Make the establishing shots, details, weather and transitions around your main scenes from a still and a short prompt, on the same canvas as your film.
By Zoey Z.Last updated
A short film cut from its main action alone feels airless: every scene opens mid-line and jumps straight into the next. B-roll, the supporting shots around the action such as a view of the place, a detail, the weather or a transition, gives the cut room to breathe, and before an AI b-roll generator, getting it meant a second shoot or stock footage that never matches. We took 10 b-roll clips from 10 films made in Flick, nine of them animated from a start frame, and read every prompt behind them. This page shows each clip beside its exact prompt, four steps to make your own in Flick, and five habits their prompts share.
Wide cinematic drone shot slowly pulling back from the winding country road as the small sedan cruises forward peacefully through rolling autumn hills. Soft morning mist drifts across the landscape. Autumn leaves swirl gently in the breeze. Golden light filters through the haze. Calm, unhurried movement — peaceful and idyllic.
Opening establishing shot, 16:9, 25 seconds, one continuous uninterrupted take. The shot begins wide on the open countryside of the start frame and slowly transitions to settle on the painting cottage of the end frame. Camera Movement: Begin with a slow, smooth lateral pan drifting across the countryside, gliding over rolling fields, water, and treelines, letting the landscape reveal itself gradually. After the pan carries across the vista, the camera eases into a gentle, steady push-in that zooms toward the cottage, tightening from a sweeping wide vista down to a composed medium framing of the painting cottage as it comes to rest. The motion is continuous and cinematic throughout, one flowing move with no cuts, never rushed. Scene: Soft natural daylight, gentle atmospheric depth and haze on the horizon, subtle drifting of grass and leaves in a light breeze, calm water surface with faint ripples. Serene, contemplative, cinematic mood. Audio Constraint: No sound. Completely silent shot.
00:04[00:00] camera booms down on the truck stop at night. a large semi-truck "big rig" drives past camera.
The spaceship travels slowly through space. The thrusters glow and pulse gently. Subtle light glare sliding across the round windows. Very slow, calm, cinematic drift. Do not rotate. Establishing shot mood.
The oil lamp’s flame flickers, which makes the shadow flickers accordingly.
A single black crow flies in and lands on top of the weathered wooden fence post. Once perched, it settles its wings and looks around with quick, natural bird movements, tilting and turning its head to survey the surroundings. Subtle feather ruffle in the light breeze. Everything else stays still: the fence, wires, and blurred golden prairie background hold steady with warm late-afternoon light. Grounded, realistic wildlife motion, no camera movement.
GLOBAL SETTINGS: Duration: 6s. Aspect ratio: 16:9. No background music, no score. Ambient sound effects only — a deafening sandstorm roar, wind howling, sand hissing and rattling against the metal chamber. @image1 is the start frame — the exterior of the chamber in the storm. Preserve it exactly. Camera: locked-off and completely static — no drift, no pan, no tilt, no push. The frame stays exactly where it starts. Color grade: strict palette — deep teals and cool greys for the chamber #161E20, #253534, #1B2727, #3F5153, #545456, #777775, warm amber #F2A462 and burnt sienna #BE704A for the sandstorm and light. No colors outside this palette. Cinematic photorealism, heavy atmospheric haze, film grain. MOTION (0–6s): The sandstorm rages around the static chamber. Sand streams and churns across the frame at speed, driven hard by the wind — tan haze billowing and rolling, thickening and thinning unevenly over the six seconds but never clearing. Loose sand blows and drifts against the base of the chamber, small grains kicking up off the ground. The chamber itself is unmoving, sealed, indifferent — everything alive in the shot is the storm. Relentless, violent, uninhabitable. Camera never moves.
Pema's POV looking out through the kitchen window. What was a sunny day suddenly turns: heavy rain lashes the glass, a violent thunderstorm rolls in, wind whipping, a flash of lightning, water streaming down the windowpanes. Handheld camera settling at the window as if she has just stopped there. Anamorphic old lens distortion, muted colors, low contrast, soft focus, cinematic realism.
One continuous locked-off shot. The camera stays in place with visible irregular handheld drift and small natural balance corrections. The flames flicker naturally. Smoke continues rising slowly through the firelight. A sudden gust of wind passes through the chapel. The visible candle flames and hanging oil-lamp flames bend sharply in the same gust, then extinguish rapidly across the room. The remaining firelight disappears. The frame becomes completely black. Hold briefly on full black.
Locked camera. The little knight raises one hand and looks at it. The hand starts dissolving into colored pencil powder first. The powder spreads from the hand to the arm and the rest of the body. He quickly dissolves completely into colored pencil powder. No character remains at the end. No backgoround music.
Step 1
Generate or upload a frame in the same place, light and palette as the scene it belongs to, like this opening still from One More Day.
Step 2
Open Image to Video with the still as its start frame and describe what moves, since the frame already holds the place and the look.
Step 3
Run the prompt more than once, change one line at a time, and keep the best take beside the others on the canvas.
Step 4
Place establishing shots before a scene, inserts and cutaways inside it, and transitions where one scene hands over to the next.
Seven of the 10 prompts lock the camera or ask for a slow move, because a calm frame reads as a deliberate shot rather than a glitch.
Everything else stays still: the fence, wires, and blurred golden prairie background hold steady with warm late-afternoon light.
Four of the 10 prompts are 50 words or fewer, since with a start frame the prompt has to describe the motion and little else.
The oil lamp’s flame flickers, which makes the shadow flickers accordingly.
Naming the light and the time of day keeps the b-roll in the same hour as the scenes around it.
Soft morning mist drifts across the landscape. Autumn leaves swirl gently in the breeze. Golden light filters through the haze.
Repeat the lens, color and grain of the film in the prompt, so the b-roll cuts in without a jump in look.
Anamorphic old lens distortion, muted colors, low contrast, soft focus, cinematic realism.
For a transition, end the prompt on the frame you want to cut from, such as full black.
The frame becomes completely black. Hold briefly on full black.
B-roll is the supporting footage cut around a film's main action, or A-roll: establishing shots, details, cutaways and transitions that set the place and smooth the cuts.
Yes. An image to video model can turn a still of a place or a detail into a short clip, with the camera move and the motion described in the prompt.
You can make b-roll in Flick for free: you get 100 credits when you sign up, and 200 more for joining the Flick Discord. The free plan includes MiniMax H3 Fast, MiniMax H3 Max and Pruna Draft video, and Seedance 2.0 and 2.5 come with the Standard plan ($20 a month).
A few seconds, long enough to read the place or detail without stalling the story. In b-roll from films made in Flick, most clips run 4 to 6 seconds.
Start each b-roll clip from a still made in the same place, light and palette as the main scene, then name the lens, color and grain again in the prompt.
A cutaway is one kind of b-roll, a shot that briefly leaves the main action and returns; b-roll also covers establishing shots, inserts and transitions.
Locked shots and single slow moves, such as a drone pull-back, a pan or a boom down, because one calm move gives the model less to invent.
Yes. Content you generate on Flick is yours for personal and commercial projects; see the terms of use for detail.
Start from a still of your scene. The establishing shots, details and transitions stay on the same canvas as your film.
Try for free, no credit card required.
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