Use Cases & Prompt Tips

Community-backed advice for getting high-quality ~10s clips with Sora 2.

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Prompt Principles

  • Be insanely specific: environment, lighting, motion, physics.
  • Structured checklist beats free-form for clarity.
  • Use cinematic terms: tracking shot, dolly zoom, 35mm grain.
  • Add audio/mood cues; specify “no dialogue” if needed.
  • Enforce continuity: “one continuous shot”, repeat key phrases.
  • Iterate smartly: start with 6–8s tests; tweak only broken parts.

Prompt Checklist Template

Subject: core focus

Setting/Environment: location, time, weather

Action/Motion: events with physics cues

Camera: angle, movement, focal length

Style: aesthetic, lighting

Audio/Mood: sounds, emotion

Timeline/Duration: sequence, total seconds

Constraints: continuity and realism fixes

Example Prompts

  • “Scene: mountain touge at night. Subject: AE86 Trueno. Action: drifting perfectly. Environment: dark, rain, wet asphalt. Camera: static low tracking, shaky pass-by. Style: cinematic, light trails, 35mm grain. Mood: tense adrenaline. Duration: 7s. Aspect: landscape.”
  • “Photorealistic dialogue in a minimalist luxury apartment at dusk; woman rises, walks toward camera, ASMR Mandarin line, one continuous take, shallow DOF.”
  • “Vikings launch in the North Sea, 10s, winter cool daylight, cinematic wide, creaking oars, shouted commands, realistic wave impacts.”
  • “Anime-style melancholy under fireworks; close-up Japanese dialogue; fluid hand-drawn animation feel.”

Common Pitfalls

  • Vague prompts => scattered actions and weak coherence.
  • Over-complex scenes break continuity; simplify and iterate.
  • Ignoring constraints (gravity, buoyancy) leads to visual glitches.