The Master Guide / 07 Video with Seedance · Picture-led recipes
2. Action
A key action move in sport, played as one real-time take. Here, a skater kickflips a five-stair set under a flyover at dusk, with a handheld operator riding beside her.
When to use it: a key action move in sport, played as one real-time take. Here, a skater kickflips a five-stair set under a flyover at dusk, with a handheld operator riding beside her.
Methods:
real time, with slow motion ruled out by name [official guidance];
the honest, fallible operator [proven] (see Camera and lens → The honest, fallible operator).
Shared rules: the rules every recipe keeps, and the notes on picture-led recipes: Video with Seedance → How to read a recipe.
References: 1 the skater's sheet; 2 her identity close-up; 3 the skateboard's prop sheet; 4 the underpass master plate.
Settings: omni-reference · 8 s · 16:9 · audio on.
Cost: 480p draft 24 cr (8 s × 3 cr) · 1080p finish 128 cr (8 s × 16 cr).
Budget: high risk (a readable face, body and board physics): 496 cr expected (8 s × 62), 984 cr ceiling (8 s × 123).
What to change, what to keep: Template A (Video with Seedance → Templates A, B and D).
Yours to rewrite:
the athlete and her wardrobe;
the move and its times;
the speed and distance in CAMERA;
the live motions (three here, because the place is outdoors);
PERFORMANCE;
the board's weight and its one flip.
Keep word for word: the shared wording (Video with Seedance → How to read a recipe), plus:
"Real time, with no slow motion and no speed ramps";
the operator's clause ("a fraction late on her pop and overshoots slightly as she lands, then corrects; never gimbal-smooth");
the 180-degree shutter sentence.
SCENE CONTEXT: Dusk under a concrete flyover. A young woman skates toward a set of five stairs, kickflips down them, lands and rolls away.
ACTIVE REFERENCES: @image1 is THE SKATER: a woman in her early twenties, lean and strong, mid-run, her hair in a short low ponytail, an oversized olive shirt, black cargo trousers, worn white shoes; nothing in either hand. This sheet gives identity and wardrobe and nothing else: the face and hair come from the close-up panel alone, the wardrobe and body from the full-body panels alone; the front panel's cropped head is never repeated; leave out its grey ground, panel edges and flat light. Match it exactly. @image2 is THE SKATER'S FACE: the identity close-up, used for the face alone; leave out its grey ground and its flat light. @image3 is THE BOARD: the deck's shape, the orange graphic on its underside and its white wheels, as design only; it is not a start frame. @image4 is THE UNDERPASS: the flyover's pillars, the five concrete stairs, the painted kerb and the dusk light, as architecture and light only; the set holds exactly as pictured; it does not decide where the camera stands.
LOCATION MAP: Foreground, the smooth concrete run-up; midground, the five stairs with their yellow-painted lip; background, two grey pillars and the street beyond on frame right. Left and right as the camera sees them; THE SKATER travels left to right. Live motion: car headlights sweep across the underside of the flyover every few seconds; a plastic bag drifts along the kerb in the draught; two pigeons take off from a ledge as she pops.
FIRST FRAME AND BLOCKING (in motion from frame one): Full figure. THE SKATER is 6 m from the lip of the stairs, already rolling at about 15 km/h, her back foot pushing, her eyes on the lip.
FORMAT MODE: A single unbroken shot with no cuts of its own. Real time, with no slow motion and no speed ramps.
OPTICS: Full figure on a 63° diagonal field of view throughout; the pillars stay upright; the lens holds steady.
CAMERA: Handheld by an operator riding beside her at hip height, 2.5 m to her left. One tracking move alongside her at her own speed, about 15 km/h, travelling with her the whole way; the operator is a fraction late on her pop and overshoots slightly as she lands, then corrects; never gimbal-smooth. It opens on her full figure with the stairs ahead on frame right and arrives on her rolling away down the street. The cut comes in motion, so the camera keeps travelling, slowing to a walking pace by the last second as she draws ahead.
ACTION / TIMELINE: From the first frame she pushes twice toward the lip; by about 3 s she crouches at the lip; just after 3 s she pops: the back foot snaps the tail down, the front foot slides up and flicks off the heel-side edge, and the board spins once along its length beneath her; by about 4.6 s both feet catch it over the bolts and all four wheels meet the ground together at the bottom; from 5 s she rolls away, her arms coming down, and the camera drops behind.
PERFORMANCE — THE SKATER: She wants to land it clean, first time. Her eyes go from the lip to the board after the pop, and back to the ground before the landing. A sharp breath out as she lands. Pleased with herself: a closed-mouth half smile she keeps in check, never a laugh.
PHYSICS: The deck weighs about 2 kg and flips exactly once; her knees take the landing; the wheels hit together in one jolt with no bounce; her ponytail swings a beat after her head, then settles. A 180-degree shutter, so the flipping board blurs and her face is sharp at the landing.
TEXTURE: Chipped yellow paint and wax marks on the lip of the stairs; scuffed concrete on the run-up; her white shoes gone grey at the toes; the frame sits off-centre.
LIGHTING: A single soft key from the open dusk sky beyond the flyover on frame right, 5600 K; the underpass sits in shade, two stops under the sky; passing headlights lay a moving warm 3200 K rim along her shoulder as they sweep. No surface lights itself.
AUDIO: Sound effects only. A low rumble of traffic overhead; 0.5 s and 1.6 s two pushes, rubber on concrete; 3.1 s the snap of the tail; 3.2 s the pigeons' wings; 4.6 s four wheels slapping down together; 5.0 s a rolling hum. No music and no voices. Nothing rises, swooshes, stings or fades at the opening, at a cut, or as the clip closes. No subtitles and no on-screen text.
STYLE: A crisp, present-day digital-cinema look: rich deep shadows, cool sky against warm headlights, firm contrast, natural skin; light seen only where it lands, as highlights and reflections on real surfaces.
POSITIVE LOCKS: Exactly one skater and one board with four wheels; both feet on the board at the landing. The stairs stay five. The take fails if the board flips more than once, she slows into slow motion, or a second person appears.
Check the take
On the 480p draft, the board flips once, all four wheels land together, and nothing slows. Look for the operator: a small lag on the pop and an overshoot on the landing. On the finish, her face at the landing goes beside the identity close-up, and her feet and the board are counted.
Common failure and fix: the action drifts into slow motion. Say real time and exclude slow motion by name, as here. A gimbal-smooth handheld gets the operator's body written in (see Camera and lens → The honest, fallible operator).