A car commercial with AI: hero, drive-by, interior and night gels, with the prompts

Before you start

• A fictional marque. No real badges, emblems, plates or lettering. The prompts below say so twice; say it in yours.
• One design still that shows the whole car from a three-quarter front angle. It is the reference for every later shot and the start frame for the hero.
• A shot list of four: hero, drive-by, interior, night. Each needs its own still or its own start frame, made with the design attached.
• A budget for a second take on the drive-by. It is the shot that fails most.

Design the car as one still

Open the image console and describe the car as a designer would: silhouette, paint, the light signature, wheels, glass. Then the studio: the floor, the light, the gels. Ask for no badges twice. We made two designs, graphite on Nano Banana Pro and candy red on GPT Image 2.5 Flare, and kept the graphite.

Premium car commercial still. A fictional electric grand tourer coupe with no badges, no emblems, no lettering and no licence plate: long low fastback silhouette, satin graphite paint, a thin full-width light bar across the nose glowing white, slim closed aero wheels, dark tinted glass. Parked on a wet black studio floor under one large suspended ring light, thin haze, cyan gel raking the left flank and magenta gel the right, mirror reflections on the wet floor, deep black background. Three-quarter front hero angle, 35mm lens, low camera height, strong contrast, photoreal. No text, no letters, no words, no logos, no brand marks, no watermark, no readable signage.

Design A, kept

Design B, not used

The hero: animate the design still

Open the video console, choose Animate an image, add the design still with Add start frame and Upload image, pick Seedance 2.5 with the Choose model button, set 6 seconds and 480p, and switch Audio off. The prompt asks for a small camera move and says the car does not move. The price sits on the Generate button.

Premium car commercial, one continuous shot. The camera glides slowly around the nose of the graphite coupe in a low quarter orbit while cyan and magenta light sweeps across the satin bodywork, thin haze drifts under the suspended ring light and the reflections slide across the wet black floor. The car stays parked and keeps exactly the same shape, proportions, wheels and light bar. No people. Photoreal, strong contrast. No text, no letters, no logos, no badges, no watermark. Sound: a low electric hum and a soft whoosh of light, no music, no voice.

The drive-by: test the models on the shot that moves the car

A drive-by moves the whole car past the camera, so it reveals sides the still never showed. That makes it the right shot to test models on. We gave two models the same design still as the start frame and the same prompt, and stepped through every frame of both.

Premium car commercial, one continuous shot from a locked-off camera at low height. The graphite coupe pulls away from its mark and drives across the frame from left to right over the wet black studio floor under the suspended ring light, cyan and magenta light sweeping along its flank as it passes, haze swirling in its wake, reflections sliding across the wet floor. The car keeps exactly the same shape, proportions, wheels and full-width light bar throughout. Photoreal, strong contrast. No badges, no emblems, no text, no letters, no logos, no licence plate, no watermark, no people.

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Seedance 2.5Kling v3

The interior with night gels

The exterior still says nothing about the cabin, so the interior is its own design. Back in the image console, attach the design still as the reference and describe the cabin, the view through the windscreen and each light as a colour, a direction and what it hits. Then animate it on the model that held.

Premium car commercial still, 16:9, the interior of the same graphite grand tourer from the reference, at night. A minimal cabin: dark leather seats, a slim wraparound screen, a thin white light strip running along the dashboard, a plain steering wheel with no emblem. Seen from the rear seat looking forward through the windscreen at a wet city street at night, neon shapes out of focus and unreadable, rain drops on the glass. The cabin lit by a magenta gel from the left and a cyan gel from the right, thin haze, strong contrast, 35mm lens, photoreal. No badges, no emblems, no text, no letters, no logos, no licence plate, no watermark, no people.

Premium car commercial, one continuous shot, a slow push-in from the rear seat toward the windscreen. The thin white light strip along the dashboard glows steadily, the abstract waves on the wraparound screen drift, rain streaks slide down the glass, the neon shapes outside drift past as the car glides forward through the wet night street. The magenta light on the left and the cyan light on the right hold. Nothing in the cabin changes shape: the same steering wheel, seats, screen and light strip. No people, no text, no logos, no badges, no readable signage. Photoreal, strong contrast.

The still

The clip on Seedance 2.5

What goes wrong

Which tool for which job

Where you still regenerate

• The far side of the car is invented. Any move that reveals a side the still does not show is a guess. Keep moves short.
• Wheels are the first thing to drift. Spokes change count mid-shot on some models; check them frame by frame.
• Interiors are their own design. The exterior still does not describe the cabin; make an interior still and describe it fully.
• People and faces are not measured here. This commercial has no driver on camera on purpose; Kling v3 added one on the drive-by anyway.

What it costs

This commercial took two design stills, one interior still and four clips: the hero, two drive-bys for the test and the interior. Prices are on the Generate button before you press it; a render that fails is refunded.

Checklist before the cut

• No badge, plate or lettering anywhere, in any frame.
• The same silhouette, light bar and wheels in every shot, checked at full size.
• Every camera move is short and stops on the car.
• Each gel is named in the prompt and visible in the shot.
• The cut runs hero, drive-by, interior, night, and ends on the car.

Try it yourself

Download the design still, open the video console, choose Animate an image, upload it with Upload image, pick Seedance 2.5, set 6 seconds and 480p, and paste the hero prompt. The hero above came from that still and that prompt. For the drive-by test, run the drive-by prompt on the same still on Seedance 2.5 and Kling v3 and compare.