From an idea to a clip

Most people meet a video model through a prompt box and assume that is all there is. It is not. The same model usually sits behind several addresses, and which one runs decides what you can hand it.

There are four. From a sentence alone. From a still you already have, which becomes the first frame. From a first and a last frame, so you decide where the shot lands as well as where it starts. And from references, where you supply the subject and the model keeps it the same.

You do not pick the address. You attach what you have, and the studio moves to the ingress that reads it. That is the part that broke on 8 September and is now the thing the whole picker is built around.

If the idea exists as a sentence and nothing else, start from text. If it starts from a photograph, a product shot or a frame you already like, start from that image. If you know both ends of the movement, use both frames, because that is the difference between describing a shot and directing one.

References are for the case where something has to survive between shots: the same face, the same product, the same room. That is a different problem from making one good clip, and it has its own guide.

Video is priced per second on almost every model here, so the length you pick is the bill. Five seconds at a low resolution is the right way to find out whether an idea works; the long version comes after.

The models disagree about how long they will go. Some stop at eight seconds, several stop at fifteen, one runs to thirty. The studio only offers the lengths that model actually accepts, so a number you can pick is a number that will run.

Before you press anything, the amount is on the button, worked out from the model, the length and the resolution you chose. Change the resolution and the number moves.

If a run fails on our side or the provider never delivers, the credits come back. If the provider ran it and returned something you did not like, it was still a run, and it was still paid for. That is the honest line, and it is the same line for everyone.