SL-105 / Warm-Ups

Set It Down

A hand puts a mug on a table and lets go. That is the whole shot.

The brief

A hand lowers a mug onto a table and releases it. Nothing else happens, and nothing else is in the shot.

Why it's hard

It barely is — that is the point. But even here the mug tends to float into place and the fingers open before it lands, because the model has no idea what mass does to a wrist.

The craft key

The wrist gives slightly as the table takes the weight, and the fingers release after contact — never before.

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.

set-it-down

A scratched pine kitchen table lit only by one window at midday. A hand enters from the right holding a heavy stoneware mug, chipped at the rim. The mug's base touches the wood first; the wrist gives slightly as the table takes the weight; only then do the fingers open and lift away. Nothing floats into place. Framed flat-on from across the table in the style of Chantal Akerman's kitchen scenes. A cereal bowl sits close to the lens in the bottom corner, out of focus. Older 50mm lens, soft at the edges, tripod with a small operator drift. No slow motion, no cut to a face.

Derived from the CEMI MediaMax production canon — cemi.media

Style reference: Chantal Akerman (kitchen-table framing)

Why it's built this way

The whole lesson is weight: contact first, wrist gives, fingers release after. If you only fix one thing in your second attempt, fix the order of those three events. Once it lands, vary the object — a full glass, a set of keys, a heavy book — and watch how the release changes with the weight.

Watch for

The mug arriving already at rest — it glides down and the fingers are open before the base touches, so the object reads weightless and the hand looks like it is placing a sticker.

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