# Storm and lightning

Light and look / Time of day / Low light. Checked 2026-11-13.

Wind, rain and flashes: danger and release.

- Use when: Trailers, turning points, extreme sports, dramatic product reveals.
- Phrase: a dark storm, heavy rain driven sideways by the wind, a lightning flash lighting the whole street white for an instant
- Page: https://directorchair.ai/time/storm
- JSON: https://directorchair.ai/api/time/storm.json

## Watch out

- Keep one time of day and one weather for the whole job, written the same in every prompt; a mix makes cuts that do not match. (practitioner; Director Chair field notes on video prompting)
- In video, ask for one or two flashes at a given moment; constant lightning looks like a strobe. (practitioner; Director Chair field notes on video prompting)

## Prompts

### Nano Banana Pro

```
[your subject] in [your setting]. A dark storm, heavy rain driven sideways by the wind, a lightning flash lighting the whole street white for an instant.
```

### Nano Banana 2

```
[your subject] in [your setting]. A dark storm, heavy rain driven sideways by the wind, a lightning flash lighting the whole street white for an instant.
```

### GPT Image 2.5

```
A photograph of [your subject] in [your setting].
Details: a dark storm, heavy rain driven sideways by the wind, a lightning flash lighting the whole street white for an instant
Exclusions: no extra text, no watermark, no logo.
```

### Seedream 5

```
[your subject] in [your setting]. A dark storm, heavy rain driven sideways by the wind, a lightning flash lighting the whole street white for an instant.
```

### Seedance 2.5

```
Scene: [your subject] in [your setting].
Shot 1 (0:00 to 0:05): one continuous shot
Light: a dark storm, heavy rain driven sideways by the wind, a lightning flash lighting the whole street white for an instant
```

### Seedance 2.0

```
Scene: [your subject] in [your setting].
Shot 1: one continuous shot
Light: a dark storm, heavy rain driven sideways by the wind, a lightning flash lighting the whole street white for an instant
```

### Kling 3.0

```
[your subject]. The scene is [your setting]. A dark storm, heavy rain driven sideways by the wind, a lightning flash lighting the whole street white for an instant.
```

### Veo 3.1

```
[your subject] in [your setting]. Framing and subject stay as in the start image. A dark storm, heavy rain driven sideways by the wind, a lightning flash lighting the whole street white for an instant.
```

## Look further

- https://shotdeck.com/ : real film examples of this weather (paid, link only)
- https://flim.ai/ : film, ad and music-video stills of this weather (free tier, link only)

## Goes well with

- Rain: https://directorchair.ai/time/rain
- Night: https://directorchair.ai/time/night
- Low-key contrast: https://directorchair.ai/light/low-key-light

## Source

Own words; the term from general film vocabulary, as also used in Flim's filters

Text CC BY 4.0, Director Chair (directorchair.ai). Reference clips and their card texts belong to their makers.