A five-step workflow for AI-generated visuals: start with a single-sentence idea, build a mood board of visual references, sketch a rough storyboard, create reference images using a 3x3 grid prompt technique, and write prompts in film language with camera moves like pan and rack focus. The creator emphasizes that weak results come from poor creative process, not the tools.
If you're trying to create AI visuals and you keep getting trash outputs, it's not the tool, it's your process. Here are the 5 steps to start making AI visuals that actually look good. Step number 1, it's the idea. Everything starts from here. No exceptions. Every good journey, every good story starts with a great idea. So before you ever touch a tool, I want you to think about it. What's your story? What's the idea you're trying to tell? What's the mood? What's the vibe? What are you trying to convey? With AI, the possibilities are genuinely limitless, but limitless without direction is just noise. So before you touch a single tool, get clear with your idea. Write it down in one sentence. If you can't, you're not ready for step number 2. Step number 2, mood board is your pre-production. This is where most people skip ahead and they pay for it later. You need references, visual references, the kind that can tell the AI exactly the world that you're trying to build. Lighting, color grading, composition, the feeling, all of it. You could pull those references from anywhere. Pinterest, films, photography, Instagram, anywhere that sparks inspiration. But I want you to build references. Sometimes you can use AI tools like Midjourney to generate some of these ideas from scratch. Regardless of how you start, you do not want to skip this step. Your output is only as strong as your reference library. Step number 3 is this rough storyboarding. You don't need to be an artist. Stick figures work. The question you're answering here is simple. What does the viewer need to see and in what order? Even a rough storyboard saves hours of guessing later, and it's the blueprint on which you will build this visual world from. A lot of people skip this step, but I'm telling you, you're gonna burn through credits if you're just trying to throw something to the wall and see if it sticks. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call AI slop. Well, maybe not everyone does, but that's what I call AI slop. Because for me, AI is just a tool of my creativity, of my God-given creativity to produce the work and the ideas that I already had in the first place. If you're just throwing something to the wall, hoping that it comes out creative, yes, that is part of the process. But if that's your entire process, it's not actually a process. You're just crossing your fingers, hoping, wishing. And that's not what we're doing here. I'm trying to teach you the framework that I use to be an AI creative director, using AI as a true tool and not allowing it to be your creative source. Because I think that's a lot of the problems that people have with AI nowadays. A lot of people forfeit their creativity to these AI machines, these algorithms, these models. And that, ladies and gentlemen, isn't creativity. That's, I don't know, that's production. That's something else. If you actually want to be a creative to be able to leverage these tools, then that's how you actually do it with your DNA, with your discernment, with your point of view, with your references, with your story, with your framework and mood board, your DNA baked into every single step. That's how you take control of the AI system and not let the AI system control you. Step number 4, create your reference image. This right here is where we do start prompting just a little bit, but this is the foundation. I'm telling you, 9 out of 10 times, the quality of your AI video comes down to this step. Whether you're using Klean, Seedance, Higgsfield, Freepik, whatever it is, a strong reference image is what's going to separate a clean output from a broken one in most cases. A pro tip right here is I like to make a reference grid. I ask it to do a 3 by 3 grid of the exact image I'm trying to create. Why do I do that? To be able to save me from tokens, to save me on time. More than anything is to save me on time. Because if you do a 3 by 3 grid, now you're getting different variations of the same image without having to waste extra time. Then you pull that reference back in and use that as your base image. This tip right here saves a ton of time. Helps keep your visual language consistent and gives the AI something locked in to work with. If you comment grid below, I'll send you the exact prompts I used for this image, these right here, and these right here. All of them if you comment the word grid. Step number 5, prompting the language of film. This is where it all connects. AI video prompting isn't about using clever words. It's about speaking the language of film. This right here is where most people get stuck because they're prompting like they're describing a picture, something still, something static. But that's half the equation. With AI video, you need to start thinking like a director. A push, a pull, a pan, a rack focus, a wide establishing shot versus a tight close-up. When you know how to describe what a camera does, you stop fighting the AI and start directing it. These words matter because they tell the AI how the camera should move, not just how the scene will look. And when you combine that with the mood you created in step 2, the idea you created in step 1, the storyboard you created in step 3, and the strong reference images you did in step 4, Now you have the foundation for AI video, not just random generations. You have a real creative process. If you want me to go deeper on any one of these steps or want me to break them down further in a future video, make sure to subscribe to this channel. Let me know in the comments. Comment grid and I'll send you the prompts I use to create those AI grids to help you save on prompts. And if you comment moves, I'll send you a PDF of all the camera moves that I typically like to use on my AI visuals. Without further ado, let's pray. Lord Jesus Christ, I just thank you, Father God, for every single person that watched the end of this video. Bless them, bless their day, and bless their business and endeavors. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. And thank you guys so much for watching. I love you guys. God bless you guys, and I'll see you guys on the next one. Peace.
