Video works like images, with three differences worth knowing before you start: it costs more, it takes longer, and the clips are short.
Starting a video
Choose Apex Video from the menu, under Create. The panel changes, because a video needs settings an image does not.
It takes reference material — images, video and optionally audio (MP3 or WAV). Video tools accept considerably more of it than the image tools do, and the panel states the limits beside each field. Resolution runs 480p to 4K.
Two ways in:
From a description. Write what should happen, generate.
From a picture. Supply a still image and describe how it should move. This gives you far more control over what the clip looks like, because you have already settled the composition — you are only directing the motion. It is the better option most of the time, and a good habit is to generate a still you like first, then animate that.
Describing motion
The prompt has to cover two things now: what is in the shot, and what moves.
a paper boat on a still pond, slow drift left to right,
camera holds steady, gentle ripplesBoth kinds of motion are worth being explicit about:
- Subject motion — what the things in the shot do
- Camera motion — slow push in, pan left, static shot
If you do not mention the camera, you get whatever the model decides, which is often more movement than you wanted. “Camera holds steady” is a useful phrase.
Ask for one clear action. A clip a few seconds long cannot deliver a sequence of events, and asking for three things usually produces none of them cleanly.
Cost and time
Video costs meaningfully more than an image and takes longer — minutes rather than seconds, depending on model and length. The exact cost is shown before you generate.
You do not need to wait on the page. The work continues after you navigate away and the finished clip is in your library when you return. If you have notifications turned on you will be told when it is done — see notifications.
Because each attempt is expensive, settle your idea on still images first. A still costs a fraction of a clip and answers most questions about framing, subject and light.
Length
Clips are short — seconds, not minutes. That is a property of how the technology works, not a limit that a higher plan removes.
Build longer pieces by generating several clips and joining them in a video editor. Keeping the same seed and the same source image across clips helps them look related.
Getting a still out of a video
You can pull a single frame from a clip and keep it as a picture — useful for a thumbnail, or when one moment of the clip is better than the clip. See editing and upscaling.
Common problems
| Problem | Cause and fix |
|---|---|
| Too much camera movement | say what the camera does — “camera holds steady” |
| Subject warps or melts partway | ask for simpler motion; complex movement is where models struggle |
| Nothing much happens | be explicit about the action; “a boat on a pond” is a description, not a direction |
| Clip is shorter than expected | length depends on the model — check what it supports |
| Result looks nothing like my idea | start from a still image instead of a description |