Ultra Realistic AI Short Film Using Seedance 2.0 in 4K (Full Workflow) · Build an Ultra-Realistic Short Film in 4K: Thinking like a director · Build an Ultra-Realistic Short Film in 4K: Age your character for flashbacks · Build an Ultra-Realistic Short Film in 4K: The prompt-builder skill and first Seedance run · Build an Ultra-Realistic Short Film in 4K: Scene 2 assets: kit, keeper, stadium · Build an Ultra-Realistic Short Film in 4K: Write the script with story structure

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