How to Frames: Mastering Start and End Frames in Google Flow (2026) — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00Of all the different ways you get to
2. 0:01create AI videos, the start and the end
3. 0:03frame are the most reliable. Welcome
4. 0:05back to this channel and on this one we
5. 0:07will explore the frames tool on Google
6. 0:09Flow. This is a straightforward direct
7. 0:12guide. I'm not going to diverge into
8. 0:13different topics. I'm just going to show
9. 0:15you what the frame is, how it works with
10. 0:17[music] examples.
11. 0:20Everything starts with your frames.
12. 0:22Think of this as your first most
13. 0:24important step. If the image quality or
14. 0:26the idea is poor, well, the video will
15. 0:29be too. To get the most out of Flow and
16. 0:32frames, [music] you really need to
17. 0:33sharpen your image generation skills
18. 0:36first. We will create a few examples,
19. 0:38but for the first example, [music] I
20. 0:39want to create the images right here
21. 0:41with you. I will go at the bottom. I'm
22. 0:43using Nano Banana Pro 16:9 and one
23. 0:45single generation. If you want to use
24. 0:47Nano Banana 2, this will work as well.
25. 0:50And [music] this is my prompt. It's just
26. 0:52a full body shot of a young woman just
27. 0:54walking on a trail. We have soft natural
28. 0:56light and subtle shadows and then we
29. 0:59finish with a natural texture candid
30. 1:01shot. I just want a lady walking in the
31. 1:03forest. That's it. If you want the
32. 1:04prompts and images I'm using for these
33. 1:06examples, let me know down in the
34. 1:07comments and I will send you a link. We
35. 1:09get it back and this is what I get. It's
36. 1:11just a woman walking in the forest.
37. 1:13[music] Fine, this will work. Now, then
38. 1:16you need to create the end frame. This
39. 1:18will be the starting frame. And to
40. 1:19create the first frame from the starting
41. 1:21frame, you have [music] two choices. You
42. 1:23can use ingredients or go to the edit.
43. 1:25And I'm going to do both, why not? I'm
44. 1:27going to go right here, just take this
45. 1:28image and then drop it as an ingredient.
46. 1:31Remember we are using Nano Banana.
47. 1:33[music]
48. 1:33Since she's not looking at the camera,
49. 1:35what I want is for her to look at the
50. 1:37camera and do something like that.
51. 1:39Simple. This is my prompt, medium close
52. 1:41shot. The subject is holding both hands
53. 1:43up towards the viewer. Her expression is
54. 1:46joyful, smiling, looking directly at the
55. 1:49lens. And then I provide the instruction
56. 1:51for the, you know, the arms. Let's run
57. 1:53the prompt and hopefully we get
58. 1:54something
59. 1:55something consistent. While this one is
60. 1:57going, you have a lot of different
61. 1:58methods of creating different images by,
62. 2:01you know, using sheets or using
63. 2:03references or using ingredients or
64. 2:05elements. Again, you have a lot of
65. 2:07different methods. This is not the main
66. 2:09topic of this video. I've created other
67. 2:11videos about subject consistency. If you
68. 2:13want to take a look, go to the cards or
69. 2:15check my channel. We get it back a
70. 2:17response and we get something, you know,
71. 2:19super consistent. It looks like it's
72. 2:21her, but most importantly, you need to
73. 2:23take a look at the the background, at
74. 2:25the setting. On the end frame is
75. 2:26something super different in the back or
76. 2:28the subject, you will be getting these
77. 2:30weird transformations, which in this
78. 2:32case is something that we don't want.
79. 2:34So, this is one way of creating the end
80. 2:36frame from the starting frame. The other
81. 2:39way is by going directly to the image
82. 2:41and then running an edit. We don't need
83. 2:43to add ingredients. I'm just going to
84. 2:45use the same prompt that we used a
85. 2:47minute ago. I'm just going to run the
86. 2:49task. When we get it back, we can see
87. 2:51it's again still pretty consistent. Now,
88. 2:53if you ask me which one which method I
89. 2:55like the most, I like the edit a little
90. 2:58bit more than creating it with [music]
91. 3:00ingredients, but as you can see, both
92. 3:01methods will work. Should you spend a
93. 3:04lot of time perfecting your start and
94. 3:06ending frame? 100% yes. Crappy frames
95. 3:10equal [music] crappy videos. And when
96. 3:12you are creating the video, no amount of
97. 3:14prompting will fix those errors. I will
98. 3:17use this image. If you want to add it to
99. 3:19your main dashboard, you just need to
100. 3:20click on save to project and then make
101. 3:23sure that you select this one before you
102. 3:25exit. And once back on your dashboard,
103. 3:27we can see that we have both images. And
104. 3:30I can say both are, you know, are fine.
105. 3:33Once you have your frames and you're
106. 3:35100% sure, your job is to prompt
107. 3:39whatever is that happens in between. I
108. 3:41will use this one as my starting. I'm
109. 3:43going to go at the bottom and select
110. 3:44video and then use frames 16:9 one
111. 3:47single output. Now, we have a new model,
112. 3:49the fast, the light [music] and the
113. 3:51quality. You know what? I'm going to use
114. 3:52the light, why not? I'm going to take
115. 3:54this as my starting frame. I'm going to
116. 3:56I can just drag and drop to the starting
117. 3:58frame or I can click on this one and I
118. 4:01can select it from the menu. Just
119. 4:03completely up to you. But I like to drag
120. 4:05and drop. So, this one will be my
121. 4:07starting and this one will be my ending
122. 4:09[music] frame. You have an icon right
123. 4:10here and with this one you can just swap
124. 4:13the starting for the ending and the
125. 4:14ending for the starting. And this is an
126. 4:16important feature. We will talk about
127. 4:18this in a minute. Of course, we see the
128. 4:20images and we know exactly what we want.
129. 4:23Nevertheless, it's a good idea to let
130. 4:24the model know what we want from [music]
131. 4:27this sequence. I'm going to go right
132. 4:28here to the prompt and my prompt will be
133. 4:31a woman is walking in the forest. The
134. 4:33camera follows her with this low
135. 4:35cinematic movement as she walks towards
136. 4:37the camera. [music] So, we are pretty
137. 4:39much describing the frames. Let's just
138. 4:41run the task and see if we get something
139. 4:43cool. Okay, so let's see.
140. 4:45She's walking. She needs to look at the
141. 4:47[music] camera.
142. 4:48And that's weird, but she needs to open
143. 4:51her arms. Now, for the most part, it's
144. 4:54fine. [music]
145. 4:54The VO it's adding some artistic
146. 4:57direction, that leaf, but again, for the
147. 5:00most part [music] it's a good
148. 5:01generation.
149. 5:03All right.
150. 5:05Okay, so as you can see, it's pretty
151. 5:06simple to work with. You add your
152. 5:08starting, your ending and then you
153. 5:10prompt what happens. Things that you
154. 5:11need to be aware of, the background and
155. 5:13the subject must match. In this case, we
156. 5:16have a consistent subject and then the
157. 5:18background it's consistent as well. If
158. 5:21the frames are way too different from
159. 5:23each other, you will be getting wild
160. 5:25transformations. Unless you want this
161. 5:27trippy five type of transformations. If
162. 5:30that's what you want, then go for it.
163. 5:32When you create a video, it has a
164. 5:33limited duration. If you prompt for her
165. 5:35to jump, laugh, spin, clap and then drop
166. 5:39a line, that will fail or it might fail.
167. 5:42The model will still try to deliver all
168. 5:44of that, but it's better if you keep it
169. 5:46concise. If you have a full body shot at
170. 5:48the start, a good idea is to stay close
171. 5:51to the full body shot. You can provide
172. 5:53completely different shots from the
173. 5:55starting and the ending, but again, most
174. 5:58often than not, you will be getting
175. 6:00somehow inconsistent generations.
176. 6:02Sometimes you will be getting something
177. 6:04awesome and sometimes you will be
178. 6:06getting something, you know, not so
179. 6:08awesome. And that's just completely
180. 6:09fine. The thing is that it will cost you
181. 6:12more credits. So, when you provide
182. 6:14completely different frames, you can
183. 6:16really expect some crappy generations.
184. 6:19Just be aware.
185. 6:21Okay, now that you know a little bit
186. 6:23more about frames, let's explore some
187. 6:25scenarios. The zoom is one of the safest
188. 6:27motions that you can execute with
189. 6:29frames. To do this, you need a zoom in
190. 6:31and zoom out image. This is my example.
191. 6:34I have a man on a mountain, let's say,
192. 6:36and then the same man with arms open and
193. 6:39looking up. You'll notice that the
194. 6:41person in my images is in a slightly
195. 6:43different pose. Now, I've created this
196. 6:45on purpose. If the subject stays in the
197. 6:48exact same pose, I mean, from a close
198. 6:50shot and then just a full body shot,
199. 6:53when you create the video and you zoom
200. 6:54in or you zoom out, it will be super
201. 6:57static. It will create a flat lifeless
202. 6:59video, just scaling the image up and
203. 7:02down. So, you need to make both shots
204. 7:05dynamic. You can change a little bit of
205. 7:06the lighting of what's going on in the
206. 7:08back. Maybe if you have cars, you can
207. 7:11add cars in the background or anything
208. 7:12in the background that is moving. Maybe
209. 7:14the wind blows and the hair or the
210. 7:17clothing moves. Let's do it. I'm going
211. 7:18to take this as a starting frame and the
212. 7:21other one as an ending frame. And of
213. 7:23course, we always need to prompt for
214. 7:25something. A man standing on the peak of
215. 7:28a mountain and the camera zooms out as
216. 7:30he opens his arms. Again, we are pretty
217. 7:33much describing the obvious, but you
218. 7:37kind of need to do this. It's a way of
219. 7:38reinforcing the model what we need to
220. 7:41do. I'm going to still run it on light.
221. 7:42Let's see what we get back. While this
222. 7:45one is going, what you can do is to go
223. 7:47right here at the bottom and you can
224. 7:48just click and it will swap the frames.
225. 7:51Now, we have the other motion. Instead
226. 7:53of zooming out, we will be zooming in.
227. 7:56I'm going to change the prompt, of
228. 7:58course, for the camera zooms in as he
229. 8:00closes his arms. Let's run it. We have
230. 8:03the first one. Let's just take a look.
231. 8:07Zoom out. Man opens his arms. It looks
232. 8:10[music] very natural. And we end on the
233. 8:14ending frame.
234. 8:15Cool.
235. 8:21You can see some issues with the video,
236. 8:22but remember that we are using the cheap
237. 8:25version of VO. If you run the quality,
238. 8:27you will be getting something better.
239. 8:29Let's take a look at the other one.
240. 8:30Zoom in.
241. 8:32It zooms in.
242. 8:38Well, that was weird. Of course, this is
243. 8:40a bad generation and the prompt and the
244. 8:42images are not the problem. It's just
245. 8:44the way it is. We got a bad generation.
246. 8:47What can we do? Well, the only thing
247. 8:48that you can do is to run it again.
248. 8:51That's it. Let's see if we get it right
249. 8:53on this generation. And uh that's a
250. 8:56little bit weird.
251. 8:58But for the most part, [music] it's
252. 8:59fine.
253. 9:02Since we are prompting for camera
254. 9:03motion, you can and you should be
255. 9:06specific. By default, if you don't
256. 9:08prompt for anything, the model will
257. 9:10create a slow type of movement. If you
258. 9:12want more energy or maybe a different
259. 9:13type of movement, you need to prompt for
260. 9:15it. You can use keywords like dolly,
261. 9:18pull, arc, crane or fast. I'm going to
262. 9:21try it right now. I will start with the
263. 9:23man, you know, the close-up and then the
264. 9:25other one will end. And my prompt is
265. 9:28going to be a man standing on the peak
266. 9:30of a mountain we can know. The camera
267. 9:32dollies out fast from the subject to
268. 9:34reveal the mountain. Cool. I'm going to
269. 9:37run this generation. And while this one
270. 9:39is going, what if you prompt for a
271. 9:41different camera motion? What we are
272. 9:43doing right now is prompting the zoom in
273. 9:45and the zoom out, which is obviously
274. 9:47what we have on the first frame and the
275. 9:48last frame. But what if I go right here
276. 9:51and do something completely different?
277. 9:53We still have the man on a mountain, but
278. 9:54then I'm saying a smooth sweeping drone
279. 9:57shot that pulls away into the clouds.
280. 9:59And hopefully you can see the problem
281. 10:01with this prompt. Because we provided an
282. 10:03ending frame, the model is forced to
283. 10:05finish on that very specific shot. If
284. 10:07[music] you prompt for a completely
285. 10:09different final scene, it will try to do
286. 10:12it and then it will be forced to finish
287. 10:14on the [music] ending frame. Depending
288. 10:16on the motion that you're prompting,
289. 10:18this can look great because it will
290. 10:20create a transition or you will be
291. 10:22getting something just super weird. It's
292. 10:24just like throwing a coin. It's like
293. 10:2650/50. Prompting for something crazy or
294. 10:28something that maybe they model will not
295. 10:31understand can give you a good result,
296. 10:33but most often not it will not. [music]
297. 10:36So, you need to have the extra credits.
298. 10:38I'm going to run this generation and
299. 10:39while this one is going, we can take a
300. 10:41look at the other one. On this one, the
301. 10:42camera needs to dolly [music] out fast
302. 10:45to reveal the background. Let's see what
303. 10:47we get back.
304. 10:50It is doing that. We said that we wanted
305. 10:52to reveal the vast mountain range. And
306. 10:55it's doing that, but it
307. 10:56>> [music]
308. 10:56>> at the same time it's just failing
309. 10:58because it's just not stopping on the
310. 11:00ending frame.
311. 11:01And to [music] finish, because again
312. 11:03it's needs to be forced to finish on
313. 11:05that ending frame, it will create a
314. 11:07transition. And this is the transition.
315. 11:11Fine.
316. 11:12Not a good generation, but again not bad
317. 11:15generation. This is still very usable.
318. 11:17Now, let's see the other one. So, in
319. 11:19theory it should be going up into the
320. 11:21clouds and then at some point go back.
321. 11:25Let's see.
322. 11:26And notice it's a little bit weird.
323. 11:28You're just getting
324. 11:29>> [music]
325. 11:29>> clouds.
326. 11:31And then the transition, of course.
327. 11:37If we run this generation like 10 times,
328. 11:40I'm pretty sure that we will be getting
329. 11:42maybe two that are usable and the rest
330. 11:45will [music] be unusable. So, when you
331. 11:47have a very specific starting frame and
332. 11:49a very specific ending frame, [music]
333. 11:50trying to prompt for something that
334. 11:52makes sense. If you provide something
335. 11:54complex, you will be getting something
336. 11:56weird and a transition. This idea
337. 11:58applies to any type of motion. Just to
338. 12:00give you one more example, I have this
339. 12:02woman and you have an idea of what I
340. 12:04want to do. [music]
341. 12:05I want to take this woman as a starting
342. 12:07frame and then I want to push in and we
343. 12:10want to see her eyes with tears. This is
344. 12:13my prompt. The camera performs a fast
345. 12:15dolly push in. Keywords fast [music]
346. 12:18dolly push in towards the eyes of the
347. 12:21woman. Again, I'm reinforcing what we
348. 12:23want to do. It's pretty obvious to push
349. 12:26in towards the eyes, but it's always a
350. 12:28good idea if you prompt for it. I'm
351. 12:31going to run this generation. While this
352. 12:33one is going, we are not providing a lot
353. 12:34of information of what will happen in
354. 12:37between. [music] And we are not saying
355. 12:39what we don't want. So, the AI might
356. 12:42fill the gaps with some effects or maybe
357. 12:45some movement from the subject or maybe
358. 12:48something completely weird. If you want
359. 12:50for the subject to stay static and the
360. 12:52background to remain consistent and
361. 12:54remain the same, you need to go to the
362. 12:57prompt and say the subject [music] is
363. 12:59completely static, the background stays
364. 13:01consistent while the camera pushes in.
365. 13:03We we get it and this should be a very
366. 13:05simple generation. But after running a
367. 13:07lot of different generations, I'm kind
368. 13:09of a let's say 50% sure that we will be
369. 13:12getting a weird transition. I'm going to
370. 13:14go right here.
371. 13:15We have the motion
372. 13:17and [music] there we go. That's the
373. 13:19weird part.
374. 13:20Nonetheless, for the most part it's it's
375. 13:23good. It's fine.
376. 13:26But it's [music] adding a little bit of
377. 13:27VFX.
378. 13:29If you don't want for the VFX, you just
379. 13:31need to say no VFX, no anything, just
380. 13:34[music] keep the background consistent
381. 13:35and on and on and on. So, you need to
382. 13:37prompt for this.
383. 13:39Fine.
384. 13:40As you can see in this video, I'm trying
385. 13:41to show you different examples, but I am
386. 13:43also expecting to get errors. So, you
387. 13:46can see where you can find some
388. 13:48glitches. The next most reliable way is
389. 13:51a static shot.
390. 13:53You have an establishing shot, which is
391. 13:56the where, and then the ending frame is
392. 13:58the what will happen. As an example, I
393. 14:00have this scene with an with a couch,
394. 14:02just an empty couch. And on the next one
395. 14:05is the complete unchanged scene, but
396. 14:07then we have a woman sleeping on the
397. 14:10couch. As before, we can assume what
398. 14:12will happen. I want an empty couch and
399. 14:14then I want the woman
400. 14:16>> [music]
401. 14:17>> sleeping on the couch. This is my
402. 14:19prompt. A woman enters the room and
403. 14:21smoothly lies down on the green couch.
404. 14:24Her weight sinking into the cushions
405. 14:26naturally. So, yeah, it's kind of simple
406. 14:28and this is a resource that we use the
407. 14:30whole time. We have the shot of
408. 14:32something and then something happens on
409. 14:34that something. It doesn't need to be a
410. 14:36room. It could be an empty car. We have
411. 14:37a shot of an empty car and then with the
412. 14:39next frame is going to be someone inside
413. 14:42the car. In this case, instead of a car,
414. 14:44we have a room. An empty room, [music]
415. 14:45someone walks in and performs an action.
416. 14:48Another thing that you can do, if you
417. 14:50don't care about the subject and how the
418. 14:53subject is, because this is part of
419. 14:55providing an ending frame. We are sure
420. 14:57that she is sleeping on this very
421. 15:00specific position, you can, of course,
422. 15:02just remove the ending frame. And then
423. 15:04when you prompt for something, the model
424. 15:06will just fill the gaps for you. And I'm
425. 15:08going to just run a test. I'm going to
426. 15:10run this generation and in the meantime,
427. 15:12we have the other one. Going to play it
428. 15:13back and I'm 100% sure that this
429. 15:16generation will be a good generation.
430. 15:18Going to play it back.
431. 15:20And it's a very simple [music]
432. 15:22generation. She needs to lie down
433. 15:25and
434. 15:27good vibes.
435. 15:34Let's go back to the beginning and
436. 15:36There we go. [music] She goes in. Oh,
437. 15:39nice couch. I'm going to take a nap.
438. 15:43And that's it.
439. 15:45Yeah, it's a pretty safe way of working
440. 15:47with frames. Let's see the other one. We
441. 15:50have no idea what is the woman, what
442. 15:52will happen and where she's going to go.
443. 15:57Nonetheless, it still is a good
444. 15:58generation.
445. 16:00Maybe this part
446. 16:03it's not and it looks a little bit
447. 16:05weird. It is just a nice touch.
448. 16:07It's that she's grabbing the blanket
449. 16:11from a different from here.
450. 16:13And of course it fails. That's why
451. 16:16providing the ending frame will always
452. 16:18guarantee [music]
453. 16:20that you get most likely good
454. 16:23generation.
455. 16:26Although again, nothing is guaranteed.
456. 16:28As I mentioned before, it doesn't need
457. 16:29to be a room or maybe the inside of
458. 16:31something. It could be a very close shot
459. 16:34of something else. On this example, I
460. 16:36have this exhaust and then of course the
461. 16:38car, you know, we turn on the car the
462. 16:40car and we see the sparkles and the
463. 16:42flame. I know that this is a little bit
464. 16:44unrealistic, but I know [music] nothing
465. 16:47about cars. I'm going to drop the
466. 16:48starting frame and I'm going to go to
467. 16:50the ending frame. And we just need to
468. 16:52prompt what happens in between. [music]
469. 16:54Static camera, close-up of a car
470. 16:56exhaust. I'm going to run the generation
471. 16:59and see if we get something cool. While
472. 17:01this one is going, nothing stops you
473. 17:03from using just the first frame and
474. 17:06trying to be creative. Just like we did
475. 17:08with the couch. But again, you can
476. 17:10expect some glitches. Just to give you
477. 17:12an example, I'm going to go to this
478. 17:14woman and I'm going to drop the [music]
479. 17:16starting frame as the starting frame.
480. 17:18And I'm going to prompt for something
481. 17:20way more challenging. The camera
482. 17:22performs a full 360° orbit around the
483. 17:25subject, [music] finishing with her
484. 17:27flashing a big smile and a cool
485. 17:30energetic pose. So, we are being a
486. 17:32little bit more creative and let's say
487. 17:34experimental and try to get something
488. 17:36super dynamic. This is actually fine,
489. 17:38but you need to really remember that
490. 17:40doing things [music] like this will cost
491. 17:42you a lot of credits. You might get it
492. 17:44on the first try, but most likely you
493. 17:47will need to run it multiple times until
494. 17:49you get what you want. I'm going to run
495. 17:51this and on the meantime, I will go to
496. 17:54this one. Let's see if we get something
497. 17:56cool
498. 17:57or something weird.
499. 17:58We get the fire and the sparkles.
500. 18:02That was a little bit weird, but it's
501. 18:04fine. It's usable.
502. 18:06We don't need to use the whole clip.
503. 18:08Sometimes you just need parts.
504. 18:10Maybe we can just stop it right here and
505. 18:11then move on to a different shot.
506. 18:15And then we get the sparks, of course.
507. 18:17Usually, almost everything that you get
508. 18:19it's usable. You just need to take the
509. 18:21different [music] parts and then go to
510. 18:23the editor and see if you can create
511. 18:25something cool. If you can't, doesn't
512. 18:26matter. You can go back, create a new
513. 18:28generation until you get something that
514. 18:30you think it will work and then take it
515. 18:32back to the editor. Let's see the 360.
516. 18:34And again, this is just like flipping a
517. 18:36coin.
518. 18:40>> [music]
519. 18:40>> Okay.
520. 18:42It was actually pretty cool. We still
521. 18:45got to get that
522. 18:46effect.
523. 18:47>> [music]
524. 18:51>> It wasn't that bad. And this was the
525. 18:53first generation. So, sometimes you will
526. 18:55be getting on the first and sometimes
527. 18:57you will need to run it multiple times
528. 18:59until you get it. That's the way it
529. 19:01works. Right, so this was an
530. 19:03introduction to frames and flow. But
531. 19:05this applies to any other platform.
532. 19:07There's so much we can do right here
533. 19:09like 2D animations, looping, time lapses
534. 19:13and a lot more. If you want for me to
535. 19:15upload videos showing you different
536. 19:16examples that we can create with frames,
537. 19:18let me know down in the comments.
538. 19:20[music] All right, so if you liked all
539. 19:21of this and you learned something new,
540. 19:23remember to like, subscribe and leave a
541. 19:25comment. Don't be a stranger.
542. 19:35>> [music]
543. 19:41[music]