The Thing in the Pines(02)
Beginning with One Unresolved Frame
The first Midjourney frame already implied a larger story: three friends, carefully matched wardrobes and a forest that seemed to be watching them. Keeping the source of their attention outside the frame gave me the central tension. Rather than explain it, I used that unresolved look as the starting point for the film.
Building Character Continuity Before Motion
I kept the same reference image constant across the Seedance prompts, then used a three-view character-sheet layout. The full-body views helped preserve wardrobe and proportion; the large close-ups gave the model clearer facial anchors. That turned a useful still into a repeatable cast system for separate shots.
Carrying the Reference into the Final Sequence
The character reference had to survive movement, changing angles and the film’s physical transformation. In this later shot, the houndstooth suit and face remain recognisable while the black material pushes the scene from the poised source image into a more bodily threat. The continuity work let the performance change without losing the character.
Keeping the Voices Consistent
Separate generated clips also made voice consistency difficult. I used blank, black-screen reference videos to carry the established voices between shots, but preparing those files repeatedly slowed the workflow down. I built FrameWave to trim, name, organise and export those references from source audio or video. It runs locally in the browser, so the files never need to be uploaded.
