TL;DR: Amateur AI clips come from underspecified prompts. Name the camera move, the lens, the light and the grade, and the model stops guessing. The order that works: subject, setting, action, camera, lens, lighting, mood, film-look, then the technical flags. Keep every prompt free of logos and readable screens — that one rule improves quality and makes the footage reusable.
This is post #3 of the AI Video Automation series. The prompts below are the ones that go in the prompt column of the shot list the batch runner walks.
Why most AI clips look amateur
Almost always the same cause: the prompt names a subject and stops. "A mechanic in a workshop." The model then has to invent the camera position, the movement, the lens, the light and the colour — and it invents all five badly, because there is no signal telling it what to do.
A cinematic prompt removes the guessing by stating what a cinematographer would decide before rolling. That is the entire technique. Everything below is detail on how to say it.
