Image to video AI

How to send stills through the control

Decide which still is the subject and which stills are only context. Three pictures of three different products will confuse the shot. Three pictures of one product, from useful angles, will not.

1. Choose one to three stills of the same subject. Stop at three. The control does not take a fourth.
2. Crop out clutter that you do not want in motion, such as a stray logo or a second person.
3. Write the motion in a sentence: what rotates, what approaches, what stays still.
4. Generate a single shot before you ask for a whole sequence.
5. If the face or the label drifts, replace the shot and keep the stills attached.
6. When the shot matches, continue to neighboring shots or export that one.

Stills that teach the control

A label test: one front photo of a tin, one three-quarter photo, no lifestyle scene. Ask the tin to turn a quarter and stop. If the letters melt, the stills were not followed. Replace the shot. Do not add a beach unless the tin is supposed to be on a beach.

A person test: two photos of the same founder, similar light. Ask for a nod and a sentence. If a different person appears, the references lost. Save the face in the material library if later shots must repeat it.

A place test: one photo of an empty shop counter. Ask a hand to set down a cup. The counter should remain the counter. A rebuilt room means the still was treated as a suggestion. Tighten the description and regenerate.

These are drills. They are not claimed as published films, and they do not come with performance numbers. The UGC page covers the ad story once the still itself is moving correctly.

Models when the still must survive

Some engines cling to a reference and some invent. Use the model list on the home page and switch the shot when the subject wanders. The compare page is where those differences are written down. This page will not rank the engines or attach a fee to each.

Image generation models on the home page can make a still when you do not have a photo yet. That is a different step. Make the still, then return here and attach it. Do not expect the video step to invent a photograph you never supplied if matching a real object is the point.

Limits of a reference still

Three is the maximum on this control. A contact sheet of twenty angles will not upload as twenty guides. Pick the three that show the sides you care about.

A still cannot force a fact that is not in the pixels or the sentence. If the photo has no logo, the description should not assume the logo will appear correctly. Add a still that contains the logo, or accept a wrong mark.

Motion that fights the photo will look broken. A seated person asked to sprint, or a night photo asked to become noon, is a new image with extra work. Change the still or change the ask.

Rights stay with you. MovieFlow does not, on this page, clear a celebrity photo, a trademark, or a private picture you do not own. Do not upload those.

Choosing the three stills

Spread the three stills across information, not across mood. One still should show the whole subject. One should show the detail that must survive, such as a clasp, a scar, or a word on a label. The third can show the subject in the setting if the setting matters. Three mood variants of the same blurry crop waste the limit.

Match the light across the set if you can. A noon face and a tungsten face tell the control they might be different days or different people. You can still use both, but expect the shot to pick one and discard the other. If matching the person matters more than matching the room, drop the room still.

Resolution is less important than a clean edge. A small photo of a sharp label beats a large photo where the label is a smear. Crop until the subject fills the frame and the background is boring. Busy backgrounds become moving clutter.

Write the motion after you look at the stills, not before. A sentence composed in the abstract will demand a camera move the photos cannot support. Look at the feet. If the feet are out of frame, do not ask the person to walk toward camera. Ask for a gesture the frame already contains, then add a small move.

Generate the proof shot at the simplest motion first: a turn, a blink, a hand entering. If that proof keeps the label and the face, you have a reliable trio. Only then ask for a harder action. Skipping the proof is how people burn a stack of attempts and conclude the control cannot see.

Store the three files with the project, under names that say what they show. "Final2" is not a name. "tin-front" is a name. When a later shot drifts, you will reattach the same trio, and you will want to know which file carried the label.

If you do not have a photo and the subject is imaginary, make the still with an image model first, judge it as a photograph, and only then attach it. Judging an invented still is easier than judging a video that invented the still and the motion at once. Separate the decisions.

Reflections and eyeglasses are where stills lie. A bright window in a pair of lenses may become a second face once the head turns. If the lenses matter, use a still where the lenses are already at the angle you will ask for, or accept a regenerate when the reflection crawls. Do not be surprised. Look for it on the proof shot.

Hands entering frame need a still that already includes a plausible hand, or a description that introduces the hand as a new element. A photo cropped at the shoulders, asked to show typing, will invent fingers. Invented fingers are the usual failure. Either crop wider so the hands exist, or ask for a nod instead of typing.

Color casts should be decided in the still, not begged for in the sentence. If you want the tin under warm bulbs, photograph it under warm bulbs or grade the still before you attach it. A sentence that says "warm" on a blue photo splits the difference and looks like neither. Fix the file. Then describe only the motion.

After the proof shot holds, duplicate the project before you try a wilder move. The duplicate is your way back to the trio that worked. Wilder moves include a camera push, a change of weather, or a second person entering. Each of those can discard a still that the proof respected. If the wilder move fails, return to the duplicate instead of reattaching files from memory. Memory drops the clasp. The duplicate still has it. That is the whole discipline of a three-still control: protect the set that already told the truth, and experiment beside it, not on top of it.

When you finally export, keep the proof shot in the project even if it is not in the cut. It is the evidence that the trio can be obeyed. A later collaborator who only sees the wilder move will not know the stills were ever respected. The proof shot is how you show them the control worked before anyone asked it to be clever.

Label that proof in the project with the word proof, so a later pass does not mistake it for a rejected take and throw away the evidence.

Questions about stills