Video

Plan your scenes, shape your dialogue, and build videos the way you want them.

  • Trending Topics in Imagine

    Trending Topics turns your bot into a co-creator on what's happening right now. Cantina surfaces current names, hashtags, and conversation starters in Imagine so you can drop one in and watch your bot riff on it, which is great for telling today's stories in your bot's voice, exploring culture-of-the-moment scenes, and finding a spark when your brain blanks.

    Where to find it

    1. Tap Imagine in the bottom nav.
    2. Pick a bot — swipe through your bots, or use the search to find one.
    3. Tap the text box at the bottom of the screen. This is the step that unlocks Suggested Topics — a live grid of currently trending names, hashtags, and references appears above the keyboard.
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    How to use it

    1. Tap a topic in the Suggested Topics popup. Your bot creates a story or a quick video about that topic, in their voice. 
    2. See the result. If you like it, share, save, or build on it from there.
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    Why it helps

    • Ride the moment — tell stories about what's actually happening today, in your bot's voice.
    • Your bot stays current — topics refresh as culture shifts, so there's always something new to riff on.
    • Mix and match — try the same topic across different bots to see how each personality spins it.
    • Skip the blank page — when you don't know where to start, a topic gets you moving.

    Keep going

    Got a topic you want to see?

    Share ideas with the community in The Bot Place.

     
  • Selfies as Scene Anchors

    One of the most useful workflows on Cantina isn't obvious from the surface: instead of jumping straight into an Imagine video, prompt several selfies first — then use those selfies as the foundation for each scene in a multi-scene video.

    The selfie locks in the look (wardrobe, setting, lighting, vibe, camera feel). Once you're happy with it, the video builds motion on top of a look you've already chosen. Each selfie becomes a scene anchor. The video built from those anchors inherits everything you put into them.

    This article walks through the workflow, why it works, and patterns for keeping multi-scene videos feeling like one piece.

    Why this works

    Think of it as storyboarding your video before you build it. You prompt a selfie, see how it looks, tweak the prompt, see the new selfie, and iterate until each starting image is exactly right. Then you build the video from those starting points.

    This shifts where you do the visual decision-making. Instead of describing wardrobe, setting, lighting, color, and motion all at once in a single video prompt, you nail the look one scene at a time in still images. Then you bring those images to life in the video.

    • Generic selfie → generic scene.
    • Layered selfie → layered scene.

    If your selfie prompt is rich (subject + action + setting + wardrobe + camera + lighting + color + finish), the scene built from it inherits every layer. See Structure Your Prompt for the recipe.

    The workflow

    Step 1. Plan your scenes. Sketch a quick arc — morning → noon → night, before → during → after, scene 1 → scene 2 → scene 3. Two to four scenes is a comfortable range.

    Step 2. Prompt rich selfies in chat with your bot. Write a layered selfie prompt for each scene — setting, wardrobe, time of day, camera, lighting, color, vibe. (See Starter Prompt Library for examples and Structure Your Prompt for the recipe.)

    Step 3. Tweak each selfie prompt until the result looks right. This is where the visual decision-making happens — fast, in still images, before committing to a video.

    Step 4. Open Imagine, tap Video, and pick your bot.

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    Step 5. Open the Add Image picker and tap a selfie. Your recent chat selfies show up in a grid with timestamps ("1m ago", "3m ago", "4m ago"). Tap one to use as the visual anchor for a scene.

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    Step 6. Imagine generates a dialogue + action prompt for that scene. A "Generating script…" overlay plays while it writes.

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    Step 7. Land in the Video editor with the scene loaded. Each scene has a Dialogue field (what your bot says) and an Action Prompt field (what your bot does). Edit either or both. Repeat for each scene in your video.

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    Step 8. Tap Save / Generate to render the final video.

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    You don't have to do all scenes in one sitting. Build your selfie library over days in chat, then pull from it when you're ready to make a video.

    Want a scene or a whole video without dialogue?

    Every scene comes with auto-generated dialogue, but you don't have to keep it. Clear the Dialogue field for any scene to drop the dialogue. The Action Prompt still drives motion.

    For the full workflow, mix-and-match patterns, and when no-dialogue scenes work best, see No Dialogue Imagine Videos.

    A full example — a bot's day

    Here's a three-scene arc and the selfie prompts behind it. The screenshots in this section come from a real walkthrough with Carl.

    Scene 1 — morning at the desk

    At your desk with one cup of fresh coffee, soft morning light, focused expression.

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    Sets the day. Wardrobe is implied (Carl's standard look), light is soft and morning-warm, vibe is private and focused.

    Scene 2 — midday on the street

    Walking through a busy city street, midday sun, more energy, warm smile.

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    Shifts the energy. Light is harsh and bright, the world is full of people, the mood is social and active.

    Scene 3 — golden hour at the bar

    Winding down at a bar, window seat. Golden hour glow. One mojito on the table.

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    Lands the day. Light returns to warm and intimate, the mojito gives the scene a prop, the vibe is celebratory and quiet.

    Use these three selfies as scene anchors for the Imagine video. The arc carries the viewer through the day even without an explicit story — the time of day, location, and mood do the work.

    The final video

    Here's what the three selfies become once stitched together as Imagine scenes:

    Notice how the arc carries: morning quiet → midday energy → evening wind-down. The wardrobe, light, and mood across the three selfies do most of the storytelling — Imagine builds the motion and dialogue on top.

    Keeping your scenes feeling like one video

    Multi-scene videos work best when the scenes feel connected. A few ways to do this:

    • Repeat one consistent element. Same jewelry, same hairstyle, same color in the wardrobe, same color grade family. One repeated detail makes three scenes feel like one trip.
    • Use a color arc. Move through related grades instead of jumping wildly. Warm cream → saturated noon → amber gold all live in the same warm family. Compare to jumping to a cool blue noir scene mid-arc — it'll feel like a different video.
    • Match finish cues. If selfie 1 is cinematic film grain and selfie 3 is digital sharp, the scenes will feel like they came from different cameras. Pick one finish and run it through every scene.
    • Anchor the camera language too. Three handheld shots feel like one video. One handheld + one static wide + one fisheye feels like three different videos.

    Picking your scenes — a few arc patterns

    If you're stuck on what scenes to use, here are arcs that work well:

    • Time of day. Morning → midday → golden hour → night. Easy to plan, easy to vary lighting.
    • Before / during / after. Getting ready → at the event → the morning after.
    • Location-to-location. Apartment → walking → destination.
    • Day in the life. Wake up → work → dinner → wind down.
    • Emotional arc. Calm → chaos → calm. Or anxious → confident.
    • Wardrobe change. Same place, different outfit per scene — lets the wardrobe carry the story.

    When to use this workflow vs. a single Imagine prompt

    Use scene anchors when:

    • You want a multi-scene video with a clear arc.
    • You want each scene's look to be deliberate (specific wardrobe, lighting, color per scene).
    • You're telling a story or building a vignette.
    • You want to share the result externally and care about polish.

    Skip scene anchors and prompt Imagine directly when:

    • You want one short clip, not a multi-scene video.
    • You're experimenting and don't have a specific look in mind.
    • You're going for casual / chat-side energy.
    • You're in a hurry. Direct Imagine is faster.

    See Fast Videos vs Imagine Videos for more on when each video tool is the right fit.

    When scenes don't feel connected

    If your finished video feels like three different videos stitched together, the fix is usually in the selfie prompts — not the video build.

    1. Compare the three selfie prompts side by side. Find the layers that disagree (one scene is cinematic film grain, another is digital sharp; one is warm tones, another is cool).
    2. Rewrite the outlier to match the family. Pick one of the three as the anchor and pull the others toward it.
    3. Re-generate the selfies and rebuild the video.

    Small edits to the selfie prompts ripple through to the scenes — you don't have to rebuild from scratch.

    Keep going

     

  • No Dialogue Imagine Videos

    Want your bot to just do the thing — no voiceover, no dialogue? You can make any Imagine video silent, or mix silent and spoken scenes inside a single video.

    The quick version

    1. Open your Imagine video in the editor.
    2. Tap Edit Script at the bottom.
    3. Open the Dialogue field for the scene you want silent.
    4. Delete the text.
    5. Tap the check mark to save.
    6. Generate the video.

    The scene plays silent. The action prompt still drives what your bot does.

    How it works

    Every Imagine scene has two fields:

    • Dialogue — what your bot says
    • Action Prompt — what your bot does (and any ambient sound you want)

    Both are auto-generated when Imagine writes the script for a new scene. They work independently:

    • Delete the Dialogue → the scene plays silent.
    • Keep the Action Prompt → your bot still moves through the scene the way you described.

    The Action Prompt is what gives your bot direction — keep it in place. You can always edit it to refine what your bot does.

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    Add ambient sound if you want it

    A scene with empty Dialogue plays without a voiceover. If you want ambient sound — rain on a window, café chatter, soft music — describe it in the Action Prompt below the dialogue window. The action prompt drives both motion and the soundscape.

    Examples of ambient sound in an action prompt:

    • "Carl sips his coffee while soft rain patters on the window outside."
    • "Carl walks through the busy market, vendors calling out and city traffic in the background."
    • "Carl leans back at the bar, soft lounge music playing under the clink of glasses."

    Mix silent and spoken scenes in the same video

    Each scene in a multi-scene video is independent. You can:

    • Keep dialogue on Scene 1, go silent on Scene 2, more dialogue on Scene 3.
    • Open with a silent moment, end with a voiceover.
    • Make the whole video silent.
    • Whatever the story calls for.

    Clear the dialogue per scene. Save each. Generate.

    When to go silent

    Silent scenes work well for:

    • Establishing shots — a slow camera move across a setting before your bot speaks.
    • Reaction beats — a look, a gesture, a held expression that's stronger without words.
    • Mood pieces — atmosphere-driven scenes where the visuals carry everything.
    • Soundtrack-led videos — if you're planning to add music later and don't want a voiceover competing.
    • Just because — some videos land harder without speech.

    Examples for you to try

    Open the Action Prompt for the scene you want, swap in your bot's name (or just describe what's happening), and clear the Dialogue field.

    Quiet moment:

    [Your bot] walks slowly across an empty room, pauses at the window, looks out at the rain.

    Reaction beat:

    [Your bot] reads the letter, jaw tightens, eyes drop to the floor.

    Mood piece with ambient sound:

    [Your bot] sips coffee at a quiet café, soft rain patters on the window outside, distant chatter in the background.

    Establishing shot:

    Wide view of a sunlit kitchen — [Your bot] steps in, sets down a grocery bag, glances around.

    Drop any of these into the Action Prompt, leave the Dialogue blank, and generate.

    Keep going