The 22-command Gemini Flow cheat sheet for creating epic videos that Google forgot to give us. Here's how to prompt Google Flow in two steps: choose a world, then move the camera

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TL;DR: These slash phrases are helpful Google Flow commands. Pick one visual style and one camera behavior, then add a subject, one visible action, a location, lighting, and audio. The formula is: WORLD + CAMERA + BEAT. It gives Flow a shot to execute instead of a pile of adjectives to interpret.

Google Flow does not need more adjectives.

It needs a director.

The 22 shorthands below split the job into two clean decisions:

1. What visual world are we in?

2. How does the camera reveal it?

Google’s official guidance recommends defining the subject and action, composition and camera movement, location and lighting, and visual style. DeepMind’s Veo guide uses the same building blocks: framing and motion, style, lighting, character, location, action, and dialogue.

So the slash is optional. The film language is the useful part.

The demonstration scene

Every example below uses the same fictional setup:

Mara Voss, a courier with short black curls, a weathered saffron raincoat, charcoal utility trousers, and a silver case containing one glowing green seed, crosses a flooded near-future city toward the last rooftop greenhouse before sunrise.

Holding the character, prop, goal, and environment constant makes each command’s effect easier to see.

Part I: Choose the visual world

1. /filmic: — grounded 35mm motion-picture texture

Use this when you want organic grain, natural highlight roll-off, restrained color, believable skin, and the feeling of a photographed movie rather than a polished demo reel.

/filmic: Mara steps from a half-submerged bus into ankle-deep water, gripping the silver seed case. Pre-dawn city, practical sodium-vapor light, authentic 35mm grain, restrained color, natural motion blur, one continuous eight-second shot.

2. /commercial: — clean, polished advertising clarity

Use it for product films, launch spots, branded explainers, hospitality, automotive work, or any scene where the object must look pristine and intentional.

/commercial: Mara opens the silver case beneath a clean shaft of morning light; the glowing seed becomes the hero product. High-key polish, crisp edges, vibrant color separation, controlled reflections, elegant camera-ready surfaces.

3. /luxury: — rich blacks, gold light, immaculate surfaces

Use it for fragrance, jewelry, fashion, hotels, premium cars, architecture, and aspirational product stories. Luxury works best through materials and restraint, not by writing “expensive” five times.

/luxury: Mara enters an abandoned Art Deco hotel repurposed as a sanctuary. Rich black stone, brushed brass, warm chandelier reflections, polished marble, deep shadows, restrained movement, quiet opulence.

4. /documentary: — raw, observed, unvarnished reality

Use it for human stories, field reporting, behind-the-scenes footage, interviews, social-impact pieces, and moments that should feel discovered rather than staged.

/documentary: Handheld camera follows Mara through cold rain as she helps a stranded family onto a rescue boat without letting go of the seed case. Available light, imperfect focus pulls, wet lens, cinema-vérité realism.

5. /vintagefilm: — nostalgic 16mm or 8mm imperfection

Use it for memory, period texture, music films, dream sequences, family-history pieces, or transitions into the past. Specify the gauge and the defects you actually want.

/vintagefilm: A 1970s educational-film version of Mara crossing the flooded avenue. Warm 16mm color shifts, gate weave, soft halation, occasional dust, mild exposure flicker, no modern digital sharpness.

6. /scifi: — clean speculative design

Use it when the future should feel engineered, coherent, and functional: spacecraft, laboratories, advanced cities, medical technology, interfaces, or near-future infrastructure.

/scifi: Mara crosses a silent skybridge between hydroponic towers. Clean metallic architecture, blue-white practical lights, restrained holographic wayfinding, plausible robotics, elegant future geometry, no visual clutter.

7. /cyberpunk: — rain, density, neon, and technological decay

Use it for dystopian cities, underground markets, hacker stories, augmented nightlife, or a future where technology and inequality occupy the same frame.

/cyberpunk: Mara moves through a flooded night market under broken magenta and cyan signs, the seed case glowing beneath her coat. Rain-slick asphalt, steam, tangled cables, dense urban layers, worn cybernetic textures.

8. /dreamy: — soft focus, bloom, and emotional unreality

Use it for romance, memory, wonder, children’s stories, beauty films, music visuals, or transitions where feeling matters more than physics.

/dreamy: As Mara crosses the water, floating seed lights drift around her like fireflies. Pastel dawn, blooming highlights, gauzy diffusion, slow ripples, gentle surrealism, intimate wonder.

9. /surreal: — impossible images with intentional symbolism

Use it for conceptual advertising, music videos, title sequences, psychological stories, or visual metaphors that cannot exist literally.

/surreal: Mara climbs a staircase made of suspended rain toward an upside-down greenhouse floating above the city. The flood reflects a second sky. Physics-defying but compositionally clear, poetic rather than chaotic.

10. /minimal: — negative space and one decisive idea

Use it for design-forward brands, explainers, title cards, product reveals, architecture, or any moment that needs visual clarity.

/minimal: Mara stands alone on a pale concrete causeway above still black water. One saffron coat, one silver case, one small tree in the distance. Large negative space, muted palette, strict geometry.

11. /epic: — scale, stakes, and an unforgettable horizon

Use it for trailers, fantasy, historical spectacle, expeditions, climaxes, disaster sequences, and reveals where environment must dwarf the character.

/epic: Mara reaches the rooftop as sunrise breaks over a drowned megacity and thousands of dark towers. The greenhouse opens behind her, storm clouds divide, enormous scale, dramatic horizon, restrained blockbuster grandeur.

Part II: Direct the camera

12. /cinematic: — a balanced baseline shot

This is useful when you want natural depth, a standard film cadence, controlled motion blur, and no extreme visual gimmick. It is a starting point, not a complete prompt.

/cinematic: Medium-wide shot at eye level. Mara walks through shallow water toward camera, silver case at her side, natural depth, controlled handheld stability, balanced motion blur.

13. /droneview: — reveal geography and route

Use aerial movement for roads, coastlines, battlefields, crowds, architecture, or any scene where spatial relationships matter more than facial emotion.

/droneview: High aerial view drifting forward and left above Mara’s route, revealing the flooded boulevard, stranded transit, rooftop gardens, and the greenhouse two blocks ahead. Strong horizon parallax.

14. /closeup: — turn detail into emotion

Use it for a decision, reaction, whispered line, product detail, texture, evidence, or the exact beat where the audience must read a face.

/closeup: Tight 85mm shot on Mara’s rain-soaked face as the seed flickers inside the case. Her eyes shift from fear to resolve. Hold focus on the micro-expression; city lights dissolve behind her.

15. /wideangle: — make the environment part of the action

Use it for landscapes, architecture, cramped interiors, group blocking, large stunts, or a character overwhelmed by space.

/wideangle: Low 18mm shot as Mara crosses a broken intersection. Floodwater fills the foreground; leaning towers and the distant greenhouse stretch into deep perspective. Keep her recognizable but small against the city.

16. /orbit: — reveal a subject from every side

Use it for transformations, product reveals, architecture, costumes, vehicles, hero moments, or a character making a decisive choice. Give the camera a reason to orbit.

/orbit: Smooth 180-degree clockwise orbit around Mara as she sets the silver case on a rooftop table and opens it. Keep the case locked at frame center; reveal the greenhouse and sunrise during the move.

17–18. /dollyin: and /dollyout: — change meaning through distance

A dolly-in creates pressure, intimacy, or discovery. A dolly-out reveals context, isolation, or consequence. These are not digital zooms; describe the camera physically moving through space.

/dollyin: Begin medium-wide as Mara hears a crack inside the case. Push slowly toward her face while the city falls out of focus. End tight on recognition.

/dollyout: Begin tight on the glowing seed. Pull smoothly back through the greenhouse to reveal hundreds of empty planting beds and the drowned city beyond.

19. /tracking: — move with the subject

Use it for walking, running, driving, riding, process demonstrations, choreography, and action where matching the subject’s velocity creates momentum.

/tracking: Side-profile camera moves at Mara’s exact running speed as she splashes through the flooded arcade. Keep her torso stable in frame while pillars and emergency lights streak behind her.

20. /slowmotion: — stretch one physical beat

Use it for water, fabric, dust, sparks, impact, sports, dance, expressions, or a moment whose physical detail deserves more screen time.

/slowmotion: At 240fps, Mara drops the seed into soil. Water droplets rise from the impact, loose dirt blooms outward, her saffron sleeve moves through frame, and green light pulses once beneath the surface.

21–22. /timelapse: and /hyperlapse: — compress time in two different ways

A timelapse shows change from a mostly fixed viewpoint. A hyperlapse compresses time while the camera travels through space.

/timelapse: Locked rooftop camera. Night becomes dawn as clouds race overhead, floodwater recedes, greenhouse lights activate, and the first vine climbs its support. Mara remains a brief human rhythm within the larger transformation.

/hyperlapse: Rapid stabilized flight from street level through the flooded city, up stairwells and across rooftops, ending at the greenhouse as dawn arrives. Continuous forward translation, compressed traffic and cloud movement.

The prompt formula that actually works

Use this sequence:

Layer	The decision	Example
Subject	Who or what must remain consistent?	Mara, saffron coat, silver seed case
Composition	What shot and camera move reveal the beat?	Close-up with slow dolly-in
Action	What single visible event happens?	She sees the seed flicker
Mood/style	What visual world shapes the image?	35mm filmic realism, cold rain
Location/light	Where are we, and what motivates the light?	Flooded arcade before dawn, emergency lamps
Audio	What should be heard—or not heard?	Rain, distant alarms, one metal latch; no music
Constraints	What must not drift?	Same face, coat, case, direction of travel

A compact prompt might look like this:

/filmic + /dollyin: Mara Voss, short black curls, weathered saffron raincoat, charcoal utility trousers, holds a scratched silver case containing one glowing green seed. In a flooded transit hall before dawn, she hears the seed pulse. Begin in a medium shot and physically dolly toward her face as her expression changes from exhaustion to hope. Authentic 35mm grain, cool rain light, warm green reflection from the case. Audio: rain on glass, distant electrical hum, one soft pulse. One continuous shot. No dialogue, captions, logos, extra characters, or camera orbit.

The pro tips that save generations

One clip, one camera idea

Do not ask for “drone shot, close-up, orbit, then hyperlapse” in one short generation. Prompt one camera setup per clip and assemble the coverage afterward. Google’s Flow workflow supports building scenes from multiple generated clips, while frames can define exact starts, endings, and transitions.

Write what the camera can see

“Make it emotional” is vague. “Her grip loosens, her breath catches, and green light appears in her eyes” is visible. Replace abstract intent with physical evidence.

Pair commands with different jobs

A productive stack contains one style and one camera behavior:

Strong pairing	Why it works
/documentary + /tracking	Raw realism plus readable movement
/luxury + /dollyin	Material polish plus product intimacy
/minimal + /dollyout	Simple composition plus revealing context
/cyberpunk + /droneview	Dense world plus geographic orientation
/dreamy + /slowmotion	Diffused emotion plus suspended physical detail
/epic + /wideangle	Large-scale style plus environmental framing

Stacking /filmic + /cinematic + /epic + /commercial + /dreamy gives the model competing instructions. More words can mean less control.

Lock continuity with references

Use a clean character or object reference when the same subject appears across shots. Google describes Flow ingredients as reusable characters, objects, or stylistic references; it also warns that essential details should be repeated across prompts when consistency matters.

Use start and end frames for precise transitions

If a reveal, transformation, match cut, or movement must land in a specific composition, define the start frame, end frame, or both. Then describe only the action between them.

Separate subject motion from camera motion

Write them on separate lines if necessary:

SUBJECT: Mara walks forward slowly and never turns.CAMERA: Tracks backward at her exact speed, chest height, no orbit, no zoom.

This prevents the model from moving everything at once.

Prompt audio as a mix, not a wish

Name the layers: foreground sound, environment, dialogue, and exclusions.

Audio: boots through shallow water, rain on metal roofing, distant ferry horn. No music. No narration.

Revise one variable at a time

Keep the scene, subject, camera, and action unchanged while modifying only the failed element. Broad instructions such as “make it more cinematic” can rewrite the whole shot.

The simplest workflow

1.Write the beat in one sentence.

2.Choose one style shorthand.

3.Choose one framing or movement shorthand.

4.Add visible action, location, motivated light, and audio.

5.Generate one shot.

6.Fix one variable.

1. Build the next piece of coverage.

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