How to keep the same character from shot to shot in AI video

Write the character sheet

Before generating anything, describe the character in writing, once and for all:

• apparent age and build;
• the face: its shape, its defining features;
• the hairstyle and its exact colour;
• the full outfit, accessories included;
• one or two distinctive marks, easy to check from shot to shot.

The distinctive marks matter more than anything else: they are what the viewer's eye follows. In the Archives, the narrator is recognised first by his white lab coat and the laboratory around him, always in the same palette.

Build a board before you animate

Animation never fixes a weak design: it just sets it in motion. Before animating a character who matters, gather on a single sheet:

• the main view;
• a back or side view;
• a close-up of the face;
• their height, next to a point of reference;
• the colours and materials you must not lose.

This board becomes the reference for the whole production. You no longer touch it: changing it halfway through means starting the series again.

The image sets the shape; the text only describes it

A prompt describes an intention; a reference image imposes a shape. Always give the model your board, or your best view, as the first reference image. With text alone, however precise, the model gets the general idea and reinvents the details: hands that change, accessories that vanish, a face that drifts into someone else's.

Also keep a fixed description block, copied word for word into every prompt. Only the action, the framing and the setting change. A single word changed in the description can be enough to change a face.

Animate from an image, one action at a time

For video, start from a still image that is already consistent and animate it (image to video). A video generated from text alone gives the model too much freedom with the face.

• One action per shot. Never three.
• A simple shot when fidelity matters more than movement.
• Big camera moves distort: keep them for shots where the character is far away.
• Two important angles? Two separate generations, cut together in the edit.

Judge every shot against the reference

Before keeping a shot, compare it with the board, not with the render you like best: silhouette, proportions, where each colour sits, accessories. Those points are not negotiable. Realism may act on texture and light, never on shape.

A bad continuity match is cheaper to regenerate right away than to discover in the edit.

Separate shape from texture

No model excels at everything. Some follow the brief to the millimetre but render smooth, almost resin-like skin; others capture pores and light but take liberties with the silhouette. On an important shot, make two passes: get the shape right first, then send that image to a model that is stronger on texture.

Which model for which pass is the subject of the test bench in Module 01, which compares three image models on the same prompt, with no retouching.

Sets follow the same rule

A place you come back to is treated like a character: a sheet, a reference image, a fixed description. The Archives laboratory is built this way: four zones, one closed palette, the same materials and the same light from shot to shot. The guide on art direction covers this method in detail.

A character inspired by an existing work

A model accepting a generation does not mean you have the right to use the character. For a project inspired by an existing work, start from its visual codes (the era, the silhouette, the materials, the mood) and build a character that evokes without copying: not the face, the signature hairstyle, the emblems or the exact outfit of a protected character. This is not legal advice, but it is the condition for building a universe that belongs to you.