reference/techniques.md
# Seedance 2.5 — the ten official prompt categories
Higgsfield published a prompt library of ten categories in August 2026, each tested across
multiple generations to see which structures hold up on a second run. This file records the
settings each category used, why that combination works, and **which technique it
introduces**.
Use it to pick the closest archetype before writing from scratch.
The full prompts are at <https://higgsfield.ai/blog/seedance-2-5-prompting-guide> with a
copy button. They are not reproduced here — what follows is the extractable method.
---
## 1. Dramatic exterior · human subject, available light
**Settings:** Genre drama · Golden hour, single motivated source · Emotional control: grief
held beneath composure · Anamorphic large format, mixed wide and close coverage.
**Why it works:** drama holds shots longer than most genres, so a two-hander has room to
play out. Golden hour keeps the light identical across every segment without describing the
sun's position in each one.
**Introduces:**
- **Event track.** The sea declared "an event track, not a texture", with every wave and
gust given its timestamp and its spray height as a percentage of frame. Irregular
intervals, no two identical.
- **STILLNESS LOCK.** The list of what does not happen: nobody stands, nobody hugs, no hand
leaves the blanket. Exactly one tear falls, hers, at 13.2s.
- **Blocking in percentages.** Her at x 42%, head at y 44%. Him at x 58%, y 42%.
- **Reverse-angle note.** When the camera crosses to the seaward side she reads screen-right
and he reads screen-left. They never swap sides.
- **LENS LOCK per segment** in degrees: 47° for the wides, 29° for the close-ups.
- **Invented face.** "A wholly original, invented face", so no real likeness is cloned.
## 2. Action sequence · multi-shot choreography
**Settings:** Genre action · Physics realistic, high impact, real paper mass and inertia ·
Anamorphic, hybrid handheld and gyro rig · Hard cold key with a single warm accent.
**Why it works:** action tightens pacing and keeps the camera close to the movement, so a
nine-shot fight reads as one continuous sequence rather than stitched takes.
**Introduces:**
- **Physics per material, named and marked critical.** An entire block devoted to the
banknotes being individual paper — visible fibre, worn creased edges, each bill tumbling
on its own air current — so hundreds of notes do not read as one rigid mass.
- **Marking sections "(critical)".** Flagging the block that must not be ignored.
- **Palette in percentages.** 60% cold steel, 30% matte black, 10% warm focal pop. "She and
the cash are the only warm things in a cold world."
- **Author references "in spirit, fully original execution".** Naming directors and
cinematographers without copying a specific work.
- **Explicit anti-plastic block** enumerating real optical imperfection: film grain, gate
weave, halation, chromatic aberration, lens breathing on focus pulls.
- **Cuts land on the hits**, never on a still pose.
## 3. Commercial product · multi-reference scene
**Settings:** Genre general · True handheld with light shake · Physics: real magic on honest
rules.
**Why it works:** locking three references (person, location, product) keeps all three
stable while the gimmick happens around them.
**Introduces:** the effect defined as a **mechanic with rules**, not as an adjective. Color
waves radiate from each footfall at constant radial speed, repaint what they cross, and
stay. One mechanic the model repeats identically instead of improvising it shot to shot. If
your piece has a visual trick, write it this way.
## 4. Epic landscape · environment as protagonist
**Settings:** Genre epic · Slow steady push-in across all three shots · Bright diffused
daylight, cold grade.
**The shortest of the ten.** Three shots, three sentences, `Hard cut` between them, and a
closing consistent-look block with the exclusions (no people, no animals, no birds, no
shake).
**Lesson:** with no people on screen, almost no locks are needed. Prompt complexity should
track what can actually drift, not ambition.
## 5. Noir · shadow and atmosphere
**Settings:** Drama with a noir base · Hard key, high contrast, monochrome · Anamorphic with
the lens locked per segment.
**Introduces:**
- **LOCATION MAP.** The space written out: the camera works from the south sidewalk facing
north for the entire sequence, with background, midground, and foreground specified.
- **SCREEN DIRECTION LOCK.** The sedan always arrives from screen-right, the woman always
travels right-to-left, the camera never crosses to the far side of the street.
- **Lens ladder per segment:** 84° wide, 29° medium, 47° normal, 18° telephoto for the
two-shot, 84° again for the low finish, with "no lens drift mid-segment".
- **State monotonicity** applied to wetness: it only accumulates, never resets.
- **Controlled legible text:** the only readable text anywhere is the neon sign's word.
## 6. Multi-character · consistent faces across frames
**Settings:** Action, performance piece · Average shot under 1.5 s · Dual-quality system.
**The hardest category:** four named characters across twenty-four fast cuts, with no time
to re-establish who is who between them.
**Introduces:**
- **COUNT LOCK.** Exactly four, never five, no background double, no cloned member, and no
mirror, glass, or reflection showing an extra copy.
- **DUAL-QUALITY SYSTEM.** Every beat tagged `[FILM]` or `[REPORTER CAM]`, the degradation
described in full, and an explicit rule that it **never leaks** from one into the other.
- **Match-cut motif.** Round shapes and eyes that rhyme between scenes: CRT screen,
porthole, dental lamp, planet disc, pupil.
- **Wardrobe by act**, declared in the locks block.
- "Exactly five fingers per hand."
## 7. Fantasy action · character and creature at scale
**Settings:** Epic, action · Hyperbolic physics, no blood anywhere · Emotional control:
calm, focused, not afraid.
**Introduces:**
- **One grammar per action.** She only cuts, never stabs, with the four phases of the cut
written out, plus a **closed list** of the five sword actions in the piece and their
timestamps.
- **Slow-motion allow-list.** Two moments only, with exact timestamps, nowhere else.
- **Substitute rather than only forbid.** No blood: the demons are cooled lava with fire
inside, the cut edge glows orange, sparks blow out, the body crumbles to ash.
- **Numeric heights.** Ledge floor is zero, the horde is 2.5 m, the archdemon 5 m with eyes
at 4.5 m; she levels at 4 m and drops to 3 m so he is looking down at her.
- **A geometric weak point** with measurements and the condition that exposes it.
- **Progressive dirt** that never cleans up.
## 8. UGC-style ad · natural movement, no production feel
**Settings:** Genre general, no genre-specific visual logic imposed · Handheld selfie framing
fixed for the whole video · Soft even cabin light · Emotional control: understated, no
performing.
**Introduces:**
- **Performance by imperfection.** Natural blink rate, reactions arriving half a beat late,
smiles that start small and grow, the glance away from the lens and back mid-sentence, the
lowered voice of someone self-conscious about filming on a plane.
- **Live background people, not NPCs.** Each with an independent activity; nobody looks at
the camera and nobody reacts in sync.
- **Fixed seating geometry** across all eight shots.
- **State monotonicity** applied to the cookie: whole, bitten, two halves, finished, never
regrowing.
- **Turbulence that exists in two shots only and never returns.**
- **Dialogue per shot in complete sentences**, with all speech ending by 25s.
## 9. Horror · wrong light, wrong angle
**Settings:** Genre horror · Deep one-point perspective, 4:3 · Real weight and inertia ·
Emotional control: tired, welling tears, held tension without release.
**Introduces:** the negative space past the shoulder declared first empty, then filled —
dread built from absence rather than a reveal.
And the most elegant rule of the ten: the antagonist is **never in sharp focus** until the
final second. Always a blur, a silhouette, a fragment behind shelves. "The autofocus refuses
to lock on her." Focus directed as a narrative device.
## 10. Documentary · observational camera
**Settings:** General, third-person observational · A single 47° lens for the entire
sequence · Five distinct natural light states across one continuous span of time.
**Introduces:**
- **SINGLE-LENS LOCK.** One focal length for thirty seconds; every framing change is
achieved by the operator physically walking, with camera-to-subject distance declared per
segment: 5 m, 2 m, 3 m, 2.5 m, 7 m.
- **Crowd size as the clock.** Forty people at the start, sixty, a hundred at the peak,
fifteen or twenty deep in the night, five or six by dawn — so it reads as one continuous
night rather than five separate scenes.
- **FRAMING RESPECT LOCK.** The camera treats her as a person at a party, not a body: no
slow pans up or down a figure, no isolated shots of torso or legs, no low angles.
- **BEAUTY WITHOUT RETOUCHING LOCK.** Visible pores, developing sunburn, salt drying to a
faint bloom, sand along the forearms, tired eyes by dawn.
- **CLEAN-AIR LOCK.** Nobody smokes; the only smoke comes from the fires and always travels
out to sea.
- **Wardrobe layered progressively** as the temperature drops.
---
## The six findings from their testing
1. **References hold identity across cuts more reliably than a text description.** Once a
face or product is locked as a reference it survives hard cuts, lighting changes, and
camera moves that would otherwise cause drift.
2. **Genre and lighting settings do more work than most of the prompt text.**
3. **Multi-character scenes are the hardest category to keep consistent.** The more faces in
one shot, the more reference material each needs.
4. **The shot-by-shot breakdown outperforms a single continuous scene description** for
anything with more than one camera angle. Vague transitions are the most common cause of
a sequence falling apart.
5. **50 references is a ceiling worth using deliberately, not maxing out by default.** A
cluttered set produces a less coherent result than a smaller, carefully chosen one.
6. **GLOBAL STYLE and AUDIO function as guardrails more than instructions.** Explicitly
excluding what should not appear prevents more failures than adding positive description.
SKILL.md
---
name: seedance-2-5
description: |
Generate 4-30 second cinematic video with ByteDance Seedance 2.5 through fal.ai, Volcengine Ark, Runway, or ComfyUI Partner Nodes. Use for long single generations, synchronized audio, and large multimodal reference sets (up to 30 images, 10 videos, and 10 audio clips). Also covers the 2.5 prompt contract: section order, multi-shot "Hard cut" breakdown, named locks for continuity across cuts, the asset and character-sheet method, voice conditioning, and iteration discipline.
---
# Seedance 2.5
Seedance 2.5 extends the Seedance 2 family to 4–30 second 480p/720p clips and
larger multimodal reference sets. It is hosted; there are no local model
weights in OpenMontage.
## Choose a supported route
| Route | Tool call | Notes |
|-------|-----------|-------|
| fal.ai | `seedance_video`, `model_version: "2.5"` | T2V, I2V, and reference-to-video |
| Volcengine Ark | `seedance_ark`, `model: "2.5"` | First-party model ID `doubao-seedance-2-5-260628`; custom token price required for cost estimates |
| Runway | `runway_video`, `model: "seedance2_5"` | T2V, I2V, V2V; 480p/720p |
| ComfyUI Partner Node | `comfyui_video`, `model_family: "seedance_2.5"` | Hosted and paid despite running in a ComfyUI graph |
Do not invent a Replicate, HeyGen, or Higgsfield identifier when their current
public API schema does not list Seedance 2.5.
> **Resolution note.** The supported routes above expose 480p and 720p. The model
> generates 1080p natively on the vendor's own web platform, which is not an
> OpenMontage route. If a vendor blog cites 1080p or 4K, check which surface it means
> before promising it in a pipeline.
## Reference limits
- Up to 30 reference images.
- Up to 10 reference videos.
- Up to 10 reference audio clips.
- Keep combined reference video/audio duration within the provider's documented
ceiling; Runway caps it at 30 seconds.
- For Runway video-to-video, the source video consumes one video slot.
Reference inputs are provider-specific. fal.ai uses `image_urls`, `video_urls`,
and `audio_urls` internally. Runway uses `references`, `referenceVideos`, and
`referenceAudio`. Ark uses typed content entries with roles. Always call the
OpenMontage tool instead of constructing a provider payload manually.
**50 assets is a ceiling to use deliberately, not to max out.** A cluttered reference
set with competing faces, props, and locations produces a *less* coherent result than a
smaller, chosen one. Rule: one reference per element that must stay consistent — a face,
a product, a location, a style.
---
## Prompting
Lead with the shot structure, then subject, action, camera, lighting, and audio.
For multi-shot work, give each beat an explicit time range and use quoted text
for dialogue. Reference each supplied asset by a stable role in the prompt.
Thirty seconds is a ceiling, not a target: use a shorter generation when the
scene has only one meaningful action.
### Section order
One continuous block of text, broken into labeled sections. Skipping a section does not
degrade the output generally — it breaks it in a specific, predictable way.
```
GLOBAL STYLE
Genre, color grade, film stock or digital look, aspect ratio, shutter behavior,
and anything that must not appear. Everything below must match this.
SCENE
A one-line logline: what happens, where, in what mood.
CHARACTERS
Face, hair, build, wardrobe. If a reference covers this, just name which
reference is which character.
LOCATION
The space and its props, separate from the people in it. A vague location is
the single most common reason a multi-shot sequence drifts between cuts.
FIRST FRAME AND BLOCKING
Exact starting positions: who is where, facing which direction, as the clip
opens. Something fixed before any motion starts.
Shot 1: [shot type] [action in one or two sentences]. Hard cut.
Shot 2: [...]. Hard cut.
Shot 3: [...].
Pacing is built here. State camera distance and framing per shot: vague
transitions are the most common cause of a sequence collapsing.
OPTICS / CAMERA
Focal length, camera height, handheld or dolly or crane, per shot.
PHYSICS
Fabric, smoke, hair, liquid. Anything that would look wrong moving like a solid.
LIGHTING
Where the light is motivated from, its direction, how it falls on faces.
AUDIO
Ambience, specific effects, and what must not be heard. Default:
"No music, no discernible dialogue", unless the scene needs otherwise.
```
The shape working prompts share: **one visual rule at the top, one sound rule at the
bottom, everything in between broken into shots.** CHARACTERS can be short when a
reference does that work; keep GLOBAL STYLE, the shot breakdown, and AUDIO regardless.
### Genre, era, and lighting carry more than prose
On vendor web platforms these are UI selectors, and changing genre alone shifts pacing,
contrast, and camera behavior with the scene description held identical. **The API routes
above expose no such selectors**, so on OpenMontage tool calls that intent has to be
written into `GLOBAL STYLE` and `LIGHTING` explicitly — genre, decade, grain and color
response, light source and its angle, and the emotional register. Leaving them implicit is
the difference between a shot that reads as noir and one that is merely dark.
---
## Locks: continuity across cuts
Constraints do not belong in a trailing negative prompt. They go in **named blocks**,
usually phrased positively, stating what holds.
| Lock | What it solves |
|---|---|
| `FIRST FRAME AND SPATIAL BLOCKING` | Positions as x/y percentages of frame, plus the reverse-angle note: when the camera crosses, who ends up on which side, so they never swap |
| `SCREEN DIRECTION` | The axis. "Sea always screen-right, dune line always screen-left, never reverses" |
| `LENS LOCK` | One focal per segment in degrees of diagonal field of view: 84° wide, 47° normal, 29° portrait, 18° telephoto. Plus "no lens drift mid-segment" |
| `SINGLE-LENS LOCK` | One focal for the whole piece; framing changes because the operator walks. This is what reads as documentary |
| `COUNT LOCK` | "Exactly four, never five, no background double, no mirror or reflection showing an extra copy" |
| `STILLNESS LOCK` | The list of what does not happen: nobody stands, nobody hugs, no hand leaves the blanket |
| `POSITIVE LOCKS` | Closing block restating in positive terms what holds across cuts |
| `IDENTITY / NO-IP LOCK` | "A wholly original, invented face." No logos, no readable text, no recognizable melody |
**State monotonicity.** The cheapest continuity trick available: states only advance,
never reset. Wetness only accumulates. The cookie only shrinks — whole, bitten, two
halves, finished — and never regrows. Writing the progression shot by shot stops the model
from cleaning up your character on the next cut.
**One grammar per action.** When an action repeats, define one way to perform it and
forbid the rest, then close the list: exactly five sword actions in the piece, each with
its timestamp. Same for slow motion — allow-list it to named moments and nowhere else.
**Event tracks.** Write ambient elements as a timestamped event list rather than as
texture: each wave with its second and its spray height as a percentage of frame, at
irregular intervals. Works for sea, wind, rain, traffic, and crowds.
**Substitute, don't only forbid.** If you forbid something, supply the concrete
replacement. "No blood" is weak; "the cut edge glows orange, sparks blow out, the body
crumbles to ash" is enforceable.
---
## Assets
The piece is won or lost here, before any video generates.
**Character sheet: three plates, face on only one.** Full body front with the face
removed, full body back, and a 3/4 close-up carrying the face in two versions, smiling and
neutral. The face is stripped from the full-body plates because in a wide shot it is small
and blurry and the model copies that blur; if the only face in the set is a sharp
close-up, that is the one it uses. Without the smiling version the model invents teeth.
**One asset per state.** Variations are split into separate assets rather than noted in
the prompt: clean jacket, soaked, and bloodied. Splitting is cheaper than arguing.
**The rule of 10.** Before accepting an asset, generate it ten times across different poses
and lighting. It must stay recognizable all ten.
**Locations.** Do not generate a head-on still. Generate a video of the empty space with
the camera moving slowly, then derive the other sides of the room from that footage. A
still gives you a wall; a slow travelling gives you geometry.
---
## Voice
Voice is a **conditioning sentence, not an asset**. Write it once with accent, tempo, and
manner, then paste it verbatim — without changing a word — every time that character
speaks. Rewording widens the sampling range and destabilizes the voice.
Write accent phonetically, describing what the mouth does rather than where the speaker is
from: `th going to f and v, dropped h, glottal t, -ing to -in'`.
Keep audio tracks separate. Never voice and music in the same reference clip.
---
## What the model cannot do
| Failure | Workaround |
|---|---|
| **Singing** | Pre-record the track, cut it into 12-second files, and label each `THE TRACK THEY ARE PERFORMING`. The label states the audio's role in the scene; `audio guide, for sync only` is technically accurate and produces nothing usable |
| **Sustained physical contact** | Fights and two bodies in constant contact. Shoot the reference on a phone and pass it as a motion reference; cheaper than twenty iterations |
| **Multi-character scenes** | The hardest category. The more faces in one shot, the more reference material each needs to avoid drifting into a generic face by the third or fourth cut |
---
## Chaining and correction
Past 30 seconds, extend the previous clip or pass it as a video reference plus a
description of what comes next — the second route also lets you introduce new characters
or objects at the seam. Avoid vendor "long video" options that stitch several generations
from one short prompt: there is not enough detail available for the runtime.
For a single wrong element, edit rather than regenerate, stating what changes and what
holds:
```
Around the 2-second mark, change only [X] from [before] to [after].
Keep the characters, movement, camera, lighting, composition and timing unchanged.
```
A repaired frame can also be passed as a start image for a short replacement segment.
Note the tension: a published 110-minute Seedance production banned starting frames
throughout, so continuity was carried by the assets rather than by the previous take's
last frame, which drags its own drift. Treat the start-image repair as a point fix, not as
a continuity method.
---
## Cost and verification
All supported routes are paid. Confirm the exact provider/model before calling
and review the result for identity continuity, cuts, lip sync, audio artifacts,
and prompt adherence. ComfyUI Partner Nodes use prepaid Comfy credits and are
not an offline fallback.
Iteration discipline that keeps that cost bounded:
- **Lock the assets before generating anything.** The model has no memory: re-describe
everything, every time.
- **Change one thing per iteration**, or you will not know which change fixed it.
- **At 10 to 15 failed iterations, simplify or split the scene, not the wording.**
- Explore at the lowest resolution the route offers and only re-run what works.
- Keep a log of version, what changed, and verdict.
- **Judge the whole clip, never a single frame.** A good still can come from a generation
that falls apart at second 9.
- Land cuts on movement, never on a still pose.
---
## Reference
[`reference/techniques.md`](reference/techniques.md) — ten prompt archetypes, the settings
each used, why the combination works, and which technique each one introduces. Use it to
pick the closest archetype before writing from scratch.
## Provenance
The prompting method, lock patterns, and asset rules above are distilled from material the
Higgsfield team published in August 2026 — an official Seedance 2.5 prompting guide of ten
categories each tested across multiple generations, and the open-sourced production method
of a 110-minute Seedance feature. No prompt from either source is reproduced verbatim; the
technique is restated with original templates. Credit for the underlying work is theirs.
- <https://higgsfield.ai/blog/seedance-2-5-prompting-guide>
- <https://higgsfield.ai/original-series/cully-hill-boys/full-film>
The route table, provider field names, and cost guidance in this file are OpenMontage's own
and take precedence over anything a vendor blog implies about API availability.