How to use vibe prompting in your video workflow

AI has become a key part of many creators’ creative processes. Nowadays, the question is less whether or not to use AI, but how to best use AI. One option is to let AI completely take over your process and create your work for you. It might be easy, but it’s not exactly creative or fulfilling. 

Another option is to treat the AI tool you’re working with like a collaborator, helping you bring your vision to life. The latter is where the industry is moving and what vibe prompting is all about. 

Vibe prompting is the practice of steering AI with mood, atmosphere, and pacing cues so the output matches the desired feeling of your story. It’s a total game-changer because, after all, art is all about making your audience feel something. 

If you just tell AI what to put in the shot, it often leads to generic, stock-like results. On the other hand, describing the energy of the scene — the lighting, motion, texture, tempo, and emotional tone — helps you generate visuals that feel intentional and accurate to your vision.

This article breaks down what vibe prompting is, then shows you how to write effective vibe prompts step by step. You’ll get practical tips, common pitfalls to avoid, and plenty of examples to make things clear.

Let’s get into it.

What vibe prompting means for video creators and their workflows

Vibe prompting shifts the focus when writing AI prompts from simply listing objects to setting the atmosphere of a scene. Instead of describing everything you want the AI to place in the frame, you describe the emotional tone, pacing, and texture of the moment. This small change leads to visuals that feel intentional rather than generic.

This practice can fit into every phase of the video workflow:

In pre-production, vibe prompting helps you make concept art and moodboards that more accurately reflect the vision you have in your head. You can generate scenes that match the energy you’re seeking for your project — warm, nostalgic, tense, surreal, etc. — without over-explaining every detail. This gives you clearer references for color, lighting, and framing before you shoot.

During production, vibe prompting helps you make decisions about elements like lighting, continuity, and camera movement. If you’re generating pre-visualizations or testing coverage, describing the vibe of a sequence helps maintain consistency across locations and setups. 

In post-production, vibe prompting gives you more inspiration and clarity about transitions, stylized B-roll, the tone of your voiceover, and more. You can match motion, voiceover delivery, and pacing to the mood you established earlier, making your edit feel cohesive. If you’re combining real shots with AI-generated B-roll, vibe prompting will help you match the look and feel of both.

Vibe prompting also supports you when you’re experimenting and testing. You can quickly explore multiple atmospheres for the same scene — calm vs. chaotic, soft vs. sharp, dreamy vs. grounded — and see which direction resonates. 

Here is an example of a prompt written by following these steps: 

“Medium shot of a tranquil swimming pool at sunset. Pale light, water ripples gently. A woman floats slowly on a pool floaty, a dreamy expression on her face. Dreamlike color grading with muted blues and soft pink highlights, smooth motion, and retro film texture. Ambient audio of pool water and distant birds.”

And here is the resulting video output:

Tips for vibe prompting

Here are some practical tips to keep in mind when experimenting with vibe prompting for the first time to help you get better, more intentional results.

Make your prompts action-driven

The key thing bringing video to life is motion, so if you want your result to feel alive rather than static, remember to describe how the scene moves. Focus on subject motion, scene motion, and camera motion. Instead of “a couple in a coffee shop,” try “a panning left-to-right shot of a couple in a coffee shop sipping their coffee as raindrops roll down the window.”

Anchor the vibe in time

Vibe has a when as much as a where. Time of day, season, and weather all change the way light behaves. Models like Veo 3.1 respond especially well when you specify these temporal cues early in the prompt.

Trade abstract mood for concrete details  

Phrases like “moody lighting” or “cinematic vibe” are hard for models to interpret in a consistent way. It’s more effective to describe what the viewer would see, hear, or feel. Instead of “moody office,” try “dimly lit office with a single desk lamp casting warm light across scattered papers.” That kind of detail helps models lock onto a clear visual and audio identity.

Keep prompts focused and iterate

Most video models do better with one clear shot idea than a long list of actions. Aim for a single subject action and a simple camera move, then generate variations instead of trying to cover everything in one prompt. Start with a clean base prompt, see how the model responds, and only then add or adjust one element at a time. This is especially helpful for Kling 2.6, which tends to reward prompt simplicity and shot-by-shot iteration.

Add texture and limits so the vibe stays human

If you say nothing about texture, many models default to glossy, hyper-smooth renders. If you want something that feels more human, include cues like “soft film grain,” “slight handheld wobble,” or “gentle lens halation around highlights.” This keeps the result closer to the imperfect, tactile look many creators prefer. 

Build a personal vibe library

Save your strongest vibe prompts as you go. Over time, you’ll develop repeatable archetypes for moods you use often. This speeds up your workflow and creates more consistent visuals across projects.

Common mistakes and how to avoid them

Here are some common pitfalls creators run into when they’re getting started with vibe prompting.

Relying on objects instead of mood and pacing

A list of items in a scene won’t create a vibe on its own. Vibe comes from mood, pacing, and texture, so if you only describe what’s in the frame rather than how it behaves, most models fill the gaps with generic choices. Add motion, atmosphere, and sensory context to keep your results intentional. 

Mixing incompatible atmospheres

Models struggle when you blend conflicting moods in a single prompt, like “stormy tension with warm nostalgic glow.” This can cause the model to reinterpret the scene in unpredictable ways, or split the difference in ways you don’t expect. A simple fix is to choose one dominant emotional lane and build around it or separate competing moods into distinct shots instead of forcing them into the same prompt.

Forgetting about sound

A video’s mood depends as much on audio as visuals. If you don’t prompt for ambient sound, dialogue, or audio cues, you risk an emotional mismatch between what’s seen and what’s heard. Models like Sora 2 and Veo 3.1 can generate ambient audio automatically, so you’ll want the visuals to match the pace and mood of your story. 

Expecting a single long generation to stay consistent

Longer clips introduce more room for identity drift, lighting shifts, and tonal inconsistencies. Most models handle short, focused shots far better than extended sequences. Treat each shot as its own creative moment, then stitch them together in your edit for continuity. You’ll get cleaner pacing, smoother motion, and more reliable vibe control.

Before and after: fixing common vibe-prompting mistakes

To make these principles concrete, here’s a quick example of how to apply our tips to fix common vibe prompting mistakes and write a great, effective vibe prompt.

Prompt 1: “A cinematic shot of a giant jellyfish floating through a city at night with futuristic buildings. Slow motion, dramatic atmosphere”

What’s going wrong:

• “Cinematic” and “dramatic atmosphere” are abstract and easy to misinterpret
• No clear emotional tone
• No specific camera behavior or pacing
• Motion is implied, not described
• No specific audio cues

The result might look impressive, but it doesn’t feel or look intentional. The details aren’t specific enough to feel like it could be real, so it won’t connect with the audience.

Prompt 2 : “A slow, contemplative wide shot of a massive translucent jellyfish drifting between skyscrapers in a rain-soaked city at dusk. Its body expands and contracts in an unhurried rhythm, releasing soft bioluminescent blues and violets that wash across glass facades and dissolve into the mist.
The camera moves forward steadily from street level, slightly below the jellyfish, allowing its scale to reveal itself gradually. Long tendrils trail behind it, bending and swaying as if the air has weight, their motion calm and continuous rather than dramatic.
Rain falls lightly through frame, catching stray light before disappearing into shadow. Neon signage flickers intermittently behind fogged windows, their reflections stretching across wet concrete far below. The overall motion of the scene feels slow and suspended, as if the city is holding its breath.
Style reference: a believable modern city where impossible things appear quietly, lit like real life and observed with patience rather than drama.
The image carries subtle film grain, softened highlights, and gentle lens bloom around brighter lights, avoiding a glossy or hyper-clean look.
Audio mood: distant traffic reduced to a low, muffled hum, wind moving between buildings, and a deep, tonal swell that rises and fades in time with the jellyfish’s pulsing glow. No dialogue or sharp sound cues.
Single continuous shot. Calm pacing. Observational, grounded, and slightly surreal.“

Why this works:

• Describes motion so you see the jellyfish – pulse, drift, and cast moving light
• Anchors the vibe in time, place, and atmosphere – dusk, rain, late evening
• Describes the audio
• Keeps the emotional tone consistent
• Adds texture so the model avoids hyper-polished output
• Uses a single, focused shot idea instead of conflicting moods

This is the kind of prompt Kling 2.6 Pro rewards. With vibe promoting, you can write as you think, connect with the audience perfectly, and still be in clear intent, with a strong sense of mood and motion.

Create more intentional content with vibe prompting

Vibe prompting is a practical and fun way to create videos that feel intentional, expressive, and aligned with your creative voice. As models evolve, emotional cues and atmospheric detail are becoming just as important as the visual elements you describe. When you combine those cues with your own taste and storytelling instincts, you’ll immediately stand out from the generic outputs that flood most feeds.

The best way to get comfortable with vibe prompting is to experiment. Try a few variations, compare results, and build a library of prompts that match the moods you love working with. Start shaping your own visuals today in the Artlist AI image and video generator and see how quickly the right vibe changes everything.