subject motion video prompts: Describe one visible action from start to finish
Useful subject motion video prompts describe a motion that a reviewer can follow. Words such as lively or energetic do not establish what should move, in which direction, or where the action should end. Begin with one subject and one visible change.
State the initial condition
Identify the subject, its starting position, orientation, and relationship to the scene. If those details matter to the action, make them explicit before adding style.
For a fictional tabletop clip, a red toy car can begin stationary on the left side of a plain surface, facing right. That gives the reviewer a clear baseline for assessing movement and direction.
Decide whether the camera should remain stationary. Holding it still for an action-focused test reduces confusion between subject movement and changing viewpoint. More complex camera behavior can be added as a separate reviewed revision.
Describe the action and endpoint
A proposed prompt is: A small red toy car starts stationary on the left side of a clean tabletop, rolls smoothly to the right without turning, slows near the center-right, and comes to rest, while the camera remains fixed and the car stays fully visible.
This instruction is a creative hypothesis. It does not guarantee physical accuracy, exact speed, or precise screen coordinates. The current gateway validates request fields rather than a trajectory model encoded in prose.
Keep the planned action compatible with the selected duration. A brief that asks the subject to accelerate, jump, circle an obstacle, reverse, and stop may contain more events than the intended short clip can communicate clearly.
Review the observed path
Check the initial state, main transition, and final state. Note whether movement direction remains consistent, whether the subject changes identity, and whether motion stops as requested.
Inspect contact with the surface and moments of occlusion. A subject that disappears behind an object and returns altered should not pass merely because the overall direction looks correct.
Watch normal-speed playback before inspecting individual frames. A physically unusual frame may be unobtrusive, while an abrupt overall jump can be obvious only in motion. Record time-coded evidence for any rejection.
Revise one source of ambiguity
If the subject turns instead of moving straight, simplify the path language and remove conflicting scene cues. Keep other request settings constant where possible. Do not change model, viewpoint, and action together and then attribute an improvement to the revised motion clause alone.
For production use, preserve the approved prompt, model, duration, reference provenance, job identifier, and archived video. A later rerun is not the original evidence.
Accept the clip when its visible action and endpoint satisfy the intended shot. Continue with camera versus subject motion, single-shot prompts, and continuity review when planning a longer sequence.
Continue with quality and testing
Where these facts come from
- codebase: src/app/api/v1/images/generations/route.ts
- codebase: src/app/api/v1/video/generations/route.ts
- codebase: src/ai/providers/nano-banana.ts
- codebase: src/ai/providers/seedance.ts
- codebase: src/ai/providers/kling.ts
- codebase: src/ai/providers/veo3.ts
- codebase: src/ai/providers/types.ts
- Proposed prompt and human review method; no model runs or quality results reported
- Editorial keyword hypothesis; search volume not measured