Film 2 of 9 · Cast · 4:32
A cast that stays the same
A look in words, a reference sheet, and the sheet in every scene: how a character stays the same from one shot to the next.
Transcript
One beautiful shot is easy now. The same character, in the next shot... that's the hard part. In this video, you'll give each returning character a look in words and a reference sheet, use that sheet when you make their scenes, and check every result.
In Every Nine Seconds, the cast is three: the cormorant, the door, and the lighthouse. Each one is a card in the Cast room. Its look says what must stay the same: the shape, the colours, the material, the marks. The picture on the card is its reference sheet. The lighthouse stays off screen in these episodes, so it has a voice, designed for the show and never cloned, but no sheet yet.
A reference sheet is one image of the same character in several views. Make it once the look is chosen, before the first scene. Write its prompt in four parts: what the picture is, who's in it, the views, and what must never appear. Choose the views your story needs: ours are the bird in profile, asleep, drying its wings, and its head up close. We made the bird's sheet on two models, in one press. GPT Image kept the white patch in every view, for about three cents. Nano Banana lost it with the wings open, for thirteen. We kept the first.
Then we used those sheets across the show. Find a take, open its details, and its references are there: the door's sheet, the bird's sheet, and the last frame of the episode before. And the prompt calls them by number: the cormorant from reference image two. The references hold the look; we still checked every result.
Now the same steps with Shelby, from tutorial one. In the Cast, choose New character. Give him a name and a role. Then his look: yellow clay, a terracotta shell with one cream spiral, and a blue cap. Then how he behaves. Before adding him, answer: is this a real person? Shelby is not. Add him to the cast. Writing a card sends nothing, and costs no provider credit.
Then choose Generate reference sheet. For Shelby, Kiju puts his look into a starter sheet prompt: read it before sending. Make it his: four views of the same snail, and no text. Pick a model. Choose Compare with, if you want a second model in the same press. The price is on the button, before you press it.
The sheets have landed. Compare them side by side, and check the shell, the cap and the eyes, in every view. Here, GPT Image's cap and eyes hold best, for a cent and a half. Keep it, and choose Add to Shelby. Discard the other: it's set aside, and its file and its cost stay.
Now, in the Cast, his sheet is on his card. Approve his look, when you're ready to use it across the series.
Now put him in a scene. In the Lab, a new image take. First choose Add someone from the cast, and pick Shelby: his sheet joins the references, numbered from the left, so it's reference image one. Then describe the scene, and name him by it: Shelby, the clay snail from reference image one, carries a parcel twice his size down a garden path. One model this time: GPT Image. Check the price, and Generate.
Here he is. Check his details again: the shell, the cap, the eyes. If something changes, name it in the prompt, and try again with the same sheet.
Pause here, and make yours: write the look, make the sheet, and use it in every scene, checking each result. Next time: from a line to a shot list.
The film is in English, with English captions. Filmed on the Kiju desk, version 0.1.0. The images, the video and the voices in the films are AI-generated.