Seedance 2.5 Prompt Guide: Character Formula, Timestamp Scripting & 12 Transitions

Full prompt = [reference declarations] + [one-line summary]
            + [plot, written in beats or timestamps] + [global wrap-up]

Naturalistic documentary style, cinematic true-to-life light. In morning
mist, in a vast wetland of reeds (@image 1), an elegant red-crowned crane
is dancing with spread wings. (@image 2) The crane's feathers are snow
white, its crown vivid red, its posture slender and noble, its movements
light and graceful. The setting is a shallow autumn wetland — glittering
water, golden reeds, duckweed and water grasses all around, the blurred
background holding distant mist and a rising sun. Camera: low-angle
medium shot, slight handheld feel, essentially locked, always keeping
the crane centered.
0–3s: the crane stands still in shallow water, then slowly begins to
spread its broad black-and-white wings, the downdraft rippling the
surface. Morning wind; sunlight rakes in from the horizon through the
mist, forming visible shafts of light.
3–8s: the crane leaps lightly across the water, feet alternately
skimming, splashing crystal drops. Its long neck arcs back, beak to the
sky; it lands softly, folds its wings, stands, sweeps its head around
elegantly, and gives one clear, ringing call.
Global: low camera position, slight handheld follow on the jumps.
Natural depth of field — foreground reeds softly blurred, crane sharp,
mist and sun softly blurred behind. Natural ambience only: water,
powerful wingbeats, the crane's call. Serene, ethereal, beautiful.

Character = [age / ethnicity] + [skin tone & texture] + [facial details]
          + [eyes / soul] + [hair] + [clothing & fabric] + [build / mood / aura]

[start s – end s]  [stage name / theme]
Physical directions: framing + composition + exact micro-actions
Subtext: why — the emotion or camera intent behind the directions

[Global settings]
Environment & texture: time + place + mood + "insist on extreme physical realism"
Visual style: film look / realism / anime + depth of field + lighting
Camera language: shot scale / POV + description
Character: paste the 7-slot character formula here (or @image references)
Performance core: the one thing the whole film must nail
Forbidden: sounds + subtitles + behaviors + known failure spots

30-second one-take (glacier to deep-sea reverie)
 
[Global settings]
Environment & texture: polar glacier and deep ocean. National
Geographic-grade physical realism — meltwater refraction and underwater
light shafts must obey real optics.
Visual style: epic landscape film, 8K, cold palette (ice blue into abyssal blue).
Camera language: one smooth, slow, monumental drone push-in for the whole
film. No hard cuts anywhere.
Performance core: no human subject — the performance is the landscape,
time-lapse light, and one seamless surface-to-underwater transition.
Forbidden: no people or vehicles (except the shipwreck), no flicker at the
water transition, no subtitles, no built-in BGM.
 
[Timestamp script]
[00:00–00:09] Majestic polar — the camera glides forward through a vast blue
glacier crevasse; sunlight rakes the ice; small calvings drop toward the sea.
Subtext: pure, monumental awe.
[00:10–00:15] Time-lapse — same push-in speed, but daylight wheels through
violet dusk into an aurora night in five seconds.
Subtext: ages passing over the ice; charge the transition.
[00:16–00:21] The dive — the camera tips down and plunges through the
surface; a burst of bubbles, then clear abyssal blue, god-rays overhead.
Subtext: the film's one showpiece transition — the water hit must feel physical.
[00:22–00:30] The wreck — gliding on through the light shafts to a medieval
wooden shipwreck on the sand; translucent jellyfish drift past; hold on the
barnacled figurehead and end.
Subtext: silence and mystery to close.

[Global] Early-19th-century English manor ballroom, giant crystal
chandelier, hundreds of candles. BBC period-drama look — warm gold,
ivory and deep black, high-contrast candlelight, film-grain texture.
Audio design: classical waltz throughout, moving from "restrained
social ambience" to "the world stripped away, pure obsession",
hitting the beats of the action.
Her: 20-year-old English woman, classic British bone structure...
[7-slot formula continues]  Him: 26-year-old English man, a sharp,
cold aristocratic face... [7-slot formula continues]
Forbidden: no modern hair or zippered clothing, no modern lighting,
no hard jump cuts, no spoken lines, no cloth floating on its own,
no identical clone faces in the crowd.
 
[00:00–00:06] Rack focus + crane down. Audio: waltz with room
reverb and murmured chatter; when focus snaps clear, the chatter
falls away and the melody sharpens. High angle, frame blurred; the
chandelier's crystals hang sharp in the foreground — then focus
snaps to the couple below, and the camera cranes down to eye level
as he offers his hand and she looks up, appraising.
[00:07–00:13] Foreground-occlusion transition. Audio: on the beat
her hand lands in his; a heavy silk "swish" as a dancing couple
sweeps past the lens, their white skirt wiping the frame to pure
white — when it clears, the camera is already in the full-shot of
the two mid-waltz. Background dancers: scattered spacing, varied
dress colors, hair and faces all different, imperfect unison.
[00:14–00:20] Slow-motion dolly-in. Audio: the ballroom drains away
into "underwater" muffle — one taut cello line and a heartbeat drum.
The camera pushes from full shot to a two-face close-up in extreme
slow motion; depth collapses, the crowd melts into warm bokeh. His
throat moves; her breath quickens. On the final heartbeat, cut to
black, music stops dead.

[Global] 2077 cyberpunk sea-crossing bridge, torrential rain, deep
standing water. Extreme physical realism — rain on metal, tire spray
and flame refraction must obey real physics. Hard-sci-fi film look,
high-contrast neon (cyber pink / ice blue), fast shutter. Camera:
extreme-speed chasing drone POV with wind-shear tremble.
Subject: a silver-black streamlined heavy-industrial concept mecha
motorcycle, exhaust jetting pale-blue plasma flame.
Forbidden: no soft-body warping of the mecha in motion (rigid metal
only), no humans, no subtitles, no built-in BGM.
 
[00:00–00:08] Full tilt. The camera hugs the flooded road surface
behind the bike; the tires throw up a meters-high water curtain, the
plasma tail drawing a long light trail through the rain.
Subtext: pure speed — spend the frame on water, reflection and
flame physics.
[00:09–00:16] The dodge. Camera snaps to overhead. Burning wrecks
block the road; the bike leans almost to the tarmac, tires grinding
orange sparks, threading the debris in one tight S-line.
Subtext: weight transfer under speed — grip, friction, sparks.
[00:17–00:24] Mid-air reassembly. The bike launches off a broken
bridge section; the camera vaults with it, orbiting. In the hang,
panels flip and restructure — wheels fold to thrusters, limbs deploy
— motorcycle to humanoid battle frame.
Subtext: heavy-industry mechanism beauty; precise interlocking parts,
never noodle-soft morphing.
[00:25–00:30] Superhero landing. Camera plunges to a low-angle
close-up. The mecha lands on one knee; the deck cracks in a spiderweb,
the shockwave blasting the rain into a ring. It raises its head, eyes
igniting red, straight into the lens. Hold.
Subtext: mass and menace — sell the tonnage through the cracked road
and the blown-out rain.

[0–3s]  The question — she looks straight into the lens (his POV),
no tears yet, a quiet settling. Brow tightens slightly; lips part:
"Are you really going?"
Subtext: she isn't accusing — she's waiting for an answer she
already knows.
[3–10s] Accepting — her eyes drift off his face to the empty air.
Lids lower. One short smile lifts and drops. Nostrils tighten in a
restrained breath; her chest rises once.
Subtext: the smile is self-mockery; the breath swallows the grief.
[11–17s] Memorizing — gaze returns, moving slowly over his face.
Eyes now rimmed red, tears held. A half-second dead pause; lips move
once, press shut; chin tightens; throat rolls.
Subtext: not saying goodbye — carving his face into memory.
[18–23s] The sigh — eyes drop, and only now one tear falls, landing
on her collar. She doesn't wipe it. When she looks up, the brow slowly
unknots; a shake of the head almost too small to see.
Subtext: reproach has become deep regret — "we could have been."
[24–29s] Letting go — extreme close-up. She builds a light, soft
smile; as it reaches her mouth a second tear crosses her nose. In a
voice barely held steady: "Go." The smile stays, the tears keep
falling, her eyes never leave the lens.
Subtext: no collapse — restraint is the performance.

1. Use a "<TRANSITION>" transition at this cut (no hard cuts,
   no objects appearing out of nowhere).
2. <How picture A hands over to picture B — see the table.>
3. The scene switch must be natural. (Optionally: and the shot
   scale changes from X to Y, e.g. close-up to medium.)

White flash — Mother Meng sees her son mimicking the hawkers' cries;
she furiously smashes the shuttle in her hand. The frame erupts in a
violent white flash; smash-cut to a loaded ox-cart jolting down a
muddy road (the decisive second move).
 
Mask transition — the camera follows the moving cart into a dark
narrow alley; the wall swallows the lens to full black. The camera
pulls through the darkness and opens directly on the new scene: the
bright, spacious academy hall.
 
Match cut — the last frame of shot A is a round copper coin in a
market vendor's hand; the camera drives into the coin, and it
resolves seamlessly into the equally round tip of the teacher's
ruler in the academy.

[Global] Late night, a bamboo-forest inn. Top-tier guofeng anime
look (2.5D), ink-wash edges, cold moonlight against warm candle.
A 22-year-old swordsman, sharp brows, high ponytail, white robe
with black trim, black-sheathed sword on the table.
Forbidden: no 3D greasiness, no clipping in the fight, no subtitles.
The ink-wash effect may only appear after the 25s "click" — never
earlier. The wine bowl must not appear before the moon has fully
faded.
 
[00:00–00:04] Match cut — a full moon holds frame center; it dims
and fades as a perfectly round wine bowl (top-down on the table)
resolves in its place, moonlight glinting in the wine.
[00:05–00:10] Zoom-through — his eyes go sharp; the camera dives
into his pupil until it fills the screen, and inside it unfolds the
reflection: an assassin dropping blade-first from the bamboo canopy.
[00:11–00:18] Pull-back + whip pan — the camera whips with his
drawing arm, hard right, motion blur wall-to-wall; out of the blur,
mid-air, sword meets dagger in a burst of orange sparks.
[00:19–00:24] Mask — the clash storms up a wall of bamboo leaves;
one giant leaf crosses the lens to black. When it drifts off-frame:
ground level, the assassin falling limp in the background, the
swordsman sheathing his blade in the foreground, back to camera.
[00:25–00:30] Ink wash — on the "click" of the sword seating, the
whole scene blooms into black-and-white ink and disperses; the frame
settles as a splash-ink landscape. End.

[the exact thing to change] + [what it becomes / how it changes]
+ optional [when it takes effect, as a timestamp]