Keep One Scene Looking Like One Scene

The problem

Each clip is fine on its own. Cut together, they look like five different films. The light changes direction between shots, the grain comes and goes, the colour temperature jumps from warm to cool, and the lens seems to change focal length every cut. Audiences cannot name the problem, but they feel it instantly.

Consistency is not one setting. It is a small set of decisions you make once and then never re-decide per shot.

Steps

1. Write a one-line look sheet before you generate anything. Medium, lens range, light source and direction, palette. Example: "35mm film still, 35 to 50mm, single warm practical from frame right, teal shadows and amber highlights, visible grain." This line goes into every prompt, unchanged.
2. Generate all stills first, then animate. Do not alternate. Making every still in one sitting keeps your eye calibrated and lets you compare them side by side before any video credits are spent.
3. **Lock style with --sref and lock the roll with --seed.** In Midjourney, use one style reference image or code across the whole scene with --sw around 100 to 300. For shots that should feel like the same setup, reuse the same --seed. Same seed plus same look line is the closest you get to "same camera, same day".
4. Keep the light direction on the page. If your key comes from frame right in shot 1, write "key light from frame right" in every shot, including the reverse angles. Models do not remember your previous shot. You have to.
5. Animate from those stills. In Runway or Kling, the still is the first frame, so the look carries into the video. Prompt only motion. If you generate video from text alone, you are re-rolling the look every clip and consistency is gone.
6. Match in the grade, not in the prompt. Small differences will remain. Fix them in the editor. In DaVinci Resolve, grade one hero shot, then use Shot Match (right click the hero, "Shot Match to this Clip") on the others, then apply one grain layer across the whole timeline. One grain, one LUT, one scene.

Worked example

Look line: 35mm film still, 40mm, single warm practical from frame right, teal shadows and amber highlights, visible grain --ar 16:9 --raw --stylize 80 --sref 2708276657 --sw 200

Shot A: woman at diner counter, looking down at her phone, [look line] Shot B: reverse angle, waiter pouring coffee, key light now from frame left because the camera has turned around, [look line] Shot C: wide shot of the diner from outside through the rain-streaked window, [look line]

Then each still goes into Runway with a motion-only prompt. Then all three clips get the same grade node and the same grain in Resolve.

Two mistakes that undo everything

• Changing the medium mid-scene. One "digital photograph" among "35mm film stills" will stick out even after grading.
• **Letting --stylize drift.** Someone bumps it to 400 for one hero shot and it no longer belongs to the scene.