AI video rewards patience and punishes greed. The clips that hold up are rarely the longest or busiest — they are calm, short and deliberate. This is the workflow the studio’s regulars use with the Video Generator.
Step 1: Cast the still
Start from a still you would publish as a photo. One subject, a readable pose, clean edges. If you would not post the still, motion will not save it — it will only animate the problems. Generate a few candidates in the Generator and pick for composition, not detail.
Step 2: Direct small
Ask for the smallest motion that creates life: a breath, a head turn, hair moving, a shift of weight. Large actions — walking, dancing, complex gestures — are where anatomy breaks. Small motion at 24 frames a second reads as presence; large motion reads as a glitch reel.
Step 3: Test at 4–6 seconds
Render short first. Judge the motion honestly: does the face hold? Do hands stay hands? A six-second test costs a fraction of a long render and tells you everything about whether the pairing of still and motion direction works.
Step 4: Extend only what passed
Takes that pass the test earn longer renders. Takes that fail get a new still or a smaller motion ask — not a longer one.
Step 5: Finish, then publish
Run the final cut through the Video Upscaler, trim ruthlessly, and publish from your account only when the piece is one you would sign. Video is priced by duration and resolution, shown before each job — the calm workflow is also the economical one, because it spends credits on seconds you keep.
Failed jobs refund their credits automatically, but a good workflow should not need the safety net often.