I Made a Viral AI Short Film From Scratch — Full Workflow (Seedance 4K + Claude Fable 5)

2026-07-14 · case-study tutorial · Adil · recording, 39:28 · watch on YouTube

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

Adil makes a short film in Seedance 2.0 4K whose hero goes from a pirate ship through a desert and a jungle to a twist with Cindy. He has Claude expand his idea into a script, makes single-face character, location and prop sheets in Soul Cinema and GPT Image 2.0, and names each as an Element for the Claude skill that writes the prompts. He revises each batch from his notes, using drawings for shot geometry and reverse-angle room references for dialogue, and concludes: work like a filmmaker, not with a one-line prompt.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Opening scream from the short film

00:00:22 — What the video covers; everything is in one blog post

• ★★ Adil presents his action short film made in Seedance 2.0 in 4K and breaks down how its shots were built across a storm at sea, a desert and a jungle. — 00:00:22 · Seedance 2.0 · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: One Character, Many Worlds: Watch the Film
• ★ Adil says everything from the video (the script, the prompts, the asset sheets and the Claude skill) is collected in one Higgsfield blog post. — 00:00:22 · Claude

00:01:00 — The full short film played first

00:04:30 — Stage 1: building the script with Claude step by step

• ★★ The film grew from Adil's idea of a guy trapped in his little sister's AI generations, who wakes up in a new world every time he dies. — 00:04:30 · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Stage 1: Writing the Script with Claude
• ★★★ Adil never asks Claude just to write a new script, which he says always turns out terrible; he asks it to expand his idea, answers its questions (runtime, settings, plot twists) and builds the script step by step. — 00:04:30 · Claude

00:05:24 — Stage 2: the pirate character sheet, the captain's cabin, the ships, naming assets as Elements

• ★★ Adil sets up the film in Cinema Studio as a new project with a folder per scene and a subfolder per asset, saying that after two weeks and 400 generations you will be glad you did. — 00:05:24 · Cinema Studio · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Stage 2: Building Character, Location, and Prop Assets, How To Prompt Like a Director Using Opus 5.5 + Seedance 2.5 (Full Workflow)
• ★★★ Adil starts from a character sheet of himself (front view plus left and right profiles) so the model gets his face right, and asks Claude for a pirate character sheet prompt: full body front and back plus a close-up. — 00:05:24 · character sheet, Claude · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Stage 2: Building Character, Location, and Prop Assets
• ★★ On a character sheet, the close-up gives the model the exact face to lock onto and the full-body view gives it the character's height. — 00:06:04 · character sheet · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Stage 2: Building Character, Location, and Prop Assets
• ★★ Adil's tip: ask for a grey background on character sheets; he says his team found the win rate much higher, with no background clutter and more usable generations. — 00:06:04 · character sheet · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Stage 2: Building Character, Location, and Prop Assets
• ★★★ Adil calls GPT Image 2.0 the best model right now for editing and for creating a photorealistic character sheet when you already have a reference. — 00:06:04 · GPT Image 2, character sheet · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Stage 2: Building Character, Location, and Prop Assets
• ★★★ A character sheet with several faces leaves Seedance 2.0 unsure which face to use, so the hero drifts until he is a stranger by scene five; Adil has GPT Image 2.0 erase the face from the full-body panel. — 00:06:43 · character sheet, Seedance 2.0, GPT Image 2 · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Stage 2: Building Character, Location, and Prop Assets
• ★ Adil uses Canvas as his workspace for the whole film, keeping all final assets on screen so nothing gets lost. — 00:07:12 · Canvas · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Stage 2: Building Character, Location, and Prop Assets
• ★★★ Adil says locations carry the whole film: if the setting looks cheap, every shot inside it does too, and no amount of prompting fixes that later. — 00:07:12 · location reference sheet · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Stage 2: Building Character, Location, and Prop Assets
• ★★ Adil builds locations in Soul Cinema, where eight images cost one credit and a single prompt gives different variations, which he wants when picking a set. — 00:07:41 · Soul Cinema · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Stage 2: Building Character, Location, and Prop Assets
• ★★ Adil's tip for location images: always ask for a three-quarter angle, which adds depth, gives the camera more to hold onto when it moves and wins far more often than a flat head-on shot. — 00:08:08 · location reference sheet · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Stage 2: Building Character, Location, and Prop Assets
• ★★ Adil says lighting does a lot of work in a location: small details such as thin rays of light make a generation feel real. — 00:08:44 · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Stage 2: Building Character, Location, and Prop Assets
• ★★ To make the enemy ship intimidating, Adil has Claude expand his changes (open black sails, a skull logo) into an edit prompt and runs it in GPT Image 2.0. — 00:09:50 · Claude, GPT Image 2 · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Stage 2: Building Character, Location, and Prop Assets
• ★★★ Adil's asset routine for every prop: Soul Cinema for the raw pass (simple prompt, a few takes, lots of variety) and GPT Image 2.0 for the edits and the final clean sheet, one sheet each. — 00:09:50 · Soul Cinema, GPT Image 2 · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Stage 2: Building Character, Location, and Prop Assets
• ★★★ Adil names every asset, introduces each to Claude by that name and adds it to Higgsfield as an Element with the same name, so the prompts auto-match the inputs by these tags during scene generation. — 00:10:41 · Elements, Claude · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Stage 2: Building Character, Location, and Prop Assets

00:11:22 — Stage 3: loading the prompt builder skill in Claude and the Seedance settings

• ★★★ Adil does not write video prompts by hand but uses a skill he built in Claude, installed via Customize, Skills, the plus button and Upload a Skill. — 00:11:22 · Claude · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Stage 3: Scene Generation with the Prompt-Builder Skill, How To Prompt Like a Director Using Opus 5.5 + Seedance 2.5 (Full Workflow)
• ★★ Adil's prompt builder skill for Claude, loaded with director hacks, splits scenes into shots and writes detailed prompts; it can be downloaded from the description. — 00:11:51 · Claude · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Stage 3: Scene Generation with the Prompt-Builder Skill
• ★★ To use the prompt builder skill, Adil activates it, uploads every asset the shot needs from Canvas plus the script, and describes what happens in the scene. — 00:11:51 · Canvas · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Stage 3: Scene Generation with the Prompt-Builder Skill
• ★★ Besides props, Adil adds an asset of extras to the cabin shot so the extras match the scene. — 00:12:17 · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Stage 3: Scene Generation with the Prompt-Builder Skill
• ★★ Adil's Seedance 2.0 settings for the film: a cinematic 21:9 aspect ratio, 4K for the best quality, 15-second clips and four batches per prompt. — 00:12:17 · Seedance 2.0 · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Scene 1: The Cabin Shot and the Talking Parrot

00:12:42 — Scene 1: the pirate ship, the cabin, the enemy captain and the cannonball

• ★★ In Seedance 2.0's first cabin takes, the clutter on the table (bottles, rags, ropes) kept merging into itself. — 00:12:57 · Seedance 2.0 · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Scene 1: The Cabin Shot and the Talking Parrot
• ★★ Adil says small reactions do the work in the reworked cabin shot: the hero's smile, slamming the map down when the door opens, moving toward the door. — 00:13:22
• ★★ To make a boring take fun, Adil asks for a clumsy run and a talking parrot, saying the parrot screaming the same bad news twice is instantly funny. — 00:14:45 · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Scene 1: The Cabin Shot and the Talking Parrot
• ★★ When one shot of a multi-shot generation ruins the visual flow, Adil asks Claude to delete that shot from the prompt. — 00:16:10 · Claude
• ★★ Adil has the camera follow the cannonball because seeing it fly right at the ship adds serious drama. — 00:16:10 · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Scene 1: The Sea Battle and Escape Overboard
• ★★ In the battle shot, Seedance 2.0 landed the cannonball in a different spot every time. — 00:16:49 · Seedance 2.0 · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Scene 1: The Sea Battle and Escape Overboard
• ★★★ Instead of explaining shot geometry in words, Adil gives Claude a drawing of where the cannonball should hit and where everyone stands; one drawing says what ten sentences cannot, and each failed batch avoided saves credits. — 00:17:12 · Claude · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Scene 1: The Sea Battle and Escape Overboard
• ★★★ Adil says the cannonball explosion shot shows why Seedance 2.0 in 4K is worth it: the explosion is sharp and heavy, not the usual blurry slop. — 00:17:12 · Seedance 2.0 · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Scene 1: The Sea Battle and Escape Overboard
• ★★★ Adil combines the best parts of several batches, and calls the real lesson a loop: run it, look at it, ask for the exact changes and run it again, a skill that improves with practice. — 00:17:40 · rebatching · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Scene 1: The Sea Battle and Escape Overboard
• ★★ Adil had Claude fix the dry deck of the early takes, since a ship under fire should look wet and messy. — 00:18:22 · Claude · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Scene 1: The Sea Battle and Escape Overboard

00:19:16 — Scene 2: the desert chase, the ostrich riders and the oasis

• ★★★ To join the pirate scene to the desert, Adil asked Claude to fix the transition and make the dust much thicker, which gave a smooth transition from the pirate scene. — 00:20:33 · Claude · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Scene 2: The Desert Chase
• ★★★ The desert location had no oasis, so Adil made the oasis its own location asset, and it looks the same in every generation. — 00:20:56 · location reference sheet
• ★★ Adil's notes to Claude for the desert chase: the hero always runs toward the oasis, the storm needs more scale, and the riders are visible when he looks back. — 00:21:52 · Claude · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Scene 2: The Desert Chase
• ★★ Adil had the hero fall just short of the case at the end of the desert chase, saying the almost is what makes it hurt. — 00:23:40 · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Scene 2: The Desert Chase

00:24:36 — Scene 3: the jungle, the spider POV, the monkeys and the jaguar

• ★★ Adil says the jungle scene took the most batches and tries of the film, with many jump cuts and assets swapped mid-process. — 00:24:36 · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Scene 3: The Jungle
• ★ Adil says he will put the links to the film's asset sheets in the description. — 00:25:18
• ★★ Asked for a multi-shot POV wake-up, Seedance 2.0 pushed the spider into the hero's eye instead of making the camera his eye, so Adil focused on one opening POV shot. — 00:25:46 · Seedance 2.0
• ★★ In the final POV wake-up shot the eyes struggle slowly open and the spider sits off to the side, which Adil says makes the jump scare feel more natural. — 00:26:44 · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Scene 3: The Jungle
• ★★ For the monkey chase Adil asked for a multi-shot because the comedy is in the cuts. — 00:26:44 · multi-shot prompt
• ★★ Seedance 2.0 rendered the mandrills too cartoonish, their bright noses making the scene look animated, so Adil swapped them for simpler, more realistic white macaques. — 00:27:23 · Seedance 2.0 · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Scene 3: The Jungle
• ★★★ Adil says changing assets mid-process is normal to avoid a plastic look or make the action clearer, and he always keeps a few asset variations ready. — 00:27:50 · AI look
• ★★★ When the hero's ripped pants stitched themselves back together a second later, Adil made a new character sheet of the hero in torn pants and boxers and fed it in. — 00:29:03 · character sheet, Seedance 2.0 · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Scene 3: The Jungle

00:30:55 — Scene 4: the twist with Cindy and the over-the-shoulder dialogue

• ★★ In the living-room dialogue, Cindy's background changed from generation to generation; Adil says a background that shifts between cuts never pieces together in the edit. — 00:32:08 · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Scene 4: The Twist and Dialogue Scenes
• ★★★ For a dialogue scene with reverse angles, Adil says to generate reverse-angle references of the same room, both sides, which give the model a blueprint so the background stops jumping between cuts. — 00:32:34 · location reference sheet · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Scene 4: The Twist and Dialogue Scenes
• ★★ In the first over-the-shoulder takes the camera broke the axis and zoomed in on the hero, and Cindy's position shifted with every cut. — 00:33:32 · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Scene 4: The Twist and Dialogue Scenes
• ★★★ For the over-the-shoulder dialogue Adil tells Claude to keep the camera static, show Cindy from the same angle in her lines and cut to the hero over her left shoulder in his: the 180-degree rule, without which viewers lose who stands where. — 00:34:00 · Claude · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Scene 4: The Twist and Dialogue Scenes

00:35:03 — The full film again

00:38:24 — Recap: approach it like filmmakers; sign-off

• ★★★ Adil's takeaway: approach it like filmmakers, not with a one-line prompt; build the script first, then turn it into detailed shots with the prompt-building framework. — 00:38:24 · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Full Film and Workflow Recap
• ★★ Adil says the same workflow works for commercials, short films or any other idea. — 00:38:48 · also in: Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Full Film and Workflow Recap

Threads in this video

• refine · How do you write the script for an AI film? — Adil never asks Claude just to write a new script, which he says always turns out terrible; he asks it to expand his idea, answers its questions (runtime, settings, plot twists) and builds the script step by step. (00:04:30)
• restate · How do you keep a character the same across shots? — A character sheet with several faces leaves Seedance 2.0 unsure which face to use, so the hero drifts until he is a stranger by scene five; Adil has GPT Image 2.0 erase the face from the full-body panel. (00:06:43)
• refine · How do you keep a character the same across shots? — When the hero's ripped pants stitched themselves back together a second later, Adil made a new character sheet of the hero in torn pants and boxers and fed it in. (00:29:03)
• restate · Which image model should be used for keyframes, edits, text and outfits? — Adil calls GPT Image 2.0 the best model right now for editing and for creating a photorealistic character sheet when you already have a reference. (00:06:04)
• refine · Which image model should be used for keyframes, edits, text and outfits? — Adil's asset routine for every prop: Soul Cinema for the raw pass (simple prompt, a few takes, lots of variety) and GPT Image 2.0 for the edits and the final clean sheet, one sheet each. (00:09:50)
• restate · How do you avoid the AI (plastic) look? — Adil says changing assets mid-process is normal to avoid a plastic look or make the action clearer, and he always keeps a few asset variations ready. (00:27:50)
• refine · How do you avoid the AI (plastic) look? — Adil says lighting does a lot of work in a location: small details such as thin rays of light make a generation feel real. (00:08:44)
• restate · Which LLM should be used to write video prompts? — Adil does not write video prompts by hand but uses a skill he built in Claude, installed via Customize, Skills, the plus button and Upload a Skill. (00:11:22)
• refine · How do you direct a character's acting in a video prompt? — Adil says small reactions do the work in the reworked cabin shot: the hero's smile, slamming the map down when the door opens, moving toward the door. (00:13:22)
• refine · How do you get precise motion (dance, action, choreography)? — Instead of explaining shot geometry in words, Adil gives Claude a drawing of where the cannonball should hit and where everyone stands; one drawing says what ten sentences cannot, and each failed batch avoided saves credits. (00:17:12)
• refine · How do you spend fewer credits? — Instead of explaining shot geometry in words, Adil gives Claude a drawing of where the cannonball should hit and where everyone stands; one drawing says what ten sentences cannot, and each failed batch avoided saves credits. (00:17:12)
• restate · Is generating video in 4K worth it over 1080p? — Adil says the cannonball explosion shot shows why Seedance 2.0 in 4K is worth it: the explosion is sharp and heavy, not the usual blurry slop. (00:17:12)
• restate · When a generation fails, should you generate more takes, fix the prompt or start over? — Adil combines the best parts of several batches, and calls the real lesson a loop: run it, look at it, ask for the exact changes and run it again, a skill that improves with practice. (00:17:40)
• refine · When a generation fails, should you generate more takes, fix the prompt or start over? — Adil says changing assets mid-process is normal to avoid a plastic look or make the action clearer, and he always keeps a few asset variations ready. (00:27:50)
• refine · How do you make a transition between two shots? — To join the pirate scene to the desert, Adil asked Claude to fix the transition and make the dust much thicker, which gave a smooth transition from the pirate scene. (00:20:33)
• refine · How do you keep a location, product or prop the same across shots? — The desert location had no oasis, so Adil made the oasis its own location asset, and it looks the same in every generation. (00:20:56)
• restate · How do you keep a location, product or prop the same across shots? — For a dialogue scene with reverse angles, Adil says to generate reverse-angle references of the same room, both sides, which give the model a blueprint so the background stops jumping between cuts. (00:32:34)
• refine · How do you direct a multi-shot sequence? — For the monkey chase Adil asked for a multi-shot because the comedy is in the cuts. (00:26:44)
• refine · How do you control where the camera is in a known set? — For the over-the-shoulder dialogue Adil tells Claude to keep the camera static, show Cindy from the same angle in her lines and cut to the hero over her left shoulder in his: the 180-degree rule, without which viewers lose who stands where. (00:34:00)
• promised · Adil: leave the links to the short film's asset sheets in the description (2026) — Adil says he will put the links to the film's asset sheets in the description. (00:25:18)
• kept · Adil: leave the links to the short film's asset sheets in the description (2026) — The description links the film's skill and prompts and the full project. (video description)

Where the stories that moved here went next

• Adil: leave the links to the short film's asset sheets in the description (2026) — kept

Mentioned

Central: character sheet · Claude · Claude Skill for Seedance 2.0 scene prompts (viral short film) · Higgsfield's viral AI short film with Eduardo (2026) · Seedance 2.0

Also: Concepts: 180-degree rule · AI look · location reference sheet · multi-shot prompt · product sheet · rebatching

Characters: Cindy · Eduardo

Products: Canvas · Cinema Studio · Elements · GPT Image 2 · Soul Cinema

Only in the description or credits: Claude Fable 5

Also centred on Claude Skill for Seedance 2.0 scene prompts (viral short film): Make Viral AI Short Films With This Exact Workflow — Full Tutorial · Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Stage 3: Scene Generation with the Prompt-Builder Skill

Also centred on Higgsfield's viral AI short film with Eduardo (2026): Make Viral AI Short Films With This Exact Workflow — Full Tutorial · Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Full Film and Workflow Recap · Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: One Character, Many Worlds: Watch the Film · Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Stage 3: Scene Generation with the Prompt-Builder Skill · Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Stage 2: Building Character, Location, and Prop Assets · Blockbuster 4K: The AI Filmmaking Pipeline: Stage 1: Writing the Script with Claude

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