Once shot 1 is locked as an image, every clip downstream inherits the character, the lighting, the lens. Animation becomes a constraint problem, not a generation problem. One good reference frame outperforms a longer prompt.

Two weeks of GPT Image 2 + Seedance 2.0 demos hit Twitter. Everyone showed what the workflow looks like. Almost nobody named why it works. The storyboard isn't the workflow. The anchor frame is.

Same prompt, two passes. GPT Image 2 generated the still. Seedance 2.0 brought it to life. That's the workflow. That's all of it.

the #1 AI character consistency mistake: using your best looking scene as the reference image. neutral lighting, front facing, no hard shadows. that scales. a dramatic scene carries its lighting and camera angle into every generation after it. 19 episodes taught me this the hard way.

AI filmmaking tip most people skip: reference images solve character generation. that's the easy part. the editorial layer is what actually holds sequences together. B-roll at transition points, cutting on action instead of mid-pose, reducing visual axes between shots. without that, consistent characters still feel like a slideshow.

"character sheets solve AI consistency" wrong. sheets give you a face lock, not a performance lock. the model can reproduce the same face in one batch. maintaining that face across different lighting, expressions, and environments is where it breaks. same prompt, two generations. two different people.

the #1 character consistency mistake in AI video: using your coolest scene as the reference image. neutral lighting, front facing, no hard shadows. that's what scales. a dramatic scene carries its lighting and camera angle into every generation after it. generate the reference first. test it. then build scenes from it.

"AI replaces the VFX team" Wrong. It replaces the execution. The crew's hands, not the director's eye. Two people with the same model produce completely different results because knowing what looks right in context is the part that doesn't prompt well.

Kling 3.0 tip that took a full production to figure out: lock your shot vocabulary before you open the generator. wide to close, action to reaction, movement match. the sequence grammar matters more than what each individual prompt says. same three actions in different shot order = completely different emotional register.

Wrong. “sadness” gets melodrama. “quiet resignation after a long day” gets something closer to human. Same model.

Getting the Ghibli look took 1 session. Keeping it consistent across 19 episodes took a system. Most AI video creators solve the wrong problem.