Sleeve in Sleeve
Find an accomplice
SEEDANCE 2.5 VIDEO PROMPT · 30S · 9:16
FORMAT: 30s / 9:16 vertical / handcrafted stop-motion romance short / staged continuous scenes with one clean cut STYLE: Authentic fabric stop-motion on a miniature kraft-paper set, 12 frames per second stepped motion with subtle frame-to-frame jitter, visible fibers, stitching and fabric weave, warm tungsten key light, soft shadows, tilt-shift miniature depth of field. REFERENCES: @Image 1 defines Ivy, a girl character formed entirely of clothes with no visible body: green fleece zip jacket, cream ribbed top, cream pleated skirt, cream socks with green stripes, cream-green-orange sneakers, green cap; her props: cream tote bag, tennis ball, green scrunchie. Preserve garments and colors exactly; ignore layout and text. @Image 2 defines Ace, a boy character formed entirely of clothes with no visible body: navy varsity jacket with cream leather sleeves and red trim, cream tee, relaxed blue denim, white socks with red stripes, cream-navy-red sneakers, red corduroy cap; his props: vintage camera on a woven strap, folded newspaper. Preserve garments and colors exactly; ignore layout and text. @Image 3 defines ONLY the closing composition: a dense vertical block of folded garments on kraft paper, the four-letter logo carved as negative space across its middle band, exactly as shown. Use it solely for the final frame; do not show this arrangement earlier. VIDEO PROMPT: [Stage 1 - approx 0-6s] Initial state: Ivy's miniature kraft-paper bedroom, morning light. Her outfit stands upright in human shape, hollow at collar and cuffs. Event: her sleeves lift the green cap above the empty collar, the scrunchie snaps around one cuff, and she hops as the tote lands on her shoulder with the tennis ball inside. At 3s, one clean cut to Ace's bedroom: his varsity jacket shrugs itself square, the camera strap swings across his chest, the newspaper tucks under his arm. Camera: locked-off medium shots. End state: both fully dressed, Ivy holding the tote, Ace holding the newspaper. [Stage 2 - approx 6-12s] Continue. Two miniature front doors creak open onto one street: Ivy walks left-to-right on the near sidewalk, Ace walks right-to-left on the far sidewalk, in stepped strides. Behind them, paper-cutout street objects glide past on parallax layers: lampposts, a cardboard bus, a fire hydrant, potted plants. At 9s Ivy kneels and strokes a small cat built from folded cream knit socks with a green scrunchie tail; the cat arches. Ace pats a puppy stitched from grey denim scraps; its sock tail wags frame by frame. Camera: parallel tracking with each character. End state: pets scamper off, both resume walking toward the same intersection. [Stage 3 - approx 12-17s] Continue. Both reach one miniature cardboard traffic light glowing with a red felt disc and wait on opposite corners, idly bobbing frame to frame, her skirt pleats swaying. At 15s the light flips to a green felt disc. Event: they step into the crossing distracted, Ivy digging inside the tote, Ace reading the newspaper, and gently bump into each other mid-crosswalk with a soft comedic fabric thump; nobody is hurt. Her tote tips and the tennis ball rolls out; his newspaper flutters to the ground. Camera: static wide on the crossing. End state: both frozen one beat, props lying on the crosswalk between them. [Stage 4 - approx 17-23s] Continue. Both kneel at the same moment reaching for the fallen items; his cream leather sleeve and her fleece cuff touch on the tennis ball. They tilt their caps up toward each other and hold still for two beats. A small red felt heart pops up above them with a springy bounce and hovers. He returns her tote; she returns his newspaper. Camera: slow dolly in to a two-shot. End state: both standing, facing each other, sleeve linked in sleeve. [Stage 5 - approx 23-30s] Continue. Sleeve in sleeve, they walk away from camera up the kraft-paper street. Event: from every edge of frame, hoodies, tees, joggers, jeans, beanies, socks and sneakers slide in and fold themselves flat onto the ground in stepped motion, assembling into the exact garment arrangement of @Image 3 with its negative space forming the four-letter logo, the tiny couple standing at its center. Camera: slow crane up into a top-down view filling the vertical frame. Final state: completed @Image 3 logo layout held as a still frame for the last beat. AUDIO: (Playful pizzicato and glockenspiel score, swelling when the heart appears and resolving on the final held frame.) <Handmade stop-motion foley synced to the stepped motion: soft felt footsteps, fabric rustle, a zipper zip, door creaks, paper flutter, the tennis ball rolling on paper, a gentle fabric thump at the bump, a springy boing as the heart pops, a whoosh of sliding garments in the finale.> Reactive puppet-like vocalizations timed to events. Light female voice, playful: {Oh!} as the tote lands in Stage 1. Warm male voice, a soft amused hum at the puppy. Both voices together, surprised: {Oh!} at the bump. Female voice, a small gasp then a shy giggle at the sleeve touch. Male voice, gentle and low: {Oh.} as the heart appears. No other dialogue, no narration. CONSISTENCY: Both characters remain clothes-only with no visible skin, face, hair or body in every stage. Keep garments, colors, caps and prop ownership unchanged; tote and tennis ball belong to Ivy, camera and newspaper to Ace, exchanged only during the pickup. Exactly two characters, one cat, one dog, one traffic light. Same kraft-paper set, lighting and stepped 12fps cadence in all stages. Screen direction preserved: they approach from opposite sides and exit away from camera together. NEGATIVE PROMPT: no visible humans, no skin, no faces, no hair, no mannequins, no smooth 24fps motion, no motion blur, no glossy CGI look, no 2D cartoon rendering, no style mixing, no extra characters, no duplicate props, no loose garments in the street before the final stage, no invented lettering, no captions, no subtitles, no watermarks, no split screen, no panel grid.
Tutorial
DENIZ AKKABAK · SEEDANCE 2.5 TUTORIAL · @DENIZ.AKKABAK
MADE IN INVIDEO · invideo.io/i/DENIZ-ig
Sleeve in Sleeve
How two empty outfits fall in love — a handcrafted stop-motion short cast entirely from clothes, with no body in frame.
A TUTORIAL BY DENIZ AKKABAK · @DENIZ.AKKABAK
PIPELINE NANO BANANA PRO → SEEDANCE 2.5 · FORMAT 30S · 9:16 VERTICAL · GENRE STOP-MOTION ROMANCE
Every stop-motion romance has a casting problem: the moment you put a face on screen, the audience starts judging the puppet instead of feeling the story. This film deletes the problem. Ivy is a fleece jacket, a pleated skirt and a pair of striped tube socks; Ace is a varsity jacket, relaxed denim and a red corduroy cap. No skin, no faces, no bodies — just garments holding their shape, bumping into each other at a cardboard crosswalk, and walking away sleeve in sleeve. The trick is that the emptiness is the emotion: because there is nothing inside the clothes, every hop, bob and cap-tilt reads as pure character. Three flat-lay reference images cast the wardrobe, and one five-stage prompt directs it like a storyboard with a stopwatch.
THE PIPELINE AT A GLANCE
- 01
Nano Banana Pro
Generate three flat-lay reference stills on kraft paper: Ivy's outfit, Ace's outfit, and the closing negative-space logo built from folded clothes. These become @Image 1, 2 and 3.
- 02
Seedance 2.5
Attach the three stills in order inside invideo, set 30 seconds and 9:16 vertical, and run the five-stage stop-motion prompt — one generation, one clean cut, one love story.
STEP 01 · IMAGE GENERATION — NANO BANANA PRO
Casting the Wardrobe
The film never invents its own cast — it inherits one. Each character is defined by a lookbook-style flat-lay: garments laid out empty on warm kraft paper, photographed from directly overhead, with honest fabric texture and zero human presence. That last part is the whole point. The prompts repeat it like a spell — no legs, no arms, no skin, no mannequin, no filled volume — because a single accidental limb would poison the video stage. Run all three prompts in Nano Banana Pro and keep the outputs; they are your @Image 1, @Image 2 and @Image 3 for Seedance.
PROMPT 1 OF 3 — IVY'S OUTFIT, COPY EXACTLY
IMAGE PROMPT — @IMAGE 1 · IVY
An overhead flat-lay editorial photograph in a vintage-lookbook style, laid out on aged warm-beige craft paper. A complete women's outfit from the current Kith Women collection (reference real, current-season pieces from kith.com — a forest-green cropped quarter-zip fleece, a cream ribbed crop top underneath, a cream pleated tennis-style mini skirt, retro Kith x Asics runners in cream-green-orange, and a pair of long knee-high tube socks in cream with forest-green stripes) arranged as empty garments only, laid completely flat on the paper with no body inside.
Layout: the fleece is placed open over the crop top as the upper section, one empty sleeve folded casually back behind the collar area. Below the fleece hem, the pleated skirt is laid flat at the waist position. From just below the skirt hem, the two long tube socks extend downward laid flat and empty — slightly angled like a relaxed crossed-leg silhouette drawn purely with fabric — their striped cuffs near the skirt and their toe ends tucked into the sneaker openings. The sneakers sit at the bottom of the layout, angled naturally.
Color theme: retro sport — forest green, cream, burnt orange, off-white.
Accessories and set decoration around the layout: retro cream wired headphones with the cable coiled loosely above the collar, a green corduroy cap beside them, gold stud earrings near the neckline, a small canvas tote with a tennis ball and a magazine peeking out, a vintage point-and-shoot camera and a scrunchie as scattered props.
Top center, clean small sans-serif text reading exactly: "Kith Women | Vintage Sport". Bottom of frame, two lines of small caption text listing the garments like a curated product index.
Warm natural window light from the right, soft shadow spill under the garments, honest fabric texture — polar fleece pile, ribbed knit, pleated poly skirt, soft cotton sock ribbing, suede sneaker panels. Every garment is visibly empty and flat: no legs, no arms, no skin, no mannequin, no human body, no filled volume inside the clothes or socks. Directly overhead at 35mm, sharp across the whole frame, subtle film-like grain. No person, no watermark.
OUTPUT
PROMPT 2 OF 3 — ACE'S OUTFIT, COPY EXACTLY
IMAGE PROMPT — @IMAGE 2 · ACE
An overhead flat-lay editorial photograph in a vintage-lookbook style, laid out on aged warm-beige craft paper. A complete outfit from the current Kith collection (reference real, current-season pieces from kith.com — a navy-and-red Kith varsity jacket, cream heavyweight tee, washed indigo relaxed denim, retro Kith x Asics or New Balance runners in cream-navy-red) arranged as an invisible person caught mid-run: varsity jacket torso with both sleeves swung back, denim legs in a wide running stride, one sneaker toe pointed down as if pushing off.
Color theme: retro varsity — deep navy, brick red, cream, faded indigo.
Accessories and set decoration around the figure: a red corduroy cap as the head, a vintage film camera on a woven strap across the chest, a folded navy bandana, a pair of white tube socks with red stripes near the shoes, an old ticket stub and a pack of gum as small scattered props, a rolled sports magazine at the edge of the frame.
Top center, clean small sans-serif text reading exactly: "Kith | Vintage Sport". Bottom of frame, two lines of small caption text listing the garments like a curated product index.
Warm natural window light from the right, soft shadow spill under the garments, honest fabric texture — chenille patches on the varsity jacket, denim weave, brushed cotton. Directly overhead at 35mm, sharp across the whole frame, subtle film-like grain. No mannequin, no person, no watermark.
OUTPUT
PROMPT 3 OF 3 — THE CLOSING LOGO, COPY EXACTLY
This one takes its own reference: attach the brand's box logo as Image 1 of the generation, so the letterforms land in the exact positions and proportions of the real mark. The prompt then rebuilds it physically — a pressed pile of clothes with the four letters left as bare kraft paper.
IMAGE PROMPT — @IMAGE 3 · THE FINALE LAYOUT
Use Image 1 as the exact layout reference: the KITH box logo — a solid rectangular block with the four bold uppercase letters K, I, T, H cut out of it as negative space. Reproduce this logo one-to-one in physical form using clothing.
An overhead flat-lay photograph on a large sheet of warm kraft-brown craft paper: a dense rectangular field of messy, crumpled, casually tossed garments from the current Kith collection (reference real, current-season pieces from kith.com — hoodies, crewnecks, tees, sweatpants, denim, caps, beanies, crew socks, a pair of Kith x New Balance sneakers) completely filling the rectangle of the logo. The clothes are wrinkled and thrown, overlapping in a chaotic pile pressed flat, edges of the rectangle slightly ragged but the overall block shape clearly holding.
Inside this field of clothes, the letters K, I, T, H remain as clean empty gaps — bare kraft paper showing through in the exact letterforms, positions, and proportions of the reference logo. No clothing crosses into the letter shapes; the fabric piles up tightly around each letterform so the word "KITH" reads sharply as negative space, exactly like the reference.
Color theme: the garment pile mixes cream, navy, forest green, burgundy, grey and washed denim — dense and varied like a curated laundry pile, against the warm kraft paper.
Soft even daylight from a large window, natural shadows inside the wrinkles and along the fabric edges bordering each letter, giving the negative-space letters crisp physical definition. Honest textures — fleece, ribbed knit, denim weave, crumpled cotton. Shot from directly overhead at 35mm, everything in sharp focus, subtle film-like grain. No graphic or printed text, no flat rendered logo, no mannequin, no person, no body parts inside the clothes, no watermark.
OUTPUT
STEP 02 · VIDEO GENERATION — SEEDANCE 2.5 IN INVIDEO
Directing the Romance
Open Seedance 2.5 inside invideo, set the duration to 30 seconds and the aspect ratio to 9:16 vertical, and attach the three stills from Step 01 in this exact order — the prompt addresses them by number, so the order is the casting sheet. Then paste the full prompt below. It is built like a shot list with a stopwatch: five stages, each declaring an initial state, an event, a camera move and an end state, with hard timestamps (the cut at 3s, the cat at 9s, the green light at 15s) so the model always knows what beat it is on.
REFERENCE INPUTS — ATTACH IN THIS ORDER
SEEDANCE 2.5 VIDEO PROMPT · 30S · 9:16
30s / 9:16 vertical / handcrafted stop-motion romance short / staged continuous scenes with one clean cut
Authentic fabric stop-motion on a miniature kraft-paper set, 12 frames per second stepped motion with subtle frame-to-frame jitter, visible fibers, stitching and fabric weave, warm tungsten key light, soft shadows, tilt-shift miniature depth of field.
@Image 1 defines Ivy, a girl character formed entirely of clothes with no visible body: green fleece zip jacket, cream ribbed top, cream pleated skirt, cream socks with green stripes, cream-green-orange sneakers, green cap; her props: cream tote bag, tennis ball, green scrunchie. Preserve garments and colors exactly; ignore layout and text. @Image 2 defines Ace, a boy character formed entirely of clothes with no visible body: navy varsity jacket with cream leather sleeves and red trim, cream tee, relaxed blue denim, white socks with red stripes, cream-navy-red sneakers, red corduroy cap; his props: vintage camera on a woven strap, folded newspaper. Preserve garments and colors exactly; ignore layout and text. @Image 3 defines ONLY the closing composition: a dense vertical block of folded garments on kraft paper, the four-letter logo carved as negative space across its middle band, exactly as shown. Use it solely for the final frame; do not show this arrangement earlier.
[Stage 1 - approx 0-6s] Initial state: Ivy's miniature kraft-paper bedroom, morning light. Her outfit stands upright in human shape, hollow at collar and cuffs. Event: her sleeves lift the green cap above the empty collar, the scrunchie snaps around one cuff, and she hops as the tote lands on her shoulder with the tennis ball inside. At 3s, one clean cut to Ace's bedroom: his varsity jacket shrugs itself square, the camera strap swings across his chest, the newspaper tucks under his arm. Camera: locked-off medium shots. End state: both fully dressed, Ivy holding the tote, Ace holding the newspaper. [Stage 2 - approx 6-12s] Continue. Two miniature front doors creak open onto one street: Ivy walks left-to-right on the near sidewalk, Ace walks right-to-left on the far sidewalk, in stepped strides. Behind them, paper-cutout street objects glide past on parallax layers: lampposts, a cardboard bus, a fire hydrant, potted plants. At 9s Ivy kneels and strokes a small cat built from folded cream knit socks with a green scrunchie tail; the cat arches. Ace pats a puppy stitched from grey denim scraps; its sock tail wags frame by frame. Camera: parallel tracking with each character. End state: pets scamper off, both resume walking toward the same intersection. [Stage 3 - approx 12-17s] Continue. Both reach one miniature cardboard traffic light glowing with a red felt disc and wait on opposite corners, idly bobbing frame to frame, her skirt pleats swaying. At 15s the light flips to a green felt disc. Event: they step into the crossing distracted, Ivy digging inside the tote, Ace reading the newspaper, and gently bump into each other mid-crosswalk with a soft comedic fabric thump; nobody is hurt. Her tote tips and the tennis ball rolls out; his newspaper flutters to the ground. Camera: static wide on the crossing. End state: both frozen one beat, props lying on the crosswalk between them. [Stage 4 - approx 17-23s] Continue. Both kneel at the same moment reaching for the fallen items; his cream leather sleeve and her fleece cuff touch on the tennis ball. They tilt their caps up toward each other and hold still for two beats. A small red felt heart pops up above them with a springy bounce and hovers. He returns her tote; she returns his newspaper. Camera: slow dolly in to a two-shot. End state: both standing, facing each other, sleeve linked in sleeve. [Stage 5 - approx 23-30s] Continue. Sleeve in sleeve, they walk away from camera up the kraft-paper street. Event: from every edge of frame, hoodies, tees, joggers, jeans, beanies, socks and sneakers slide in and fold themselves flat onto the ground in stepped motion, assembling into the exact garment arrangement of @Image 3 with its negative space forming the four-letter logo, the tiny couple standing at its center. Camera: slow crane up into a top-down view filling the vertical frame. Final state: completed @Image 3 logo layout held as a still frame for the last beat.
(Playful pizzicato and glockenspiel score, swelling when the heart appears and resolving on the final held frame.) <Handmade stop-motion foley synced to the stepped motion: soft felt footsteps, fabric rustle, a zipper zip, door creaks, paper flutter, the tennis ball rolling on paper, a gentle fabric thump at the bump, a springy boing as the heart pops, a whoosh of sliding garments in the finale.> Reactive puppet-like vocalizations timed to events. Light female voice, playful: {Oh!} as the tote lands in Stage 1. Warm male voice, a soft amused hum at the puppy. Both voices together, surprised: {Oh!} at the bump. Female voice, a small gasp then a shy giggle at the sleeve touch. Male voice, gentle and low: {Oh.} as the heart appears. No other dialogue, no narration.
Both characters remain clothes-only with no visible skin, face, hair or body in every stage. Keep garments, colors, caps and prop ownership unchanged; tote and tennis ball belong to Ivy, camera and newspaper to Ace, exchanged only during the pickup. Exactly two characters, one cat, one dog, one traffic light. Same kraft-paper set, lighting and stepped 12fps cadence in all stages. Screen direction preserved: they approach from opposite sides and exit away from camera together.
no visible humans, no skin, no faces, no hair, no mannequins, no smooth 24fps motion, no motion blur, no glossy CGI look, no 2D cartoon rendering, no style mixing, no extra characters, no duplicate props, no loose garments in the street before the final stage, no invented lettering, no captions, no subtitles, no watermarks, no split screen, no panel grid.
STEP 03 — ANATOMY
Anatomy — Why the Empty Clothes Feel Alive
- 1
The contract
The FORMAT line signs the deal before anything else: 30s / 9:16 vertical / handcrafted stop-motion romance / one clean cut. Duration, frame, genre and edit budget are locked in twelve words, so the model plans a film instead of improvising a clip.
- 2
Engineered imperfection
STYLE demands 12 frames per second stepped motion with subtle frame-to-frame jitter, visible fibers and stitching. Real stop-motion is defined by its flaws — asking for the jitter is what makes it read as handmade instead of rendered.
- 3
Identity locks with a waiver
@Image 1 and @Image 2 inventory every garment down to the scrunchie and the newspaper, then add: preserve garments and colors exactly; ignore layout and text. The wardrobe is sacred, the lookbook layout is disposable — the model keeps the cast without copying the flat-lay pose.
- 4
The finale under seal
@Image 3 is handed over with a restraining order: use it solely for the final frame; do not show this arrangement earlier — backed up by the negative line no loose garments in the street before the final stage. The payoff stays a surprise because the prompt forbids leaking it.
- 5
Stage clockwork
Every stage runs Initial state → Event → Camera → End state, pinned to timestamps: the cut at 3s, the cat at 9s, the light flip at 15s, the heart in Stage 4. Each end state is the next stage's starting checkpoint, so continuity can't drift across 30 seconds.
- 6
Sound as a second script
AUDIO doesn't ask for a mood, it syncs foley to events — a springy boing as the heart pops, a gentle fabric thump at the bump — and times the {Oh!} vocalizations to the exact beats. The soundtrack becomes a parallel timeline that reinforces the choreography.
- 7
The insurance
The NEGATIVE PROMPT bans every failure mode by name: no skin, no faces, no mannequins, no smooth 24fps motion, no motion blur, no glossy CGI look. Each ban protects a specific choice made earlier — it is the STYLE and CONSISTENCY blocks written in reverse.
THE RESULT — SEEDANCE 2.5
Output — Thirty Seconds, One Cut, Zero Bodies
Audit the output against the contract before you post it. The cut lands once, around the third second. The characters stay hollow — check collars and cuffs in the close shots. Prop ownership survives the bump: tote and tennis ball return to Ivy, camera and newspaper stay with Ace. The traffic light flips red to green on schedule, the heart pops only in Stage 4, and no stray garment litters the street until the finale slides in and locks the last frame onto @Image 3. If any of these slip, regenerate — the prompt already contains the fix.
NO FACES. NO BODIES. STILL A LOVE STORY.
If the wardrobe can act, you don't need the actor.
Swap the streetwear for bridal, the crosswalk for a train platform, the felt heart for a paper moon — the skeleton carries any brand and any romance. Three reference images lock the cast, five staged blocks lock the plot, and one negative prompt guards the illusion. The rest is just letting the clothes fall for each other.
This film was generated end-to-end inside invideo — Nano Banana Pro for the reference stills and Seedance 2.5 for the 30-second stop-motion, in one workspace, no exports in between. Try the exact same pipeline here:
WRITTEN, DIRECTED & PROMPTED BY DENIZ AKKABAK · @DENIZ.AKKABAK