How to Make a Short Film: 7 Steps, One Real Short

Most guides on how to make a short film list the stages of production, but few show one film going through all of them. We followed A Proper Introduction, a 5:45 short by Jaime Yao, Flick's in-house filmmaker, from its one-line idea to its last shot, using the 217 video clips and 897 images generated on its public canvas. The film follows a tiny knight from a girl's crayon drawing who tries to bring her pictures to her busy father. This guide shows how to make a short film, AI or not, in seven steps, each with a real frame and the prompt behind it.

How do you make a short film, step by step?

1. Step 1

   Find a small idea

   Pick one character who wants one small thing they cannot get yet, because a short film has room for a single want and the moment it is answered.

   • In A Proper Introduction the knight wants to be introduced to the girl's father, the person she drew him for.
   • The girl says the want out loud before she gives up on it for the day.
   • Test yours in one sentence: who, what they want, and what stands in the way.

   

   

   00:15

   Handheld camera style. The little girl looks at the drawing in her hands and lets out a small sigh.
   She says to the drawing, “Sorry, Sir Loras. I’ll introduce you next time, when Dad isn’t so busy.”
   Then she places the drawing into the drawer.
   Finally, she closes the drawer. No background music.

2. Step 2

   Write the script

   Write the scenes, the voice-over and every spoken line before you make a single picture, because each shot prompt later quotes the script word for word.

   • The knight narrates in voice-over, which opens on "I was supposed to be introduced to someone."
   • Spoken dialogue is rare and short, saved for the turns of the story.
   • The last exchange pays off the girl's line from the first step: the father finally asks for the story.

   

   

   00:10

   Handheld camera style.
   He sits on the bed, holding the stack of drawings, looking gently toward the camera.
   He smiles and says, “Lydia, would you like to tell me his whole story?”
   A 7-year-old girl’s voice replies off-screen, “All of it?”
   He smiles a little more and says, “Yes, all of it.” No background music.

3. Step 3

   Design the characters

   Make a character sheet with front, side and back views for each person in the film, then reference that sheet in every shot, so a face or costume never drifts between cuts.

   • Jaime made three-view sheets for the knight, the father and the girl.
   • The knight's armor is plain on one half and engraved on the other, a detail that holds when every prompt says which half faces the camera.
   • A design you can describe in one sentence is easier to keep consistent than one with many small parts.

   

   Use the provided armor reference as the only armor design reference.
   Generate a photorealistic live-action three-view character sheet of the knight.
   Show the same knight in a full-body front view, full-body side view, and full-body back view arranged side by side.
   Use a clean light gray studio background.
   The overall composition is clear and suitable for character design presentation, with the full figure visible in all three views.
   
   The knight wears a complete full suit of polished silver plate armor.
   The overall silhouette, proportions, helmet shape, torso armor shape, leg armor shape, and overall medieval armor structure follow the provided armor reference.
   The knight is unarmed.
   There is no sword in the image.
   
   The armor has a very clear asymmetrical design.
   The knight’s own left half is plain polished silver armor, with a clean, elegant surface and almost no decoration.
   The knight’s own right half is covered with extremely intricate, extremely refined, highly dense pink floral engraved ornamentation.
   The pink ornamentation must feel luxurious, delicate, expensive, and highly complex, with the maximum possible level of ornamental detail.
   The floral engraving appears across the helmet, shoulder armor, chest armor, arm armor, waist armor, thigh armor, knee armor, and shin armor.
   The contrast between the plain silver left side and the richly ornamented pink floral right side must be immediately clear at first glance.
   
   Keep this same-side plain silver and same-side richly ornamented design consistent across the front view, side view, and back view.
   Show realistic armor construction, realistic metal reflections, realistic seams, realistic wear, and realistic material behavior.
   Use clean studio lighting.
   The final result should feel like a high-quality live-action film costume turnaround sheet.

4. Step 4

   Storyboard every shot

   Draw each shot as a simple sketch first, with the camera height and framing decided, because a storyboard fixes composition and scale before you spend any time on a finished frame.

   • The film's hardest problem was scale: the knight is a few centimeters tall, and models tend to make him bigger.
   • Jaime blocked out rooms in Blender, then turned the screenshots into sketches, as the post Behind "Ser Loras" explains.
   • The sketch keeps perspective and silhouettes while dropping the clean CG look of the 3D render.

   

   Use the provided small knight character reference as the only character reference.
   Generate a simple storyboard sketch.
   Hand-drawn storyboard sketch look, mainly line work with a small amount of simple shading, not too detailed.
   The camera is extremely low, almost touching the floor.
   The shot looks closely toward the lower part of a huge interior door.
   The composition focuses on the bottom of the door, the door edge, the floor, and the narrow door gap.
   The door occupies most of the frame and creates a strong oppressive scale.
   Show only the lower section of the door.
   The tiny knight stands near the bottom edge of the door.
   He grips the edge of the door with both hands and pulls it open with effort.
   His body leans backward clearly, and his feet brace against the floor. The action focus is visible strain.
   The gap is narrow, but it is clearly readable that the door is being pulled open little by little.
   A small area of sky-blue interior wall is visible through the gap.
   The wall on the outer side of the door is olive green.
   The door is an aged light-ivory wooden door.
   A small patch of sunlight falls on the floor and the door edge.
   The core of the image is the strong scale contrast between the huge door and the extremely tiny knight.
   The shot should read immediately as: the tiny knight is struggling at the bottom of the door to pull it open.

5. Step 5

   Generate the frames

   Turn each sketch into a finished frame by giving the model the sketch for composition and the character sheet for the look, and say outright which parts must not change.

   • The prompt locks the camera, framing, door gap and pose to the sketch, line by line, with the words "100% unchanged."
   • It states the scale twice: "a tiny knight figurine, not a full-size human."
   • 863 of the film's 897 generated images were made with Nano Banana Pro.

   

   Use the provided base image as the only composition reference.
   Use the provided character reference as the only small knight design reference.
   
   Convert the sketch into a photoreal live-action image.
   composition 100% exactly match the provided base image.
   camera position 100% unchanged.
   framing 100% unchanged.
   door position 100% unchanged.
   door gap width 100% unchanged.
   character position 100% unchanged.
   character action 100% unchanged.
   
   The small knight 100% matches the provided character reference.
   He is a tiny knight figurine, not a full-size human.
   The scale contrast between the tiny knight and the huge door must read clearly.
   He grips the edge of the door with both hands, leans his body backward, and pulls the door open with visible effort.
   
   The half of the knight facing the camera and serving as the main visible side is the plain non-ornamented half of the armor.
   The visible side of the helmet, breastplate, arm armor, and leg armor must be a smooth plain polished metal surface.
   The engraved floral ornament belongs only to the opposite half of the armor, the side turning away from the camera.
   Do not let the main visible side read as fully engraved.
   It should read clearly at a glance: the camera-facing half is plain, and the engraved half is on the far side.
   
   Focus on the knight figurine.
   The knight is the sharpest subject in the frame.
   The door surface and the surrounding space are slightly softer.
   Keep a shallow depth of field.
   The relationship between the knight and the door edge remains clearly readable.
   The room inside the gap is heavily out of focus.
   Inside the gap, it reads only as a dim space with a soft blurred sky-blue wall area.
   Interior room details are fully de-emphasized.
   Keep only vague tonal and color information inside the room.
   
   Make the overall image dark.
   This is a dim real residential interior.
   Keep the ambient light overall subdued.
   A small patch of warm sunlight falls on the door surface and the wooden floor on the outer side of the door.
   Do not make the bright area too large.
   The overall lighting should read as a dark environment with a small warm sun patch on the outer side of the door and the floor.
   
   The door is an old American interior wooden door.
   The material is aged ivory painted wood.
   Show slight aging, edge wear, small scratches, light smudges, and realistic painted wood texture.
   The trim is also aged off-white painted wood.
   The wall on the outer side of the door is a muted olive gray-green painted wall with real residential wall texture.
   The floor is pale wood with a matte finish and realistic wood grain.
   
   The image must clearly read as: a very tiny knight figurine in a real domestic interior, struggling to pull open a huge door.
   
   natural imperfect real-camera rendering.
   subtle film grain.
   slight chromatic aberration.
   slight sensor noise.
   mild lens softness.
   soft white bloom.
   very light indoor haze.
   realistic painted wood texture.
   realistic wall texture.
   realistic floor texture.
   realistic metal armor texture.
   slight wear and use marks on materials.

6. Step 6

   Animate in short inserts

   Break a long action into short shots that each do one thing, because a single movement per clip keeps the character's size and the room's layout from drifting.

   • Getting a drawing out of a high drawer became separate inserts: missing the handle, moving a picture book, climbing a crayon box, and pulling the drawing free.
   • Each prompt names the camera first, then one action in plain steps.
   • Jaime animated with Kling O3 Pro (156 clips), Seedance 2.0 (49 clips) and Kling 3.0 Pro (12 clips), all on the Standard plan and up in Flick.

   

   

   00:04

   locked camera style.
   smooth continuous motion.
   The little knight keeps both hands on the large book.
   He slowly lowers the book from its tilted upright position down onto the floor.
   He carefully controls the descent the whole time.
   The book gradually comes to rest flat on the floor.
   He stays beside the book at the end.
   No background music.

7. Step 7

   Score and cut

   Generate clips without music and add the score in the edit, so one track runs across the cuts instead of a new tune starting in every shot.

   • Nearly every video prompt in the film ends with "No background music."
   • The canvas holds one generated score, made with Eleven Music from the prompt below.
   • The final shot answers the first: the knight sits on the windowsill where he started, watching the introduction finally happen.

   

   

   00:10

   Quiet cinematic ambient score, minimal and intimate, soft piano with delicate ambient textures, understated emotional depth, slow gentle tempo, sparse orchestration, warm and introspective, like a quiet moment between a parent and child

   Open the A Proper Introduction workflow

What did one short film take to make?

What makes a short film work?

1. 1. One want, said early

   Let the main character want one thing the audience hears in the first minutes, as the girl promises to introduce Sir Loras "next time, when Dad isn't so busy."

2. 2. Make the ordinary epic

   Find the adventure in a familiar space, as the knight treats a picture book as a staircase and a crayon box as a step up to a drawer.

3. 3. Lock the scale

   Decide the camera and the size of everything before generating, as Jaime fixed each room in Blender and a sketch before any finished frame.

4. 4. One action per shot

   Split a complex action into short inserts with one clear goal each, which reads as a style on screen and keeps an AI model from distorting the space.

5. 5. Save dialogue for turns

   Keep spoken lines for the moments that change the story, as the father's "Yes, all of it" closes the film's whole want in four words.

6. 6. End where you began

   Bring the last shot back to the first place or image, as the film opens and closes with the knight on the same windowsill.

Questions about making a short film

More on making short films in Flick

Film in this guide

• Jaime Yao · A Proper Introduction