Hoi An Lantern River at Dusk Scene Concept Brief Builder

Format

Text Parameterized

Inputs

setting (text) · Optional · Default: a calm river lined with yellow ochre two-story shophouses with dark wooden shutters and terracotta tile roofs time (text) · Optional · Default: blue hour, deep blue twilight sky with a soft pink-violet glow on the horizon landmark (text) · Optional · Default: a wooden arched footbridge with a small tiled pagoda-style roof spanning the river in the distance lanterns (text) · Optional · Default: round silk lanterns in red, orange, and yellow along the shopfronts, and many small square paper lanterns with candles floating on the water boat (text) · Optional · Default: one narrow wooden rowboat with a rower in a conical hat carrying a pile of glowing lanterns style (text) · Optional · Default: photoreal cinematic travel photography mood (text) · Optional · Default: calm, warm, magical, quiet camera_viewpoint (text) · Required shophouse_frame_side (text) · Required boat_position_and_direction (text) · Required floating_lantern_density (text) · Required things_to_avoid (text) · Required

Outputs

scene_brief (text)

Replace the ${…} placeholders with your values before using this prompt. See parameters and defaults below.

Act as a cinematic environment designer who writes image-ready and motion-ready scene briefs. Help me design one hero shot of a lantern-lit river running through a historic Vietnamese old town at dusk, inspired by the atmosphere of a Hoi An style lantern evening, which will first be generated as a still image and then animated into a short video that uses that image as its first frame. Your brief must make the still image rich in elements that can move naturally (floating paper lanterns drifting and bobbing on the current, candle flames flickering, reflections shimmering, a small wooden rowboat gliding with a rower working one long oar, hanging lanterns swaying in a light breeze, a few people strolling on the riverside promenade, the twilight sky slowly deepening) while keeping the composition calm, readable, and easy to animate.

My starting choices:
- Old town setting: ${setting:a calm river lined with yellow ochre two-story shophouses with dark wooden shutters and terracotta tile roofs}
- Time and sky: ${time:blue hour, deep blue twilight sky with a soft pink-violet glow on the horizon}
- Landmark: ${landmark:a wooden arched footbridge with a small tiled pagoda-style roof spanning the river in the distance}
- Lanterns: ${lanterns:round silk lanterns in red, orange, and yellow along the shopfronts, and many small square paper lanterns with candles floating on the water}
- Boat: ${boat:one narrow wooden rowboat with a rower in a conical hat carrying a pile of glowing lanterns}
- Visual style: ${style:photoreal cinematic travel photography}
- Mood words: ${mood:calm, warm, magical, quiet}

First ask me, in one short message, for anything missing: the camera viewpoint I prefer (low over the water, from the riverbank at eye level, or slightly elevated from a balcony), which side of the frame the shophouses should line, where the boat should sit and which way it should move, how dense the floating lanterns should be, and anything to avoid (close-up faces, readable signs or text, logos, modern cars or scooters, power lines, crowds, copying a specific real photograph).

Then produce the brief with these sections:

1. **Scene Overview**: two or three sentences describing the place, the time, the light, and the feeling of the moment. Describe an imagined old-town river scene in the spirit of the place, not a copy of a specific photograph.

2. **Old Town Architecture**: which bank the shophouses line, their color, shutters, balconies, and roofs, the riverside promenade in front of them (cafe tables, low stone river wall), where the hanging lanterns sit (along the eaves or strung across the street), and what is on the far bank.

3. **Bridge and Depth**: the position of the footbridge in the frame, its arch and roof pavilion, how it is lit, its reflection in the water, and the depth layers from the foreground water to the bridge and the far bank.

4. **Lanterns on the Water**: how many floating lanterns, their shape and colors, how they are spread from the foreground toward the bridge, how their reflections look, and that they all drift with one gentle current direction.

5. **Boat and Rower**: the boat's position, angle, and length in the frame, which end the rower sits at, the conical hat and clothing, the long oar and where it meets the water, the pile of lanterns in the boat, and the direction the boat will glide.

6. **Light and Atmosphere**: the twilight gradient, the horizon glow behind the bridge, warm lantern light against the cool blue dusk, the shimmer of reflections, and any light haze over the water.

7. **Fixed Visual Details**: a numbered list of 8 to 10 details that must stay identical in the still image and in the video (bank side of the shophouses, bridge position and shape, roof pavilion, lantern colors, floating lantern spread, boat position and angle, rower and oar, horizon glow position, camera position, framing).

8. **Motion Map**: a table of every element that can move in the video, with columns: element, type of motion, direction, speed (very slow, slow, medium), and how strongly it should move. Include the boat and oar, the floating lanterns, candle flicker, reflections, hanging lanterns, strolling people, the sky, and the camera move. Keep total motion subtle and physically plausible, with one current direction for the water and one breeze direction for the hanging lanterns.

9. **Prompt Seed A - Hero Still Image**: a ready-to-paste image prompt under 170 words for a wide landscape 16:9 frame, with the lantern river, the shophouses, the footbridge, and the rowboat in the first sentence, ending with: no close-up faces, no text, no signs, no logos.

10. **Prompt Seed B - Image-to-Video Animation**: a ready-to-paste video prompt under 120 words that starts from the hero still as the first frame, describes the rower pulling the oar and the boat gliding gently, the lanterns drifting and flickering, the hanging lanterns swaying, one slow camera move for about 6 seconds, and says to keep the shophouses, bridge, boat, and framing exactly as in the image with no new objects.

Rules: people only as small figures and one rower, never the main subject or with detailed faces; no text, signs, or logos; respectful, authentic cultural details without stereotypes; no fast camera moves or cuts; and no motion that breaks physics (floating lanterns move with the current and never fly or sink, the boat moves only as the oar pushes it and leaves ripples, flames flicker but do not grow, buildings and the bridge never change shape). Use short paragraphs and lists.