Design a set
A set is built once, empty, before any shot still: one main image, the same set from every camera the script needs, then the cast placed into those plates per shot. The angles are only as consistent as the written geography and the main image they all derive from, so both get settled before anything else.
First question: which cameras does the script need, and which shots does each serve?
Read the script (script.json or the shot list) and list the angles before rendering.
If the shots already exist as footage, you are not designing a set; see
guide-recast-a-person or guide-edit-a-frame-before-animating.
Routes
Every route is a nano banana Pro image call (edit mode when it takes an image); cost is one image per take, so the spend is in the number of takes and passes.
| Step | Route | When | Takes | Leaf |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Main image | Pro from the written description, a palette and style references | Always first | 2, pick one | nano-banana-design-empty-set |
| Another camera | Pro edit with the picked main image as Image 1 | Every angle the script needs | 2 per angle | nano-banana-set-from-new-angle |
| Reverse angle (from behind furniture) | Same, plus crops of the furniture from the main image and which way it faces | A view from behind a podium, desk or counter | 3 or more (1 in 3 came back right) | nano-banana-set-from-new-angle |
| Cast into a set | Pro edit: the plate as Image 1, one image per character view, screen pictures last | Each shot still | 2 per shot | nano-banana-stage-cast-in-set |
| Tighter than the plate | Crop the empty plate to the framing (Lanczos up to 2K), then stage in the crop | Any medium or close shot | 1 to 2 | nano-banana-stage-cast-in-set |
| Re-angle inside the plate | Stage with a reframe instruction (over-the-shoulder, insert) | Small moves only | about half land | nano-banana-stage-cast-in-set |
| More stills of one framing | Edit the picked still: change only pose or expression, the character's front view as reference 2 | Later beats of the same shot | 5 of 6 kept desk, light, background | nano-banana-targeted-fix |
| A furniture fix on a picked still | Edit with a still that shows the same piece next to the same person as reference 2 | Wrong height, wrong side | 1 to 2 | nano-banana-targeted-fix |
Choosing
- Characters go in as single views (front, profile, full, back) cut from their sheets
with
python-split-character-sheet, never the whole sheet. - Push-ins: the model ignores "push in to a medium shot" (5 tries, the host stayed small in the wide). Crop the plate first; the first take then lands.
- More of the same framing: edit the picked still. Re-staging from a cropped plate drifted (a new desk, a new background, a different-looking woman, an invented screen).
- A screen in the set (an LED wall, a TV): give a frame of the footage that will play on it as the last image; 2 of 2 takes were clean.
- An empty audience plate fills well with "a mixed studio audience … reacting together".
Drawn sets
The prompts in the leaves default to photographic. For a 2D cartoon or any drawn look, change the medium line and the finish line in every call (main image, angles, staging, derived frames), never only the first:
- Medium: "Design and paint a as a background for a 2D children's cartoon series, copied from the reference frames."
- Finish: "Drawn exactly in the style of the reference frames: <linework, fills, shading>; no photographic detail, no 3D render look."
What drawn sets taught:
- Recreating a place from two frames of an earlier cut (the characters "removed")
matched it closely on 2 of 2 takes, but both kept small props from the frames (two
balls by the fence). Remove them from the main image (
nano-banana-remove-small-object) before rendering angles, or every angle inherits them. - Props asked for by count and colour ("FOUR big cones, left to right red, blue, yellow, green") came out exactly, and so did a circle of them with a stated clockwise order (2 of 2).
- "Lower and closer" angles fail on a drawn set too: a sitting-height push-in came back as the main wide, once with a person added. Crop the main image for the plate.
- Staging drawn characters: state every size in every shot ("A about three quarters of B's height, A's hat level with B's eyes; the cones reach B's mid-thigh") and sizes hold. Misses to reject: a prop swapped for a look-alike (a ball of the wrong kind or colour, 4 of 16 takes; fix with a targeted edit with the plate's own prop as Image 2), a prop dropped from a row, an arm pointing the wrong way.
Brand colour
A hex code in the prompt is not enough: with hex and words only, Pro rendered the brand's yellow-green Globex Lime (hue about 75°) as emerald or pure green (median hue 143° and 83°). What held: a flat swatch image as a reference ("the exact colour of every light") plus the hue in words ("a YELLOW-green, never emerald"), which brought takes to 66–80°. Check every main image and angle: the median hue of its bright, saturated pixels against the brand's. Brand-guide background art (cropped from the guide) as a style reference gave on-brand screen content without copying the panels.
Process (each gate a review page)
- Geography. Write
sets/<set>/description.mdandpalette.mdin the job folder: what the set is, the main camera, and where every element stands relative to the others (left or right of what, upstage or downstage). List only the lettering that should exist. Agree it with the person. - Main image, 2 takes. Gate:
review_openwith both takes; the person picks. - Angles from the picked main image, one written camera note per angle (where the camera stands, the lens, what fills the frame, which shots it serves). Gate: one row per angle, the main image beside its takes, a notes box each. Re-render an angle with notes as the next letter; keep the rest. A labelled contact sheet of all angles (the "splat") helps the person see the set whole.
- Stage the cast per shot. Gate per shot, with the plate as a reference.
Check each angle against the main image before the gate. Reject takes that:
- put a wall or screen on the wrong side ("a little left of centre" can flip it);
- redesign the set (different wall art, a green screen behind);
- duplicate the show title on a second wall or side panel (a second "QUIZ TIME!");
- draw a character as someone else (wrong hair colour).
Avoid
- A hex code alone for brand colour.
- Re-staging when an edit of the picked still would do.
- A reverse angle without furniture crops and a facing direction: the podium's front comes back facing the camera, or the set is redesigned.
- Asking the staging edit to push in instead of cropping the plate.
- Lettering in the description that shouldn't be on the set.
Related
guide-edit-a-frame-before-animating: fixes on staged stills.guide-recast-a-person: character views and wardrobe.guide-animate-a-shot: the stills once picked.
