How to Make AI Videos: A Step-by-Step Workflow

Most people's first AI video is disappointing for the same reason: they describe an entire scene in one prompt and hope. The workflow below is slower to describe and much faster in practice.

Step 1: Write the shot list before you generate anything

AI generates shots, not videos. So decide your shots first. For a 30-second piece you're looking at roughly 6–10 clips of a few seconds each. Write one line per shot: what's in frame, and what moves.

Skipping this is why people end up with twelve unrelated clips that won't cut together.

Step 2: Generate a strong still for each shot

This is the step that separates usable AI video from noise. Rather than asking a model to invent a moving scene, generate a still image you're happy with first — composition, subject, lighting, all locked. You can iterate on a still in seconds; iterating on video is slow and expensive.

Keep your subject description identical across every still so the character or product stays recognizably the same from shot to shot.

Step 3: Animate each still with a short motion prompt

Now animate. The critical rule: describe only the motion, not the scene. The scene is already in the image.

Good: "slow push in, hair moves slightly in the breeze." Bad: "a woman with brown hair standing in a field at sunset as the camera slowly pushes in while the wind blows."

The second re-describes what's already there and gives the model room to change it. Short motion prompts hold the frame steady.

Prefer simple camera moves — push in, pull out, slow pan, gentle orbit. Complex choreography is where AI video falls apart.

Step 4: Generate more takes than you need

Motion generation is stochastic. Expect roughly one in three clips to have an artifact — a warping hand, a face that shifts, an object that melts. Generate two or three takes of each shot and keep the clean one. This is normal, not failure.

Step 5: Cut, then add sound

Assemble the clips in the order from your shot list. Cut on motion where possible — it hides the seams between generations.

Then add audio, which most generators don't produce: voiceover, music, and ambience. Sound is doing more work than people expect; a clean voiceover over decent clips reads as professional, while silent AI video reads as a tech demo.

Step 6: Grade for consistency

Different generations drift in color and contrast. A light pass to match brightness and color temperature across clips is what makes the whole thing feel like one piece rather than a collection.

Common mistakes

Prompting whole scenes. Animate stills instead. It's the single biggest quality difference.
Asking for long takes. Multiple short shots always beat one long generation.
Changing the subject description between shots. Copy-paste it exactly or your character morphs.
Complex camera moves. Push in beats a crane-and-spin every time.
Leaving it silent. Audio is half the perceived quality.
Fighting a bad clip. Regenerate. It's cheaper than editing around it.

Doing it in one place

The workflow above touches three tools for most people: an image generator, a video generator, and something for voiceover. Brainbaby does all three in one subscription — generate the stills, animate them, add the narration — which mostly matters because you stop exporting and re-uploading between every step. Make a video free →

FAQ

How long does it take to make an AI video? A polished 30-second piece is realistically an hour or two once you know the workflow — most of it spent generating and selecting stills.

Why do my characters change between shots? The subject description varied, or you regenerated from scratch instead of animating a consistent still. Lock the description and reuse the same source image.

Can I make a full-length video with AI? You can assemble long pieces from many clips, but consistency work grows with length. AI video is strongest for short-form and for B-roll inside conventional edits.

Do I need editing experience? Basic cutting helps. The generation is the easy part now; assembly and sound are where craft still shows.