Director Chair
All groups

Camera

Shot sizes 16Angles 17Camera moves 43Rigs 6Lenses 10Focus and depth 4

Frame

Composition 14Aspect ratios 11

Light and look

Light 22Time of day 12Colour looks 14Film stock and texture 9Art styles 6

People and places

Characters 6Expressions 31Settings 6

Motion

Subject motion and speed 9

Edit

Transitions 21Edit effects 41Sound 14

Story

Hooks 46Script arcs 10Video formats 11Calls to action 5Test and publish 16

Recipes

Presets 28Prompt guides 11

Tools

BoardModelsGuidesAboutAgent skill

Find the frame that has the register, read its data (camera, lens, stock, light, time of day, colours), and write the look block from that data, not from adjectives.

Prompt guides

A look from a real film frame

The colour grade and the camera feel sit in the prompt instead of being hoped for.

Use when
Any job with a defined look: brand films, ads, a series of generations that must match.

Prompt instructions

Give me a filled-in prompt that follows this guide, plus the one thing to check in the result, for a short video about [your product], for [your audience]. The technique is a look from a real film frame: the colour grade and the camera feel sit in the prompt instead of being hoped for. How it works: find the frame that has the register, read its data (camera, lens, stock, light, time of day, colours), and write the look block from that data, not from adjectives. It is right for: any job with a defined look: brand films, ads, a series of generations that must match. Name what not to take from the still (its people, its place, its text); a foreign reference leaks its own content into the picture. Be concrete: numbers, seconds and settings, no theory. Ask me one question first if something you need is missing.

The same prompt works in Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini.

Watch out

Notes

The steps

  1. Find the frame. Search a film-still library (ShotDeck, paid; Flim, a free tier with one download a day) or scroll it like a feed and keep the frames that stop you.
  2. Read its data. ShotDeck shows a data panel per still: colour, aspect ratio, format, lighting, time of day, camera, lenses, film stock. Note those values; on Flim, describe them yourself.
  3. Write the look block: the capture (camera, lenses, stock, ratio), the light (type, time of day), the grade as words with their place in the frame, the hex codes beside them for the edit.
  4. Paste it word for word into every prompt of the job.
  5. Optionally attach the still as a look reference: take its light, lens character and grade, none of its people or its place.

A film still is someone else's copyright: a reference for the look, never material in the output, and never published.

Related

Several generations look like one film because each was told it is the same film.

The look blockPrompt

The full film register: premium, narrative, emotional.

Brand filmPrompt

What makes digital read as cinema: colour gets denser, highlights roll off softly.

Film printPrompt

Sources

Our workflow from Director Chair notes on Reference and inspiration sites for AI video (Rourke Heath's method); the sites are where you search Checked 2026-10-13.

ShotDeck: real film frames to search by framing and lens (paid, link only)

Flim: film and ad stills to search by text or image (free tier, link only)

For agents: this card as markdown, as JSON.