Prompt craft · convention, not measurement

Cinematic language

The vocabulary a cinematographer already uses, and what each term does to a generated image.

Read this first

This is craft convention, not measurement. A lens's 'character' describes how practitioners agree it renders, not a specification you can verify from a datasheet, and naming one in a prompt biases a model toward images associated with it rather than simulating that glass. Nothing on this page carries a corpus count or a source URL, and it must never be presented as though it did.

How to use it

Pick the mood first, then take the angle, shot size, movement, light, optic and grade from its row. The recipe is a starting point that already agrees with itself, which is most of the work.
Name the optic and the stock rather than an adjective. 'Canon K35, 35mm f/2.0' carries more of a look than 'vintage', because the model has seen the former attached to images and the latter attached to everything.
One light idea per shot. Two named lighting styles in one prompt fight, and the model resolves the fight by averaging them into neither.
Say what the light does, not only where it comes from. 'Rim light separating the subject from the background' survives translation into an image better than 'backlight'.
Keep the negatives short and specific. A long negative list spends attention on words you do not want in the frame.

Take the cinematic reference with youLenses, stocks, lighting and every mood recipe — on one page, or one to a page.

Cheatsheet · 1 page Deck · 28 pages

Mood to parameters

Each row is a set of choices that already agree with each other. Start from the mood, take the row, then change one thing at a time.

Calm

quiet, peaceful, meditative

Angle: Eye level
Shot size: Wide, Medium
Movement: Static, Slow pan
Light: Golden hour, Natural, soft
Optics: Cooke S4/i, 50mm f/2.0
Grade: Warm vintage, pastel tones

Intimacy

tender, close, warm, love

Angle: Eye level, Over the shoulder
Shot size: Close-up, Medium close-up
Movement: Slow dolly in, Static
Light: Soft, Candles, Practicals
Optics: ARRI Signature, 85mm f/1.4
Grade: Warm, lifted shadows

Tension

tense, uneasy, dangerous

Angle: Dutch angle, Low angle
Shot size: Close-up, Extreme close-up
Movement: Handheld, Slow dolly in
Light: Low key, contrasty, single source
Optics: Zeiss Super Speed, 35mm f/1.4
Grade: Cool, desaturated, high contrast

Fear

frightening, horror, panic

Angle: Dutch angle, Worm's eye
Shot size: Extreme close-up, Close-up
Movement: Crash zoom, Handheld
Light: Low key, flickering, single source
Optics: Helios 44-2, 58mm f/2.0
Grade: Desaturated, cold, teal shadows

Power

powerful, heroic, strength, victory

Angle: Low angle, Worm's eye
Shot size: Full shot, Medium wide
Movement: Crane up, Slow orbit
Light: Backlight, Rim light, Golden hour
Optics: Panavision Anamorphic, 40mm
Grade: Teal and orange, saturated

Vulnerability

alone, sad, abandoned

Angle: High angle, Overhead
Shot size: Wide, Medium
Movement: Static, Slow crane down
Light: Overcast, soft, cool
Optics: Canon K35, 35mm f/2.0
Grade: Cool Nordic, desaturated

Epic

epic, vast, grand

Angle: Bird's eye, Low angle
Shot size: Extreme wide, Wide
Movement: Aerial pullback, 360 orbit, Crane up
Light: Golden hour, Volumetric rays
Optics: Panavision Primo 70, Ultra Vista
Grade: Teal and orange, dramatic

Energy

dynamic, fast, action

Angle: Low angle, Ground level
Shot size: Medium wide, Full
Movement: Tracking, FPV, Whip pan
Light: Contrasty, neon, practicals
Optics: Angénieux Optimo zoom
Grade: High contrast, saturated

Nostalgia

retro, remembering, youth

Angle: Eye level
Shot size: Medium, Close-up
Movement: Slow dolly out, Static
Light: Golden hour, soft, warm
Optics: Canon K35, Helios 44-2
Grade: Warm vintage, Kodachrome, grain

Mystery

mysterious, secret, hidden

Angle: Dutch angle, Low angle
Shot size: Silhouette, Close-up
Movement: Slow tracking, Static
Light: Low key, Rim light, silhouette
Optics: Zeiss Super Speed, 50mm
Grade: Film noir, high contrast black and white

Joy

fun, joy, celebration, happy

Angle: Eye level
Shot size: Medium, Two-shot, Group
Movement: Light handheld, Orbit, Pan
Light: High key, bright, natural
Optics: Cooke S4/i, 35mm f/2.8
Grade: Warm, slightly saturated

Romance

romantic, together, in love

Angle: Eye level, Over the shoulder
Shot size: Two-shot, Close-up, Medium close-up
Movement: Slow orbit, Slow dolly in
Light: Golden hour, Practicals, candles
Optics: ARRI Signature, 85mm f/1.4
Grade: Warm, soft halation

Corporate

office, presentation, professional

Angle: Eye level, Over the shoulder
Shot size: Medium, Medium close-up
Movement: Static, Slow dolly in
Light: Studio, natural, clean
Optics: Zeiss Master Prime, 50mm f/4
Grade: Cool neutral, clean

Luxury

premium, expensive, elite

Angle: Eye level, Slightly low
Shot size: Close-up, Macro
Movement: Slow orbit, Turntable, Dolly in
Light: Studio with rim accents
Optics: Zeiss Master Prime, 100mm f/2.8
Grade: Rich, deep blacks, gold accents

Lenses

Naming an optic biases a model toward the images associated with it. It does not simulate the glass.

ARRI Signature Primes Portraits, skin tones, premium
Warm tones, velvety bokeh, skin tones rendered kindly. Few artefacts, which is why it suits high dynamic range work.
Cooke S4/i Portraits, dialogue, drama
The 'Cooke look': warmth, roundness, agreeable skin tones and an organic rather than clinical sharpness.
Leica Summilux-C Portraits, intimate scenes
Natural colour, soft skin tones, high resolution, no distortion, and highlights that go creamy rather than harsh.
Panavision Anamorphic Epic, blockbuster, wide screen
The widescreen look people mean when they say cinematic: oval bokeh and horizontal blue flares.
Panavision C-Series Retro epic, seventies and eighties
Vintage anamorphic: blue horizontal flares, oval bokeh, edges that fall off organically.
Panavision E-Series Action
Sharp anamorphic with restrained flares and balanced contrast. The classic eighties action aesthetic.
Panavision T-Series Contemporary blockbuster
Modern anamorphic: very large oval flares, high detail, saturated colour.
Zeiss Master Anamorphics Clean anamorphic, science fiction
Modern anamorphic with effectively zero distortion, clean blue flares and exact geometry.
Hawk Class-X Visual character, drama
Rich contrast with a pronounced anamorphic character. 2x squeeze with modern coatings.
JDC Xtal Xpress Auteur cinema
Anamorphic crossed with the Cooke look: golden skin tones, softness, focus that breathes, flares that are part of the picture.
Zeiss Master Primes Product, deliberately sterile
Extreme sharpness and clinical accuracy. No distortion, high micro-contrast.
Sigma Cine Product, technology, sterile
Clinical sharpness with almost no character of its own. A very modern, clean, digital picture.
Zeiss Ultra Prime Documentary, plainness
Brutal honesty: sharp, contrasty, detailed, neutral. Laboratory accuracy.
Master / MO Primes General purpose, the cinema default
The industrial standard: high contrast, creamy bokeh, no distortion, sharp across the whole frame.
Canon K35 Vintage, seventies, nostalgia
Dreamy golden halation and soft glowing highlights. The low-contrast seventies atmosphere.
Helios 44-2 Vintage, art, dreamlike
The famous swirling bokeh and a tunnel-vision effect. Soft, dreamy focus.
Zeiss Super Speed Night city, noir, classic
The seventies New York look: triangular bokeh and soft sharpness with glowing highlights.
Angénieux Optimo zoom Energy, action, tracking work
A zoom that holds up as a cinema optic, which is what makes moving, reframing camerawork possible in one take.

Film stocks and sensors

Kodak Vision3 500T Night, neon, the cinema default
The modern cinema standard. Rich shadows, wide latitude, tungsten-balanced and therefore cool under daylight.
Kodak Vision3 250D Natural daylight realism
A daylight stock. Even balance and natural colour.
Kodak Vision3 50D Very clean, bright, detailed
The cleanest stock here. Almost no grain, very alive colour.
Fujifilm Eterna 500T Pastel, soft, art house
Soft contrast, pastel tones, shadows that lean green and cyan.
Kodak Tri-X 400 Black and white drama
The black and white classic. High contrast, coarse grain, drama.
Kodachrome 64 Retro, nostalgia, reportage
The sixties and seventies: saturated reds and yellows, the reportage look.
ARRI Alexa 35 Digital with gentle highlights
Digital's benchmark. Very wide dynamic range and highlights that roll off softly instead of clipping.
RED V-Raptor Hyperrealism, hard, technical
Maximum sharpness, hyperreal detail, deep shadows.
Sony VENICE 2 Low light, night scenes
Dual ISO, clean shadows, slightly cool tones.
VHS / MiniDV Nineties nostalgia, lo-fi
Nineties consumer video: glitches, scan lines, chromatic fringing.

Lighting

Cinematic
Controlled contrast, soft shadows, a sense of volume.

cinematic lighting, soft shadows, controlled contrast
Golden hour
The warm gold of low sun.

golden hour sunlight, warm amber tones, long soft shadows
Neon
Coloured reflections, the light of a city at night.

neon sign reflections, cyan and magenta light, wet pavement glow
Studio
Controlled and professional.

studio lighting, key light from above, soft fill, clean backdrop
Natural
No artificial sources at all.

natural available light, window light, overcast diffusion
High key
Minimal shadow, bright throughout.

high-key lighting, bright even illumination, minimal shadows
Low key and noir
Deep shadow and contrast.

low-key lighting, deep shadows, single hard light source, noir feel
Practicals
Real sources visible inside the frame.

practical lights visible in frame: lamps, candles, screens, neon
Backlight
The source behind the subject, separating them from the background.

strong backlight, rim light separating subject from background
Volumetric
Beams made visible by haze or smoke.

volumetric light rays, dust particles in light beam, god rays

Colour grades

Teal and orange
The Hollywood default: cool shadows, warm skin.

teal and orange color grading, warm highlights, cool shadows
Warm vintage
Faded warmth, grain, lifted blacks.

warm vintage grade, faded highlights, fine grain, lifted blacks
Cool Nordic
Desaturated and cold, overcast even indoors.

cool desaturated Nordic grade, muted palette, overcast tonality
Film noir
High-contrast black and white.

high contrast black and white, deep blacks, hard key
Rich and premium
Deep blacks with metallic accents.

rich deep blacks, gold accents, controlled specular highlights
High contrast saturated
Punchy and loud, for energy.

high contrast, saturated colour, punchy midtones
Pastel
Soft contrast, colour pulled toward chalk.

pastel grade, soft contrast, gentle greens in the shadows

Shot structures

The beat-blocked scene

A single continuous scene of 10 to 15 seconds, written as timed beats.

A model holds a shot for a fixed span. Writing the scene as beats with times attached stops it compressing a three-beat idea into one, or padding one beat with drift.

Title and act, then the location: environment, time of day, weather, atmosphere, background detail.
Reference assignment: which reference is the character and which is the style, said explicitly, with identity preservation spelled out for the character reference.
Style: one block of look words, plus what to avoid.
Story: what actually happens, in two to five sentences.
Characters: appearance, clothing, emotional state, body language, objective.
Emotional realism: eyes, face, breathing, body. This is the section most prompts skip and it is the one that stops a performance reading as a mannequin.
Shot structure in timed beats (0–3s, 3–7s, 7–11s, 11–15s), each with action, emotional acting, camera, lighting, effects and audio.
Rules at the end: camera, continuity, physics, then the negatives.

The storyboard grid

One still image containing a 3×3 grid of nine frames from a single sequence, generated from one reference.

It gets a whole shot list out of one generation, which is the cheapest way to see whether a sequence holds together before spending on video. It also exposes identity drift immediately, because nine versions of the same face sit side by side.

Global consistency first: one reference image, and an explicit list of what must not change between frames.
Layout: three rows, three columns, nine frames, each a different shot from one continuous sequence, each labelled.
Environment and visual style, stated once and applying to all nine.
Character: subject, wardrobe, hair, makeup, expression, movement, recurring props.
Story: one paragraph connecting all nine frames.
Per-frame shot plan: shot type, angle, lens, composition, action, expression, lighting.
Camera variety, named as a list to draw from, with an instruction not to repeat framing.
Continuity rules, then quality, then negatives.

The five-beat fusion arc

A 15-second short in which something drawn or generated invades real footage and escalates, in five timed beats.

It is a shape rather than a subject, so it survives being reused: fix the arc and vary one thing. The version documented on this site holds the beats, the texture language and the negatives byte-identical across eleven films and changes only what the drawing emerges from. Five beats of roughly three seconds is also the practical ceiling — twelve transformations in fifteen seconds and the model silently dropped one.

The spark, 0-3s: a real physical action releases the drawn element onto a real surface.
The spread, 3-6s: it moves to a second surface, unravels, changes colour, reforms.
The big one, 6-10s: it dives into an object and bursts out dragging that object's own colours.
The character, 10-13s: it collapses onto a real fixture, which grows a face and limbs.
The world, 13-15s: it unravels across a large surface and reorganises into a whole scene.
Then three blocks appended to every beat: handmade texture in specifics, continuity verbs with replacement forbidden, and a diegetic-only soundscape with music explicitly set to none.

A complete worked set built on this

Negatives

Negatives are a separate channel on the models that support one, and on the models that do not they are simply more words in the prompt competing for attention. Keep them short and aimed at the failure you actually see.

Identity

identity drift
face morphing
inconsistent clothing
wardrobe changes

Anatomy

duplicate limbs
extra fingers
warped anatomy
blurry faces

Surface

plastic skin
over-sharpening
AI look
cartoon style

Physics

floating objects
incorrect shadows
unrealistic expressions

Temporal

flickering
random camera jumps
morphing

Phrase the thing you want wherever you can, not the thing you do not. Attention has no natural mechanism for 'not', and where a system supports negatives it implements them as a separate conditioning pass rather than as subtraction inside the sentence.

Provenance

A practitioner reference pack contributed to this project, written for working operators and translated here from Russian and mixed English.

Rewritten in English rather than transcribed. No contributor, client, employer, project, file or internal system reference is retained, and none is reproduced anywhere on the site. Third-party brand names in the pack's worked examples were replaced with generic descriptions; the equipment names that remain are cinema optics and film stocks, which are the vocabulary itself.

The pack also contained operator workflow, QA gate and routing instructions written for a specific team's process. Those are not craft knowledge and are not published.

Take the cinematic reference with youA printable sheet, or a presentation.

Cheatsheet · 1 page Deck · 28 pages