Back to gallery

The Wild Card

SEEDANCE 2.5 IN ARCADSFORMAT 16:9 · 15 S · 1080P · GENRE CAR REVEAL / PRACTICAL VFXVideo

Find an accomplice

SEEDANCE 2.5 · VIDEO PROMPT

FORMAT 15 seconds, 16:9, two shots from the exact same camera position and angle: Shot 1 (0.0s to 10.0s) one continuous take, a hard jump cut at 10.0s with no change of camera angle, Shot 2 (10.0s to 15.0s) one continuous take. STYLE Ultra realistic handheld phone footage at night, real-world physics, natural practical lighting from tall warm floodlights over a wide concrete lot, light sensor noise, high dynamic range, no CGI look. REFERENCES @video1: motion, camera and choreography reference ONLY. Copy its framing, camera distance, handheld shake, timing and the man's full movement 1:1: walk-in, turn to camera, the card move, the hand wipe across the lens that reveals the car. Also copy the location (night concrete lot, floodlights, yellow lines). Replace the man with @image2 and the car with @image1. Ignore the original man and the blue-striped car completely. @image1: the car, every angle. Exact body, proportions, matte white upper body, black lower body, dark tinted glass roof, thin white front light bar, full-width red rear light bar, black six-spoke wheels, rear wing, four round rear thruster outlets, RDSTR plate. Ignore the grid layout, labels and studio background. @image2: Deniz, face, identity and wardrobe. Curly dark brown hair, full beard and mustache, black sunglasses ON at all times, color-blocked Kith short-sleeve shirt (dark green, beige, sage, cream), dark green bandana knotted at the neck, light linen trousers rolled at the hem, grey New Balance sneakers. Ignore the grid layout, labels and studio background. @image3: lift-off reference ONLY. Copy how the car hovers on four vertical columns of white pressurized vapor blasting down from its underside. Ignore its black background, stage lights, watermark and wheel design. @image4: doors and nozzles reference ONLY. Copy exactly how the two doors hinge at the front of the roof and stand raised up and forward, the warm amber cabin glow, and the four short metal air nozzles under the side sills. Ignore its starry desert setting and the person inside. VIDEO PROMPT Ground set-up: dry autumn leaves (brown, ochre, faded yellow) lie scattered thinly across the concrete everywhere, with a denser loose drift on the empty spot behind Deniz where the car will appear. Visible from the first frame. SHOT 1 (0.0s to 10.0s), handheld phone held close, exactly like @video1: 0.0s to 2.5s: Deniz walks in from frame right into a close medium shot, glances back over his left shoulder at the empty lot, then turns and faces the lens. 2.5s to 3.6s: he pulls a card from his pocket and fans out the same two green +2 playing cards seen in @video1, holding them up close to the lens. 3.6s to 4.6s: he holds the cards steady toward the lens for a beat. 4.6s to 5.0s: he flicks his hand quickly upward across the lens, his hand fills the frame with motion blur, a natural wipe. 5.0s: as the hand clears, the car from @image1 is standing behind him in the exact spot and angle of the car in @video1: front three-quarter view, nose toward frame left, parked on the leaf drift. Both doors are already wide open, raised up and forward exactly like @image4, warm amber cabin glow spilling onto the leaves. 5.0s to 10.0s: Deniz glances back at the car, looks back at the lens with a calm, cool smirk, a small nod, points his thumb over his shoulder at the car, then turns and walks out of frame to the left toward the car. Deniz does not speak. SHOT 2 (10.0s to 15.0s), hard jump cut, the camera stays in exactly the same position, height and angle as the end of Shot 1, same handheld feel. The car is in the same spot with both doors open. 10.0s to 11.0s: Deniz is at the open door, steps in with one smooth stride, lowers into the seat and settles, sunglasses on. 11.0s to 11.9s: both doors swing down along the hinge path of @image4 and seal flush, amber glow cut off, the front light bar brightens. 11.9s to 13.4s: the four sill nozzles from @image4 hiss and push soft white vapor columns down. The car lifts gently and lightly off the ground, not perfectly straight: a tiny natural wobble as it finds its balance, a slight roll to one side and a small pitch correction, then it steadies and hovers about one meter up. Leaves skitter outward and lift in lazy swirls. 13.4s to 14.2s: the four round thruster outlets at the rear fire at once with a hard burst of white pressurized air. The car shoots forward toward frame left at a tremendous speed, nose leading, slightly low and level, and leaves the frame in a fraction of a second. The camera stays put, only a small handheld jolt from the shockwave. 14.2s to 15.0s: the blast wave throws a dense storm of leaves straight at the camera, leaves tumble and whip across the lens and past it, vapor trail hanging in the air where the car was. End state at 15.0s: empty lot, no car in frame, leaves still flying past the lens and drifting down, thin vapor settling. CONSISTENCY Deniz matches @image2 exactly in both shots: same face, curly hair, beard, wardrobe and bandana. Sunglasses stay on his face for the entire video and are never removed. The car matches @image1 exactly in both shots: same body, colors, lights, wheels and plate. The car keeps its orientation throughout, nose always leading, front and rear never swap. The downward vapor columns stay visible from lift-off until the car exits. Camera angle is identical before and after the cut. Leaves are on the ground from the first frame. Camera shake matches @video1 1:1, never smoother. NEGATIVE PROMPT blue-striped car, original man from @video1, sunglasses off, speaking, lip movement, smooth gimbal, stabilized camera, camera angle change at the cut, doors closed at the reveal, car changing shape or color, front and rear swapped, car rotating, flipping or spinning, stiff perfectly straight lift-off, slow drift exit, rocket flames, fire, explosion, flash or glow on car reveal, doors moving differently from @image4, grid layout, labels, text overlays, watermark, CGI look, cartoonish motion.

Tutorial

DENIZ AKKABAK · ARCADS TUTORIAL · @DENIZ.AKKABAK

MADE IN ARCADS · arcads.ai

The finished video — a card flick, a hand wipe, a flying Roadster. (Open this document in Google Docs to watch it play.)
The finished video — a card flick, a hand wipe, a flying Roadster. (Open this document in Google Docs to watch it play.)

The Wild Card

One flick of two green cards, one hand across the lens — and a Roadster that wasn’t there is waiting with its doors open, then lifts off and vanishes.

A TUTORIAL BY DENIZ AKKABAK · @DENIZ.AKKABAK

PIPELINE SEEDANCE 2.5 IN ARCADS · FORMAT 16:9 · 15 S · 1080P · GENRE CAR REVEAL / PRACTICAL VFX

Every great reveal is a magic trick, and every magic trick runs on misdirection. Your eye follows the cards; the hand sweeps across the lens; and in the half second the frame is covered, the world behind the man changes. That is the whole engine of this video — and it is why it works so well in AI. The hand wipe gives the model a natural place to swap the scene, the jump cut that follows never moves the camera, so the brain stitches the two shots into one continuous moment, and the ending pays everything off with speed: a gentle, slightly wobbly lift, then four thrusters and a storm of leaves where a car used to be.

It is a single 15-second Seedance 2.5 generation in Arcads, driven by one video and four images. The video you just watched is the motion template: attach it, swap in your own face and your own dream car, and the choreography carries itself.

STEP 01 — REFERENCES

Five References, One Performance

Seedance 2.5 numbers its references in upload order, and the prompt calls each one by that number — so the order below is not a suggestion. The video goes in as the only video reference; the four stills follow as @image1 to @image4. Each one is scoped in the prompt to a single job: the clip brings the performance and the camera, the sheets bring the car and the driver, and the last two photos only explain how the car floats and how its doors move.

REFERENCE INPUTS — ATTACH IN THIS ORDER

@video1 — The motion template: this very clip. The walk-in, the green card fan, the hand wipe across the lens and the handheld shake are copied 1:1.

@image1 — The car: a multi-angle Roadster sheet — front, rear, sides, top, doors open and every detail.

@image2 — The driver: a character sheet locking face, curly hair, sunglasses and the full wardrobe.

@image3 — The lift: four white vapor columns under a hovering car — used only for how it floats.

@image4 — Doors & nozzles: up-and-forward doors, amber cabin glow, four short nozzles under the sills.

STEP 02 — SEEDANCE 2.5 IN ARCADS

Settings & the Prompt

Open Seedance 2.5 in Arcads, attach the five references in the order above and set the clip to a full 15 seconds in landscape. Resolution goes to 1080p with the high bitrate encode, so the night grain, the leaves and the vapor survive compression; audio stays off, so the clip arrives clean for your own sound design. Then paste the prompt exactly as written — the timecodes, the reference names and the negative list all depend on each other.

SETTINGS

MODELSeedance 2.5RATIO16:9LENGTH15 sRESOLUTION1080pBITRATEHighAUDIOOff

SEEDANCE 2.5 · VIDEO PROMPT

FORMAT 15 seconds, 16:9, two shots from the exact same camera position and angle: Shot 1 (0.0s to 10.0s) one continuous take, a hard jump cut at 10.0s with no change of camera angle, Shot 2 (10.0s to 15.0s) one continuous take. STYLE Ultra realistic handheld phone footage at night, real-world physics, natural practical lighting from tall warm floodlights over a wide concrete lot, light sensor noise, high dynamic range, no CGI look. REFERENCES @video1: motion, camera and choreography reference ONLY. Copy its framing, camera distance, handheld shake, timing and the man's full movement 1:1: walk-in, turn to camera, the card move, the hand wipe across the lens that reveals the car. Also copy the location (night concrete lot, floodlights, yellow lines). Replace the man with @image2 and the car with @image1. Ignore the original man and the blue-striped car completely. @image1: the car, every angle. Exact body, proportions, matte white upper body, black lower body, dark tinted glass roof, thin white front light bar, full-width red rear light bar, black six-spoke wheels, rear wing, four round rear thruster outlets, RDSTR plate. Ignore the grid layout, labels and studio background. @image2: Deniz, face, identity and wardrobe. Curly dark brown hair, full beard and mustache, black sunglasses ON at all times, color-blocked Kith short-sleeve shirt (dark green, beige, sage, cream), dark green bandana knotted at the neck, light linen trousers rolled at the hem, grey New Balance sneakers. Ignore the grid layout, labels and studio background. @image3: lift-off reference ONLY. Copy how the car hovers on four vertical columns of white pressurized vapor blasting down from its underside. Ignore its black background, stage lights, watermark and wheel design. @image4: doors and nozzles reference ONLY. Copy exactly how the two doors hinge at the front of the roof and stand raised up and forward, the warm amber cabin glow, and the four short metal air nozzles under the side sills. Ignore its starry desert setting and the person inside. VIDEO PROMPT Ground set-up: dry autumn leaves (brown, ochre, faded yellow) lie scattered thinly across the concrete everywhere, with a denser loose drift on the empty spot behind Deniz where the car will appear. Visible from the first frame. SHOT 1 (0.0s to 10.0s), handheld phone held close, exactly like @video1: 0.0s to 2.5s: Deniz walks in from frame right into a close medium shot, glances back over his left shoulder at the empty lot, then turns and faces the lens. 2.5s to 3.6s: he pulls a card from his pocket and fans out the same two green +2 playing cards seen in @video1, holding them up close to the lens. 3.6s to 4.6s: he holds the cards steady toward the lens for a beat. 4.6s to 5.0s: he flicks his hand quickly upward across the lens, his hand fills the frame with motion blur, a natural wipe. 5.0s: as the hand clears, the car from @image1 is standing behind him in the exact spot and angle of the car in @video1: front three-quarter view, nose toward frame left, parked on the leaf drift. Both doors are already wide open, raised up and forward exactly like @image4, warm amber cabin glow spilling onto the leaves. 5.0s to 10.0s: Deniz glances back at the car, looks back at the lens with a calm, cool smirk, a small nod, points his thumb over his shoulder at the car, then turns and walks out of frame to the left toward the car. Deniz does not speak. SHOT 2 (10.0s to 15.0s), hard jump cut, the camera stays in exactly the same position, height and angle as the end of Shot 1, same handheld feel. The car is in the same spot with both doors open. 10.0s to 11.0s: Deniz is at the open door, steps in with one smooth stride, lowers into the seat and settles, sunglasses on. 11.0s to 11.9s: both doors swing down along the hinge path of @image4 and seal flush, amber glow cut off, the front light bar brightens. 11.9s to 13.4s: the four sill nozzles from @image4 hiss and push soft white vapor columns down. The car lifts gently and lightly off the ground, not perfectly straight: a tiny natural wobble as it finds its balance, a slight roll to one side and a small pitch correction, then it steadies and hovers about one meter up. Leaves skitter outward and lift in lazy swirls. 13.4s to 14.2s: the four round thruster outlets at the rear fire at once with a hard burst of white pressurized air. The car shoots forward toward frame left at a tremendous speed, nose leading, slightly low and level, and leaves the frame in a fraction of a second. The camera stays put, only a small handheld jolt from the shockwave. 14.2s to 15.0s: the blast wave throws a dense storm of leaves straight at the camera, leaves tumble and whip across the lens and past it, vapor trail hanging in the air where the car was. End state at 15.0s: empty lot, no car in frame, leaves still flying past the lens and drifting down, thin vapor settling. CONSISTENCY Deniz matches @image2 exactly in both shots: same face, curly hair, beard, wardrobe and bandana. Sunglasses stay on his face for the entire video and are never removed. The car matches @image1 exactly in both shots: same body, colors, lights, wheels and plate. The car keeps its orientation throughout, nose always leading, front and rear never swap. The downward vapor columns stay visible from lift-off until the car exits. Camera angle is identical before and after the cut. Leaves are on the ground from the first frame. Camera shake matches @video1 1:1, never smoother. NEGATIVE PROMPT blue-striped car, original man from @video1, sunglasses off, speaking, lip movement, smooth gimbal, stabilized camera, camera angle change at the cut, doors closed at the reveal, car changing shape or color, front and rear swapped, car rotating, flipping or spinning, stiff perfectly straight lift-off, slow drift exit, rocket flames, fire, explosion, flash or glow on car reveal, doors moving differently from @image4, grid layout, labels, text overlays, watermark, CGI look, cartoonish motion.

OUTPUT — THREE CHECKPOINTS

5.0s, the wipe clears and the car is simply there, doors up · 12.6s, the gentle, self-correcting lift · 14.1s, thrusters fire and the leaves take over.
5.0s, the wipe clears and the car is simply there, doors up · 12.6s, the gentle, self-correcting lift · 14.1s, thrusters fire and the leaves take over.

STEP 03

Anatomy — Why the Trick Holds

  1. 01

    The contract

    FORMAT promises two shots “from the exact same camera position and angle” and “a hard jump cut at 10.0s with no change of camera angle.” Because the frame refuses to move, the cut reads as time skipping rather than an edit — he is already at the door before you notice he left.

  2. 02

    Borrowed choreography

    @video1 is scoped as a “motion, camera and choreography reference ONLY” and told to copy the walk-in, the card move and the hand wipe “1:1.” You never describe the body mechanics in prose — you hand the model a finished performance and tell it whose face and which car to drop into it.

  3. 03

    Fenced references

    Every image ends with what to throw away: “Ignore the grid layout, labels and studio background,” “Ignore its starry desert setting and the person inside.” Multi-panel sheets and moody photos leak their own worlds unless fenced, so each reference contributes exactly one thing — a body, a face, a hover, a door.

  4. 04

    The wipe reveal

    The hand “fills the frame with motion blur, a natural wipe,” and when it clears the car “is standing behind him” with “Both doors are already wide open.” The negative bans “flash or glow on car reveal” — no sparkle, no VFX, it is simply there, which is exactly what makes it uncanny. The leaves are “Visible from the first frame,” so the car lands in a world, not on a blank floor.

  5. 05

    A lift that breathes

    The hover is written as “not perfectly straight: a tiny natural wobble as it finds its balance, a slight roll to one side and a small pitch correction,” and the negative backs it with “stiff perfectly straight lift-off.” Imperfection is what sells weight — a perfect hover reads as CGI, a car correcting itself reads as physics.

  6. 06

    Speed through the world

    The exit is one beat long: the thrusters fire, the car “leaves the frame in a fraction of a second,” and “The camera stays put, only a small handheld jolt from the shockwave.” Speed is never described with adjectives on the car — it is shown by the “dense storm of leaves straight at the camera,” and the end state “empty lot, no car in frame” stops the model from bringing it back.

  7. 07

    The insurance

    CONSISTENCY and NEGATIVE PROMPT lock the same rules from both sides: “Sunglasses stay on his face for the entire video and are never removed” against “sunglasses off,” “front and rear never swap” against “front and rear swapped,” “Camera shake matches @video1 1:1, never smoother” against “smooth gimbal, stabilized camera.” What you say twice, the model keeps.

THE RESULT

Output — Now You See It

The final cut — 15 seconds, 16:9, 1080p.
The final cut — 15 seconds, 16:9, 1080p.

Check yours against the prompt before you post it. The cards should read as the same two green cards from the template, the hand should cover the lens completely for a beat, and the car should appear with its doors already up and no glow around it. Across the cut, the camera should feel like the same phone in the same hand. The lift should wobble just enough to look heavy, the exit should take less than a second, and the last frame should be an empty lot with leaves still flying past the lens — and the sunglasses should never leave his face.

PULL A CARD. PICK A CAR.

The magic was never the car. It was the hand in front of the lens.

Swap the Roadster for a vintage bike, a speedboat or a tiny house on wheels — swap the two green cards for a coin, a lighter or a snap of the fingers, and swap Deniz for you. The skeleton carries any reveal: a borrowed performance that does the acting, a wipe that hides the swap, a frame that never moves across the cut, a lift that breathes, and an exit fast enough that only the leaves are left to prove it happened.

Every frame of this guide was generated with Seedance 2.5 inside Arcads — the motion reference, the four image references, the settings and the prompt, all in one place. Load the same five references, paste the prompt, and pull your own card at

arcads.ai

WRITTEN, DIRECTED & PROMPTED BY DENIZ AKKABAK · @DENIZ.AKKABAK