Burning 2k credits and here is what I learned about how to get AI to write better video prompts

When I first started making AI videos, my prompts were mostly written by AI. I'd describe the shot I wanted, ask an AI to turn it into a detailed prompt, and just paste it in. Then I'd sit there getting frustrated when the generated motion looked weird and try to explain to the AI what went wrong. I burned through almost 2,000 credits doing this because I thought enough tweaking and back-and-forth would eventually give me the perfect prompt. Turns out I was wrong. The main problem was that the text AI kept guessing details I hadn't actually decided on. The prompts looked professional, with things like the subject, action, camera movement, lighting, and atmosphere all spelled out. But the actual action paths were vague, and the camera instructions would often contradict each other. Now I approach it completely differently. I know basically nothing about film theory, so I often couldn't tell what details were missing from my prompts. Instead of asking AI to write the final prompt, I tell it to act like a director and ask me specific questions about the shot first, with clear options for me to choose from. That completely changed my process. The trick isn't really getting AI to write the prompt for you. It's using AI to figure out which parts of the shot you haven't actually decided on yet. Once those are clear, the results get much better. I'm still pretty new to this, but hopefully this saves someone else from burning through a pile of credits. Curious how people with more experience approach their prompting workflow. submitted by /u/Separate_Cap_3763 [link] [comments]