How to Write AI Video Prompts (With Examples)
July 5, 2026 · 7 min read
The prompt is most of the result. The same AI video model will give you a flat, generic clip or a striking one depending entirely on how you describe the shot. Here's the structure that works, with examples you can adapt.
The four-part prompt structure
Every strong video prompt covers four things:
- Subject — what is in the shot.
- Action / motion — what moves, and how.
- Camera — the camera move and framing.
- Look — lighting, time of day, style, mood.
Miss any one and the model fills the gap with a guess — usually a boring one.
Camera language that works
Models respond well to explicit camera terms. Useful ones:
- Push-in / pull-out — the camera moves toward or away from the subject.
- Pan / tilt — the camera rotates horizontally or vertically.
- Tracking shot — the camera follows alongside a moving subject.
- Drone / aerial shot — high, sweeping movement.
- Static shot — locked-off camera, motion only within the frame.
Lighting language that works
Lighting sets the entire mood. “Golden hour,” “overcast soft light,” “dramatic low-key lighting,” “neon-lit night,” “backlit silhouette” — these steer the look more than almost anything else.
Example prompts
Each rewrites a weak prompt into a strong one:
Nature:
❌ “a forest”
✅ “Slow aerial drone shot gliding over a misty pine forest at dawn, golden light breaking through the trees, cinematic, calm.”
Product:
❌ “a watch”
✅ “Slow 360-degree rotating shot of a luxury watch on a black reflective surface, dramatic side lighting, shallow depth of field, premium and minimal.”
Urban:
❌ “a city”
✅ “Tracking shot moving down a rain-soaked city street at night, neon signs reflecting in puddles, shallow depth of field, cinematic, moody.”
Abstract / background:
❌ “colorful background”
✅ “Slow-moving abstract gradient of deep purple and pink, soft flowing shapes, static camera, smooth and hypnotic, ideal as a background plate.”
Common mistakes
- Cramming multiple actions. One scene, one action per clip. Generate separate clips and edit them together.
- No camera direction. Without it, you get a static, lifeless shot.
- Vague mood words only. “Cool” and “amazing” mean nothing to the model. Concrete visual words do.
- Rewriting the whole prompt between tries. Change one element at a time so you learn what each change does.
Put it into practice
Open our Video Generator, paste one of the example prompts above, and tweak from there. Generating a few variations and comparing is the fastest way to build prompt intuition.