Style lock: one paragraph that makes every clip look like the same film
A reusable style paragraph (stock, palette, grain, light rules) appended to every generation prompt so a series cuts together instead of looking like ten different ads.
STYLE LOCK (append to every prompt in the series): Shot on {film stock or camera feel: Kodak 5219 / 16mm / Alexa clean digital / VHS}. {Palette: two dominant colours + one accent, e.g. 'teal shadows, amber highlights, red accent'}. {Grain: none / light / heavy}. {Contrast: soft and lifted blacks / punchy}. Lighting always {rule: motivated by a visible source / single key from camera left / flat overcast}. {Lens feel: 35mm, mild distortion / 85mm compression}. {Aspect ratio}. No on-screen text, no logos, no lens flares unless stated.
Paste into the video model as one paragraph; remove the labels once you are happy with the content.
Steps
- Write the style lock once, from a reference film or a still you like. Name real things (a stock, a focal length) rather than adjectives.
- Paste it at the end of every prompt, after the shot description.
- When a clip comes back off-style, do not add adjectives to the lock: remove the words in the shot prompt that conflict with it.
Example
Shot on 16mm, Kodak 250D feel. Teal shadows, amber highlights, red accent. Light grain. Soft contrast with lifted blacks. Lighting always motivated by a visible source. 35mm lens feel. 9:16 vertical. No on-screen text, no logos, no lens flares.
Tips
- A palette with three named colours is the most effective single line in the lock; most 'does not match' problems are colour.
- Keep one lock per project in a text file next to the clips; Life2Film and most editors will not fix a mismatched look, they will only make it obvious.
| works with | Veo: Google text-to-video / image-to-video prompts. · Sora: OpenAI video generation prompts. · Kling: Kling text/image-to-video prompts. · Runway: Runway Gen prompts and camera controls. · Image models: Midjourney, Flux, Imagen: keyframes and style boards for image-to-video. |
| cost | Free. The video or image model you paste it into has its own pricing. |
| status | Unverified: written from the technique, not yet run end to end by us. |
| license | CC BY 4.0 for the text here; skills are MIT. |
| updated | 2026-11-01 |
| for agents | style-lock-block.md |
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