Consistent Cinematography with Midjourney: Cinematic Prompt Cheatsheet

A Guide To Creating Cinematic Images With Midjourney

Image by the author & Midjourney

Cinematic Prompt Anatomy

There are many ways to create images that have a “cinematic” look. Generally, we perceive images as “cinematic” if they contain artifacts of real-world filmmaking, such as certain camera angles and shot types, cinematic scene composition, lighting effects or character placement, etc.

This may sound trivial at first, but this general observation has some interesting implications when it comes to developing “cinematic prompts” with Midjourney. Basically, in order to make our images “cinematic” we want to show as many artifacts of traditional filmmaking as possible.

Here is a schematic drawing showing how a single prompt can contain all the necessary cinematic artifacts and how they relate to the corresponding filmmaking crafts.

Image by the author

• A Prefix or Trigger is used to add context to Midjourney’s holistic prompt interpretations
• A scene description includes (explicitly or implicitly) character placement, action…