Our eyes are tuned to people. We forgive a strange cloud or a wobbly tree, but a face that drifts or a hand with six fingers breaks the spell instantly. The good news: most of the problems come from asking for too much at once.
Keep the cast small
One person is easiest, two is fine, a crowd interacting is hard. If you need a busy scene, keep the crowd in the background and out of focus — “blurred people walking behind her” — and let one person carry the shot.
Choose small, natural actions
The most convincing clips use the kind of movement a camera would catch between bigger moments: a turn of the head, a smile breaking, a glance out of a window, laughing while driving. Fast dancing, sports and complicated hand work are where things still bend.
Light the scene like a cinematographer
Name the light and where it comes from. “Soft window light from the left”, “golden hour backlight through her hair”, “warm lamp light in a dim room”. Good light hides small imperfections and makes skin look natural. Flat, shadowless light tends to look plastic.
Frame for faces
Medium shots (waist up) and close-ups give the model the most pixels for a face. In wide shots, faces get small and soft. “Shallow depth of field” or “85mm portrait” pushes the model toward a photographic look with a blurred background.
Starting from a photo
For the most control, start with an image. Make a portrait in the AI image generator or the character generator, then animate it in the photo animator. Because the first frame is fixed, the face stays closer to what you chose.
Prompts that work
- “Close-up of a woman whose eyes fill with emotion as she listens to a friend, warm interior light, shallow depth of field”
- “A man in a camel coat stands by a bright window and turns his head slowly, soft daylight, static shot”
- “He laughs and sings along while driving at night, friend smiling beside him, city lights sliding past”
See these and more in the examples gallery.
Use realistic people responsibly
Don’t generate or animate real, identifiable people without their consent, and label realistic AI video when you post it. Our content policy explains the rules.
