Keep your characters consistent from shot to shot
Build a character sheet, lock the look with reference images and check every shot, so your hero is the same person from episode 1 to the finale.
Why consistency decides if viewers stay
When a hero's face changes between two shots, viewers stop believing in the story. Consistency is not a luxury for AI films: it is what makes a series feel like a series.
Aim for recognisable, not identical: the same hair, clothes, colours and mood matter more than every detail of the face.
Build a character sheet
Before any video, write and draw your character once. This sheet is your reference for the whole season:
- Name, age and role in one line.
- Three distinctive features: hair, a scar, a jacket or a pendant.
- A colour palette: two or three colours that always appear.
- Expressions: neutral, happy, angry, afraid.
- Views: front, side and three-quarter, on a plain background.
- One fixed description, copied word for word in every prompt.
- Character sheet
- LYRA · 19 · archer
- Front
- 3/4
- Side
- Palette
- Fixed description
- 19-year-old archer, silver braid, amber eyes, scar on the cheek, olive cloak, red cord bracelet
- Shot 12
- Shot 13
- Shot 15
- Shot 14 · drifted
- Every new shot is compared with the sheet. Shot 14 lost the silver hair, so it is generated again.
Example: Lyra's sheet, line by line
- Name, age, role: Lyra, 19, archer of the northern guard.
- Three signs: a long silver braid, a thin scar on the cheek, an olive cloak with a bronze clasp.
- Palette: olive green, silver, red (her bracelet), brown leather.
- Expressions: neutral and focused, a rare half smile, anger with tight lips, fear with wide eyes.
- Views: front, three-quarters and side, full body, plain grey background.
- Fixed description: “19-year-old woman archer, long silver braid, amber eyes, thin scar on the cheek, olive cloak with a bronze clasp, red cord bracelet, brown leather bracers.”
Keep the fixed description in a note on your phone. You will paste it hundreds of times.
Lock the look with reference images
Most video models can start from an image. Generate your character once in an image tool, choose the best result and use it as the reference for every shot.
- Create the character sheet images first, in a single session.
- Use the same reference image in every image-to-video generation.
- Keep the same style words: lens, lighting, film grain.
- Save the winning seed or settings when the tool lets you.
Character sheet of {fixed description}. Three views of the same character: front, three-quarters and side, full body, neutral expression, plain grey background, soft studio light, same outfit in every view.
Write prompts the same way every time
A prompt is a recipe. Change one ingredient at a time, never the whole recipe.
- Order: shot size, character description, action, place, light, style.
- Reuse your fixed character description exactly.
- Describe only what changes in the shot: the action and the place.
- Keep a prompt document, one line per shot, with the version that worked.
“Lyra running in the forest, epic.” The model invents her face, her hair and her clothes again.
“Medium shot, 19-year-old woman archer, long silver braid, olive cloak, red cord bracelet, runs and looks back, forest path, dawn with golden backlight, anime style, film grain.”
- Shot
- Character
- Action
- Place
- Light
- Style
- Medium shot
- Lyra, silver braid, olive cloak
- draws her bow
- burned market
- dawn, golden backlight
- anime, film grain
- runs, looking back
- forest path
- Only these change
- Shots 1 and 2 share four ingredients out of six: that is what keeps Lyra recognizable.
Copy the prompt of your best shot and modify it, instead of starting from a blank page.
Check every shot
- Put the new shot next to the reference: face, hair, clothes, colours.
- Check the hands and the details that drift: jewellery, logos, scars.
- Reject quickly: a shot that is 80% right is cheaper to regenerate than to fix.
- Keep an approved folder with the best shots of each character.
A real review: out of 12 versions of shot 14, three kept the braid, and only one also kept the scar and the cloak. That one goes in the approved folder; the other eleven are deleted the same day.
When it still drifts
- Choose shots that hide the problem: a back view, a silhouette, a close-up on the hands.
- Cut away before the drift appears: two seconds is often enough.
- Give minor characters a simple, strong look that is easy to repeat.
- Accept small differences in the background: viewers notice faces first.
Keep voices and places consistent too
A character is also a voice. Choose one voice per character in your voice tool, write down its exact name and settings next to the character sheet, and never change it in the middle of a season.
Places work the same way: a short location sheet with a wide shot, a detail and a fixed description (“burned market, black beams, ash on the ground, a broken fountain in the center”) keeps your world as consistent as your heroes.
- Voice: the tool, the voice name, the stability and style settings, and one sample line saved.
- Location: one wide reference image, one detail and the fixed description.
- Time of day: decide it for each scene and keep it in every prompt of that scene.
- Write a character sheet before you generate.
- Start every shot from the same reference image and the same description.
- Check each shot against the reference and reject fast.
Keep your characters consistent from shot to shot — DeepStories Academy