How I avoid wasting video generations

Free tools to plan and prompt the Seedance2 video model

Seedance2 landed as a capable AI video model with joint audio+video output in HD and with up to 15 seconds output. One caveat, it’s pretty costly to run. Every generation takes credits and time.

More than ever it’s important to make the right decisions before you hit generate to increase your chance of getting the right result. So I built some tools that I use in my own practice and I’ve decided to share them for free.

The prompting folklore vs the official guide

I find that every thread about Seedance2 tells you something different about how to prompt it. Conflicting advice doesn’t just confuse — you risk wasting money and hours testing it.

There is an official prompting guide you can sit down and read. But if you are like me there’s a real difference between reading a manual and remembering to apply the rules every session. That’s what these tools aim to solve.

Decisions before you hit generate

Some of how Seedance behaves is documented, and some of it is counterintuitive. One example: if the camera moves and the subject moves and everything moves at once, you get soup — the model can’t cleanly interpolate competing motion. So you pick one dominant motion. That’s a decision you make on paper, for free, instead of paying a generation to find out.

Fewer wasted generations comes down to making the decisions before you spend - and a tool makes more of them for you, tells you why, and aims the next attempt when one still misses

A diagnosis and solution when a generation fails

A good prompter can coax a decent prompt out of ChatGPT as is. But ChatGPT doesn’t always keep its eye on the ball. It will give you general video AI advice that might not apply to Seedance2 specifically.

The tools I share - one for ChatGPT and one for Claude - are built from the official documentation for Seedance2. Not only do they help me craft my prompts, they remind me of the core principles applied.

The tools do more than write prompts though. If a video fails, I can ask the tool why, and how to fix it.

Planning is everything

The tools help you build the prompt, but a prompt is only as good as the shot you planned. If you haven’t resolved how things move before you build the prompt, no tool will save you — and you’ll waste generations.

So “fewer wasted generations” has two halves: plan the shot, then prompt it. The prompting tool is the second half, the planning pass is the first. I wrote a seperate guide called The Planning Pass (available for free through Gumroad) that is applicable no matter what video model you use.

One tool for ChatGPT, one for Claude

The prompting tool comes in two flavours depending on whether you prefer ChatGPT or Claude. The custom Seedance GPT is here: Seedance2 customGPT

The Claude version comes in the shape of a ‘skill’ which is a set of files you install in Claude. Instructions + download is available for free through Gumroad: Seedance2 skill for Claude