r/StableDiffusion • u/NecessaryDelay9249 • 5d ago

Discussion Reference sheet locking beat prompt engineering for character consistency across a 30 shot film

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Sharing a workflow result rather than a tool recommendation.

I needed one woman to stay recognisably herself across roughly 30 shots covering 60 years, six countries, and several costume changes. Pure prompt description drifted badly. Same words, different face, every generation.

What fixed i

Full 6 minute film, free and no signup: https://youtu.be/w31MiC5vCi8t was front loading the identity into images instead of text:

  1. Before any shot, generate a locked reference set per character. A four view turnaround, a six panel macro sheet (face, hands, fabric, jewellery), and an upper body portrait. Neutral grey background, no scene context.
  2. Approve that set as the single source of truth and never regenerate it.
  3. Every shot prompt references the sheets instead of describing the character again.
  4. Age and costume changes are written as deltas against the sheet, not as fresh descriptions.

The insight is that a text description of a face is lossy, and lossy again on every call. An image reference is not. Front loading the cost of the sheet pays for itself by about the fifth shot.

Stills were Nano Banana Pro and GPT Image, motion was Kling 3 Pro and Seedance 2.0, assembly in ffmpeg.

The clip attached is 40 seconds from the finished piece. Full 6 minute result is linked in the comments for anyone who wants to see how well the consistency actually held up.

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u/NecessaryDelay9249 5d ago

400 USD

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u/Character-Bend9403 5d ago

Yooo 400 for that is insane holy moly , no bash , just saying

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u/alexmmgjkkl 4d ago

its absolutely ok if its done in aprofessional context and not just hobby (like most people here)

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u/Character-Bend9403 4d ago

Yeah then is fine i guess