SL-106 / Warm-Ups

Just Breathing

A person sits and breathes. Your job is to stop the model adding anything.

The brief

A person sits still and breathes. The only movement in the shot is breathing and the small involuntary things a still body does.

Why it's hard

Models cannot leave a shot alone. Given a still person they will supply a glance to camera, a smile, a reach — anything rather than nothing.

The craft key

Name what must NOT happen. Restraint has to be written down or it will be overwritten.

Skill Tests

02 / 28

Animal anatomy Human anatomy Biomechanics Physics & mass Water simulation Crowd dynamics Multi-shot continuity Face consistency Camera movement Unbroken take Motivated lighting Cutting rhythm Hands & fingers Hair & fabric Reflection & refraction Scale & depth Impossible geometry Period accuracy Music sync Aging & time Natural asynchrony Eye-lines & gaze Particle behaviour Motivated light source Consequence & persistence Time manipulation Graphic-layer discipline Colour as storytelling

Every challenge is scored against the same vocabulary, so you can compare them. Lit cells are what this one tests.

Starter prompt

Built with the CEMI MediaMax system for Google Veo 3.1. Prompts stay in English — that is the language these models take instructions in. Treat it as a starting point and start varying it.

just-breathing

A person sits on the edge of an unmade bed in a plain room, doing nothing. The only movement is breathing: the chest rises and falls, the shoulders settle, they swallow once, a hand shifts slightly on the knee. No glance at the camera, no smile, no reaching for anything. Grey overcast light through a bare window; the far side of the room stays dark. Shot from the side at seated height, in the style of Robby Müller, held frame with the small sway of a handheld operator. A crumpled duvet edge sits blurred across the near foreground. Old 35mm glass, slight corner softness.

Derived from the CEMI MediaMax production canon — cemi.media

Style reference: Robby Müller (available-light interiors)

Why it's built this way

This one teaches restraint: the model wants to give you an action, so the prompt has to spend as many words saying what does not happen as saying what does. Success is boring on paper and alive on screen. Next, vary the stillness — standing at a window, waiting in a chair — and keep resisting the urge to add a beat.

Watch for

The model inventing a beat anyway — a slow turn toward the lens, a small smile, or a hand rising to the face — because it reads a still body as an empty shot that needs filling.

Ran a challenge? Show us what you got.

Share your attempt — the triumphs and the glorious failures. The most instructive entries get featured on the board.