Keyframes before motion

0:08 A video take can cost a dollar or two. A still costs cents. So before you pay for motion, make one keyframe per shot, and fix it while it's cheap. In this video: a keyframe from your sheets, the fixes, and the one you keep for each shot.

0:26 In Every Nine Seconds, Make takes on a shot opens the Lab on that shot: its prompt, its cast's sheets as references, and its takes. Here's sweep one, the episode's first shot. The keyframe cost ten cents. The video takes, a dollar and more. Every motion in the show started from a still like this one.

0:52 Our first keyframes were wrong in three ways. Sweep one showed the door too clearly, too soon: the fix put the camera far away, a pale sliver. The bird's white patch showed in every sweep: one line hid it, until sweep five. And for the close-up, Seedream kept drawing the whole bird. The same prompt on Nano Banana Pro gave the close-up. Each fix cost cents, not dollars.

1:21 Now, yours. In The Birthday Cake's shot list, choose Make takes for 2.1: Shelby at the sprinkler. The Lab opens on that shot, with the director's words, and Shelby's sheet already attached, because he's in the shot. Switch the take to Image. The director's words stay with the video; a still gets its own. So write one moment: who, where, the light and the camera. Leave out the motion and the sound. And name his reference: image one, his sheet, right below.

1:56 Pick a model: GPT Image. Compare it with Seedream, in the same press: the price is on the button, up to nine cents.

2:10 Two keyframes. Shift-click both, and choose Compare. Check them against the shot, and against the bible. Shelby still matches his sheet: same shell, same cap, same eyes. In the GPT Image one, the candles lean in the spray, as the shot says. But in both, the grass is real grass, and the sprinkler is metal. The bible says bright clay. So let's ask for clay, throughout.

2:40 Take the GPT Image one: Reuse prompt and settings. Add the line: everything is soft clay, the grass, the sprinkler, the drops. One model this time, up to four cents. Generate.

2:56 Now the grass and the sprinkler are clay. The drops still look like glass: close enough for this shot. Shelby is the same, and the flames still lean. Keep for 2.1: the shot now has its keyframe. Discard the other two: they're set aside, with their cost. Every shot gets the same: a still you'd stake a video on.

3:21 Pause here, and make yours: a keyframe per shot, from your sheets. Check it against the shot and the bible, and fix it while it costs cents. Then keep one per shot. Next time: first frame, last frame.