Who Has the Power
How to show who has the power in a frame. Three stills, two prompts, Midjourney.
The prompts
Copy them, run them, change whatever you want. No signup.
cinematic film still, an immense vaulted cathedral packed shoulder to shoulder with thousands of assembled nobles in dark ceremonial dress, all faces turned toward a single tiny crowned figure at the far end of an endless aisle, colossal stone columns rising out of frame, warm candlelight and gold censer smoke against the cold blue of enormous stained-glass windows, the hall dwarfing the crowd, immense ceremonial scale, symmetrical vertical composition, photorealistic, shot on 70mm, film grain, cinematography in the style of Bruno Delbonnel --ar 9:16 --style raw --stylize 250 --v 8.2 --relax --no painting, illustration
Grim medieval fantasy, photoreal cinematic still. Full figure vertical frame, no borders or bars. Woman in worn field plate dull matte gray steel, rust rimmed rivets, deep dents, snapped pauldron strap, riveted mail at armpits, soaked gambeson at elbows over a faded oxblood wool surcoat, mud heavy and torn. Helmless; dark sweat and rain plastered hair, loose strands displaced, teeth bared, breath fogging. Peak of a two handed sword swing, low arc from camera left, final blade third motion blurred, body sharp. Front foot deep in churned mud, rear leg driving, hips ahead of shoulders. Suspended sheet of mud droplets around her boot. Flat overcast, 6800K, dim sun at camera left, 3:1 ratio, fine vertical drizzle streaks. Her bare face is the brightest element. Dark treeline and drifting smoke two stops under, churned mud foreground, pale textured sky upper quarter. 35mm spherical, f/4, chest height, slight low angle, water spots on lens. Palette: slate gray, wet umber, oxblood, bone. Desaturated grade, lifted blacks, cool green shadows, heavy grain. --no letterbox, black bars, borders, matte, split screen, diptych, triptych, collage, grid --ar 9:16 --raw --hd
Why it works
Where you put a person in the frame tells the viewer how much power they hold. The middle of the frame, open space and a camera below the eyes all make a person look strong. The first slide comes from one prompt and the last two from another.
Give them the open space. In the coronation, the nobles are packed shoulder to shoulder. He stands alone in the aisle, so you know he is the one who matters.
Shoot from below. In the knight prompt, slight low angle puts the camera under her eyes. The far trees sit below her chin, so you look up at her face.
Aim the attack at the lens. The knight prompt asks for the Peak of a two handed sword swing, and she swings toward the camera. She lunges at you, so you are the one in danger.
Before you run it
Check the settings on each prompt. The coronation was made with --style raw --stylize 250 --v 8.2. The knight was made with --raw --hd, with no version set.
Do not count on the crowd’s faces. The coronation prompt asks for all faces turned toward a single tiny crowned figure, and in both renders many faces point elsewhere. The open aisle and the center of the frame did the work instead.
Run the knight more than once. One run gave four renders at four distances, from her whole body to her face. Pick the one that shows the move you want.
To make it yours, keep the staging and change the rest. Swap the people and the place. Keep the person with power in the center, give them room, and put the camera below them.