{
 "slug": "emotion-as-behaviour",
 "name": "Emotion as behaviour",
 "category": "expression",
 "group": "Direction rules",
 "media": [
  "image",
  "video"
 ],
 "checked": "2026-10-13",
 "effect": "Acting that reads as real instead of a generated face pulling an expression.",
 "use_when": "Every prompt with a person showing a feeling.",
 "phrase": "describe one body part per beat with a trigger: at the sound of the door her smile drops and her shoulders go still",
 "pitfalls": [
  {
   "text": "Never write he is sad. Write the eyes, the jaw, the breath, with the moment that causes it.",
   "evidence": "practitioner",
   "source": "Dan Kieft via Director Chair field notes on video prompting"
  },
  {
   "text": "Never ask for a smile or for an emotion by name; describe the muscles. Asked-for smiles come back generated and forced.",
   "evidence": "measured",
   "source": "Director Chair field notes on video prompting (client feedback, Aug 2026)"
  }
 ],
 "per_model": [],
 "external_refs": [
  {
   "site": "emotion-direction",
   "url": "https://seedance-emotion-direction.vercel.app/",
   "what": "a clip of this emotion performed in Seedance 2.5 (link only)"
  }
 ],
 "licensed": [],
 "site_names": [],
 "related": [
  "no-default-smile",
  "sadness"
 ],
 "rights": "own-work",
 "evidence": "film-craft",
 "source": {
  "url": null,
  "note": "Rules from Director Chair field notes on video prompting"
 },
 "body": "",
 "shown_with": {
  "slug": "sadness",
  "name": "Sadness",
  "category": "expression",
  "label": "Shown with: Sadness",
  "site": "emotion-direction",
  "credit": "Emotion Direction (seedance-emotion-direction.vercel.app)",
  "source_url": "https://seedance-emotion-media-3.vercel.app/videos/19-sadness.mp4",
  "media": {
   "video": "/media/emotion-direction/19-sadness.mp4",
   "card": "/media/emotion-direction/19-sadness-card.mp4",
   "poster": "/media/emotion-direction/19-sadness.jpg",
   "card_poster": "/media/emotion-direction/19-sadness-card.jpg",
   "width": 1280,
   "height": 720,
   "duration": 7.07
  }
 },
 "url": "https://directorchair.ai/expression/emotion-as-behaviour",
 "markdown": "https://directorchair.ai/expression/emotion-as-behaviour.md",
 "prompts": {
  "nano-banana-pro": "[your subject] in [your setting]. Describe one body part per beat with a trigger: at the sound of the door the subject's smile drops and the subject's shoulders go still.",
  "nano-banana-2": "[your subject] in [your setting]. Describe one body part per beat with a trigger: at the sound of the door the subject's smile drops and the subject's shoulders go still.",
  "gpt-image": "A photograph of [your subject] in [your setting].\nPeople and framing: describe one body part per beat with a trigger: at the sound of the door the subject's smile drops and the subject's shoulders go still\nExclusions: no extra text, no watermark, no logo.",
  "seedream-5": "[your subject] in [your setting]. Describe one body part per beat with a trigger: at the sound of the door the subject's smile drops and the subject's shoulders go still.",
  "seedance-2.5": "Scene: [your subject] in [your setting].\nShot 1 (0:00 to 0:05): describe one body part per beat with a trigger: at the sound of the door the subject's smile drops and the subject's shoulders go still",
  "seedance-2.0": "Scene: [your subject] in [your setting].\nShot 1: describe one body part per beat with a trigger: at the sound of the door the subject's smile drops and the subject's shoulders go still",
  "kling-3": "[your subject]. Describe one body part per beat with a trigger: at the sound of the door the subject's smile drops and the subject's shoulders go still. The scene is [your setting].",
  "veo-3.1": "[your subject] in [your setting]. Describe one body part per beat with a trigger: at the sound of the door the subject's smile drops and the subject's shoulders go still. Framing and subject stay as in the start image."
 },
 "licence": {
  "code": "MIT",
  "text": "CC BY 4.0",
  "third_party": "Clips and card texts inside a \"licensed\" block belong to their makers and are shown with permission and credit."
 }
}