Since Sep 2026
Where we are today
Every workflow above, still in use, now stacked into one practice. September 2026.
None of the earlier workflows died. The frame-by-frame instinct became the storyboard as first frame, video-to-video became video references and motion control, the still frame became the character sheet, the prompt became a bundle of thirty references, the editing primitives became one edit propagating across a thirty-second scene, and an agent now routes all of it. Stronger models, one-take scenes, native audio, agents in the app and in the terminal, coding agents that build the missing tools, and true HDR delivery are what turned those techniques into a repeatable practice.
Tutorials6
Getting started with Runway Ruby: real HDR from any video model
Runway · YouTube · Aug 2026
How it works
- Character sheet first. A turnaround and face close-ups (ChatGPT Image-2/2.5, Nano Banana Pro, Seedream, Soul ID) become the reference for every shot.
- Storyboards become first frames. Boards turn into first and last frames; chain the last frame of one shot into the first of the next.
- Block it or act it. A gray-box 3D render or a phone performance drives the camera and the acting through motion control.
- The prompt is a bundle. Video generations are built using a collection of multi-modal inputs: images, video clips, audio and documents go in at once, and the model resolves them into a scene.
- Generate scenes, not shots. Multi-shot and thirty-second one-takes (Kling 3.0, Seedance 2.0/2.5), with native audio for dialogue, or ElevenLabs into a lip-sync model when the performance needs control.
- Edit in place. Change one frame and Aleph 2.0 carries it across the sequence.
- Direct with your preferred agent. Inside the apps (Runway Agent, Higgsfield Supercomputer, Luma Agents, Flow Agent), inside ChatGPT through plugins (e.g. Runway), or from a terminal using MCP. Coding agents are used to build whatever tools are missing, like Sam Wasserman's free suite.
- Curation is the craft. Generate far more than you keep; draft modes and turbo tiers make that ratio affordable.
Example Films2
More making-ofs1
How films were actually made, from the people who made them.
Related on the timeline6