The Tuck Shop Prompt: the exact Seedance 2.5 prompt, in full
A nine-year-old runs a state primary school on sweets. One prompt, eight beats, 30 seconds, native dialogue, no edit. Here is the exact prompt that made it, and the method behind every block so you can build your own.
Published 2026-10-05 by Cat Claw, the UK's create-and-distribute AI studio. About a 26 minute read.
The short version
- The Tuck Shop is a 30-second AI comedy made from one Seedance 2.5 prompt in Cat Claw: text to video, 9:16, 1080p, with native dialogue and sound generated alongside the picture.
- The prompt is built like a director's shot list, not a wish list: scene context, character, location map, first frame, format mode, optics, camera, action, performance, physics, lighting, wardrobe, audio, spoken words, style, output settings and positive locks.
- The film is 8 beats on a power ladder, each 3.5 to 4.5 seconds, and every beat climbs one rung: gate teacher, kids, deputy head, dinner lady, rival, headteacher.
- Dialogue lives in one block only. A line written in both ACTION and SPOKEN WORDS gets said twice and the lip sync slips. That is the golden rule on Seedance 2.5.
- Cute is forgettable. Cute plus one odd detail is a character. The unibrow is why people remember her and why the model keeps her consistent across 7 hard cuts.
- Run it in Cat Claw: lock the model to Seedance 2.5, set 9:16 and 30 seconds, paste the whole prompt, run a Draft at 480p first, then finalise the same take in 1080p within 24 hours.
The Tuck Shop is a 30-second hyper-real selfie vlog, filmed on a phone by a nine-year-old girl who controls the sweet trade at her school. The staff take her bribes, the kids pay her from every side, and by the final shot the headteacher gives up her chair. It was made in one text-to-video run on Seedance 2.5 inside Cat Claw, with the dialogue, the ambience and the eight hard cuts all generated from a single prompt. No camera, no crew, no editor.
The Reel passed 15,000 views and the promise was simple: comment the keyword and the prompt is yours. This page is that promise in full. The complete prompt is below, unedited, with a breakdown of what each block does, the comedy timing, the face and camera rules, and the fixes for when a render goes wrong. The same material is in the free 14-page PDF if you would rather keep it on your phone.
What is the Tuck Shop prompt?
Quick answer. The Tuck Shop prompt is a single Seedance 2.5 text-to-video prompt that produces a 30-second, 8-beat deadpan school comedy with synchronised dialogue in one take. It is free to copy from this page or as a PDF, and it runs unchanged inside Cat Claw. Swap the world, the currency and the boss and the same skeleton makes any "small person runs a big place" story.
- 30 seconds, one take, native audio (The Tuck Shop, Seedance 2.5 render)
- 1 prompt, 8 beats, zero editing (The Tuck Shop, Seedance 2.5 render)
- 0 actors, cameras or crew (The Tuck Shop, Seedance 2.5 render)
Engine: Seedance 2.5. Mode: text to video. Length: 30 seconds. Frame: 9:16. Resolution: 1080p. Audio: native, generated with the picture. Everything in this guide runs inside Cat Claw, and the prompt is reproduced exactly as it was submitted, so what you paste is what made the film.
- Download The Tuck Shop Prompt PDF (14 pages, free)
- Seedance 2.5 and every other Seedance tier in Cat Claw
- Which AI model should I use? The plain-English guide
The film in 8 beats
Thirty seconds, one prompt, eight beats, no edit. Each beat is one action and one line, and the line lands after the action so the picture sets the joke up and the words knock it down.
| Beat | Time | Job | What happens | Line |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0.0 to 3.5s | Hook | The school gates. The teacher on gate duty pockets a chocolate bar and waves her through. | "They shut the tuck shop. Big mistake." |
| 2 | 3.5 to 7.0s | The operation | Kids pay her on the move across the wet playground. Lookouts on the climbing frame. | "Lookouts. Paid in strawberry laces." |
| 3 | 7.0 to 10.5s | Proof | The stash behind the rainforest wall display, sorted by colour. | "Stash six. Of fourteen." |
| 4 | 10.5 to 14.0s | Threat | The deputy head is searching bags. She hides the goods in a papier-mâché volcano. | "Science project." |
| 5 | 14.0 to 17.5s | Twist | He finds it, takes one chocolate bar, walks on without a word. | "Everyone wants a cut." |
| 6 | 17.5 to 21.0s | Scale | The whole lunch hall pays. The dinner lady is on the payroll. | "Dinner lady. Third drop this week." |
| 7 | 21.0 to 25.5s | Confrontation | A bigger Year 6 rival blocks the path. Sherbet buys respect. | "Year Six lot, yeah? Got sherbet." |
| 8 | 25.5 to 30.0s | Payoff and button | The headteacher gives up her chair. A silent shrug, then she stops recording. | "Morning, boss." |
How to run it in Cat Claw, step by step
Here is the exact route from a blank screen to a posted Reel. Nothing here needs a camera, a crew or an editor.
- Lock the model to Seedance 2.5. Smart mode picks a model for you, but this one needs Seedance 2.5 specifically. It is the only tier that runs a full 30 seconds in a single take with native, synchronised dialogue and sound.
- Set the frame. Choose 9:16 and 30 seconds. That is the native shape for Reels, TikTok and Shorts, so nothing gets cropped later.
- Paste the full prompt. Copy everything from SCENE CONTEXT to the end of POSITIVE LOCKS and paste it in as one prompt. Do not trim it. Every block is doing a job, and the section below the prompt tells you which.
- Run a Draft first. Switch Draft on for your first pass. You get a 480p preview for a fraction of the price, and the composition, motion, dialogue and camera are all testable. If the take lands, finalise that same take in 1080p from Seedance Studio within 24 hours.
- Check the 4 danger zones. Her face and outfit across the cuts. Lip sync, and any line said twice. The volcano beat, which has the most props moving at once. And the last 4.5 seconds, which have to fit the chair, the mug and the final line.
- Fix it, do not re-roll it. One bad moment does not mean a new 30-second render. In Cut Studio, Reshoot gives you a new take with your direction, Extend adds 5 seconds from the last frame, and Upscale takes the finished film to 4K.
- Finish and post. Stitch can burn in word-timed captions from the speech, draw a hook line over the first 3 seconds, score your opening with Hook Check and level the sound to the minus 14 LUFS social target. Then post straight to your socials through Puurfect Post.
Pro move: lock her face before you shoot. Generate one clean still of your character, then run it through Kitten Shot as a Character Board. Seedream Pro gives the tightest identity lock. Attach the board as your reference image and cut the CHARACTER block down to one line saying she matches the reference exactly. Same face, all 8 cuts.
The full prompt, copy and paste
Paste it as one block. This is the exact prompt that made the film, unedited. Paste everything below, from SCENE CONTEXT to POSITIVE LOCKS, as one prompt. Line breaks are fine; the model reads it the same.
SCENE CONTEXT. A 30-second hyper-real selfie vlog, filmed front-facing on a phone from first frame to last by a nine-year-old girl on an ordinary school day at a state primary school in England. The school runs like a prison and she is the top dog: she controls the sweets, the staff take her bribes, the kids pay her from every side, and she has hidden stashes all over the building. She holds the phone at arm's length in one hand and is in constant motion every second: walking, ducking, hiding, paying off, collecting, checking over her shoulder. The tone is dry deadpan comedy: everyone treats the sweet trade, the bribes and the playground politics as normal daily life.
CHARACTER. A nine-year-old girl of mixed British and East Asian heritage, small for her age, cute and round-cheeked: sharp dark brown monolid eyes, a thick dark unibrow joined across the middle of her forehead, faint freckles across her nose, a gap where one front tooth is missing. Black hair scraped into two high bunches with purple scrunchies, a few loose strands stuck to her forehead with drizzle. Felt-tip pen stains on her fingers. She speaks English with a light South London accent: a small child's voice pitched low, quick, dry and flat, whispering whenever an adult is near, always short lines. Her look is identical in every shot.
LOCATION MAP. A red-brick Victorian primary school with a flat-roofed newer extension, in an English town on a grey, damp October morning. Outdoors: a tall green mesh security fence around the playground, painted hopscotch on wet tarmac, a wooden climbing frame, a grey portacabin classroom on breeze blocks at the back, puddles, a CCTV camera on a pole, kids standing in tight groups along the wall like an exercise yard. Indoors: a long corridor with coat pegs, bright paper wall displays, a red fire bucket of sand and a lost property box; a lunch hall with long fold-out tables, plastic trays and a steaming serving hatch; a headteacher's office with a wooden desk, a big black leather swivel chair and a window onto the playground. Hidden stashes are everywhere: sweet packets taped under tables, wedged into the fire bucket, peeking out of the lost property box. Every child wears the same uniform: bottle-green sweatshirt with a small embroidered crest, grey trousers or skirt, black shoes. Adults tower over her at full adult height. Everyone ignores the phone. Colour lives in the materials: bottle-green jumpers reading muted under the grey sky, wet red brick darkened by drizzle, yellow hi-vis vests and the red fire bucket as the only loud accents. All signs, posters and displays show pictures, colours and shapes rather than readable words.
FIRST FRAME / BLOCKING. First frame: her face centred in the vertical frame from the chest up, phone held at arm's length about 50 cm away, slightly below eye level, already walking through the school gates, her free hand gripping the strap of her bum bag. The gates and the teacher on gate duty sit over her shoulder at frame right. In every shot her face anchors the frame with the location readable behind her.
FORMAT MODE. Timed multishot, 30 seconds, hard jump cuts at the times listed in ACTION. Cuts only at the specified points; the camera does not cut on its own.
OPTICS. 84° front-facing phone lens throughout, intimate wide: her face centred and sharp, surroundings readable behind her with gentle natural falloff. Same 84° in every segment, no drift mid-segment.
CAMERA. Selfie mode from start to finish, the phone in her hand every second and always moving. Natural handheld shake that follows her steps, a brief autofocus hunt when her hand moves fast, small exposure shifts as she passes from shade into window light. Twice she turns the phone away for about one second to show something, then swings it back to her face. Tonal character of a modern flagship phone in cinematic video mode: crisp detail, smooth highlight roll-off on the white sky, deep but readable shadows.
ACTION (picture only, all dialogue lives in SPOKEN WORDS). 0.0s to 3.5s: The school gates. She walks through at 5 km/h, glancing left and right. A male teacher on gate duty in a yellow hi-vis vest, whistle round his neck and travel mug in hand, is checking bags. She presses a chocolate bar into his hand as she passes; he slides it into his vest pocket and waves her straight through without looking at her bag. 3.5s HARD CUT. 3.5s to 7.0s: The playground, like an exercise yard. She cuts across the wet tarmac at 5 km/h while kids fall into step on both sides of her and press things into her bum bag without breaking stride: coins, a shiny trading card, a packet of crisps. She turns the phone away for one second to show two older kids sitting on top of the climbing frame in oversized hi-vis vests, watching the yard; one gives her a tiny nod. Back to her face. 7.0s HARD CUT. 7.0s to 10.5s: The corridor. She stops at a paper rainforest wall display, peels back a loose corner with two fingers and reveals a hollow behind it packed with rows of sweet packets sorted by colour. She takes out a fat paper bag of sweets, presses the corner flat and walks on, tapping the fire bucket and the lost property box as she passes, sweet wrappers peeking out of both. 10.5s HARD CUT. 10.5s to 14.0s: Further down the corridor. She freezes: ahead, the deputy head, a tall man in a grey suit with a lanyard and a clipboard, is checking bags. She spins and walks quickly the other way at 7 km/h, ducks behind a trolley of blue PE mats, drops the sweet bag inside a large papier-mâché volcano sitting on a table outside a classroom, sets the cone-shaped top back on and stands beside it humming, hands clasped behind her back. 14.0s HARD CUT. 14.0s to 17.5s: The deputy head stops at the volcano and taps it twice with his pen. She tilts the phone down to show his polished black shoes, then back up to her face, eyes wide, unibrow lifted in the middle. He lifts the top of the volcano, takes out one chocolate bar, sets the top back, slips the bar into his jacket and walks on without a word. 17.5s HARD CUT. 17.5s to 21.0s: The lunch hall, busy as a market. She weaves between the long tables at 6 km/h; at every table a kid slides payment towards her without looking up: coins, a yoghurt, a trading card. At the serving hatch a dinner lady in a blue tabard and hairnet piles extra chips onto her plate and slides a folded paper napkin heavy with coins across the counter; the girl pockets it without breaking stride. 21.0s HARD CUT. 21.0s to 25.5s: The narrow gap between the portacabin and the fence. A taller Year 6 boy with a plaster across his nose, tie loosened, arms folded, steps in front of her and blocks the way. She steps back once and pushes her hood down. She tips a little sherbet powder from a paper bag into his open palm; he licks it, nods slowly and steps aside. 25.5s HARD CUT. 25.5s to 30.0s: The headteacher's office. She pushes the door open without knocking. The headteacher, a stern woman in her fifties in a cardigan with reading glasses on a chain, rises from the big leather swivel chair and steps aside. The girl climbs into the chair, feet dangling well above the carpet. The headteacher leans in at frame right and sets down a mug of hot chocolate topped with marshmallows. The girl looks into the phone, shrugs one shoulder and reaches towards it to stop recording.
PERFORMANCE. Deadpan from start to finish. Her unibrow does the acting: it drops into a hard flat line when she scans for adults, lifts in the middle when she plays innocent, and stays perfectly still when she is in charge. Her eyes go to the lens on every line and flick off-frame left and right between lines to check behind her. Restrained, unhurried mouth movement; whispers are delivered close to the phone. Hyper-real skin: cold-flushed cheeks, fine baby hair at her hairline, damp strands from the drizzle, living eyes with grey sky catch-lights outdoors and soft window catch-lights indoors, faint visible breath in the cold air outside. Every adult and child around her behaves completely normally and pays the camera no attention.
PHYSICS. Coins weigh down her bum bag, which swings and clinks against her with every step. Her oversized puffer coat squashes and rustles as she ducks and turns. Drizzle beads on the coat's shell and darkens the tarmac; her shoes flick small splashes from puddles. The volcano top rocks slightly under the pen taps. Sherbet powder drifts as a small white puff between her hand and his palm. Steam rises from the serving hatch and from the hot chocolate.
LIGHTING. Outdoors: flat overcast English morning, the whole grey sky acting as a soft top light, light drizzle on and off, an occasional thin break of watery sun, white balance 6000K, haze softening the far side of the playground at 60 metres. Corridor: cool fluorescent ceiling tubes at 4000K mixed with grey window light from frame left. Lunch hall: high windows plus fluorescent tubes at 4000K, a warm amber glow over the serving hatch from the heat lamps. Headteacher's office: grey window daylight behind the desk, a warm desk lamp at frame left lifting her face. Exposure set for her face in every shot, the sky rolling off softly to white.
WARDROBE. An oversized black puffer coat a size too big, faux-fur trimmed hood half up, sleeves swallowing her hands to the knuckles, damp with drizzle. Underneath, the bottle-green school sweatshirt with a small embroidered crest over a white polo collar, a grey pleated skirt, white knee socks with one slumped to her ankle, scuffed black Velcro shoes. A worn black bum bag worn cross-body across her chest, bulging with coins. A red school lanyard round her neck holding a ring of small brass padlock keys that jingle as she moves. Her outfit is identical in every shot.
AUDIO. Natural location sound and her voice, recorded through the phone's own microphone with slight wind and handling noise outdoors. Ambience by segment: 0.0s to 3.5s: the school bell, cars on the drop-off, kids shouting, a gate latch. 3.5s to 7.0s: a whistle, a football smacking the fence, distant chanting, shoes on wet tarmac. 7.0s to 10.5s: echoey corridor, paper rustling, a classroom murmur through a door. 10.5s to 14.0s: measured footsteps on lino, a clipboard clip snapping, her nervous humming. 14.0s to 17.5s: a pen tapping papier-mâché, a dry cough, footsteps fading. 17.5s to 21.0s: lunch hall roar, cutlery, trays, a serving spoon on a metal tray, coins. 21.0s to 25.5s: wind against the portacabin, the paper bag crinkling. 25.5s to 30.0s: the door swinging, the leather chair creaking, the mug set down on the desk, the tap of her finger on the phone. Every other child and adult speaks only in muffled, unintelligible murmurs in the background.
SPOKEN WORDS: each line is spoken exactly once, in this order, at these times, with nothing repeated or added. Mouths match these exact words. 1.2s to 3.0s, the girl, whispered: "They shut the tuck shop. Big mistake." 4.8s to 6.6s, the girl: "Lookouts. Paid in strawberry laces." 8.4s to 10.0s, the girl: "Stash six. Of fourteen." 12.8s to 13.8s, the girl, whispered: "Science project." 15.8s to 17.2s, the girl, whispered: "Everyone wants a cut." 19.0s to 20.8s, the girl: "Dinner lady. Third drop this week." 22.4s to 24.0s, the girl: "Year Six lot, yeah? Got sherbet." 24.8s to 25.3s, the girl: "Respect." 28.0s to 28.8s, the headteacher, flat and dry: "Morning, boss." The girl stays silent for the rest of the clip.
STYLE. Hyper-real cinematic phone vlog: raw footage uploaded straight from the phone, framed with a filmmaker's eye. Crisp 4K detail, true-to-life colour with gentle filmic contrast, mild compression grain, natural skin texture, background falling softly out of focus behind her. Photoreal in every frame.
OUTPUT SETTINGS. 30 seconds, 9:16 vertical, real time throughout, 24fps, audio generated.
POSITIVE LOCKS. The girl looks identical in every shot: unibrow, two high bunches with purple scrunchies, gap in her front teeth, oversized black puffer coat, bum bag, lanyard of keys. The phone stays in her hand and moving every second. Same grey overcast sky and drizzle in every outdoor shot. Hard cuts only at 3.5s, 7.0s, 10.5s, 14.0s, 17.5s, 21.0s and 25.5s. She is the only clear voice apart from the headteacher's single line at the end, and every line is said once. Audio is natural ambience and dialogue only. Clean frame showing the footage itself, free of captions, logos and graphics.
Inside the prompt: why it works
This prompt is built like a director's shot list, not a wish list. Each block answers one question the model would otherwise guess at.
| Block | What it does |
|---|---|
| Scene context | The pitch in one breath: genre, premise and tone. Saying "dry deadpan comedy" up front makes every later choice lean flat and straight-faced. |
| Character | The identity lock. Age, heritage, signature features and voice, specific enough that she can only be drawn one way. |
| Location map | The world, the extras and the colour plan. The last line, pictures not words on signs, stops the model writing gibberish on the walls. |
| First frame | Where everything sits at 0.0s, so the film starts composed instead of searching for itself. |
| Format mode | Cuts only where you say. Without it, the model invents its own edit. |
| Optics | One lens for the whole film. 84° front camera reads as one phone, one person, one day. |
| Camera | How the phone behaves: shake that follows her steps, a focus hunt, exposure shifts. Imperfection is what sells "real". |
| Action | Picture only. Eight timed beats, each one action, with hard cuts written as their own lines. |
| Performance | Faces written as muscle movements, not moods. See the facial expressions section. |
| Physics | Small true things: coins weighing the bag down, drizzle beading on nylon, sherbet puffing. The brain believes detail. |
| Lighting | Per location, with white balance numbers, so the corridor looks fluorescent and the playground looks like October. |
| Wardrobe | The outfit, described once, locked for every shot. |
| Audio and spoken words | Ambience per beat, then every line written once with exact timings. This is the block that makes the lip sync land. |
| Style and locks | The finish, then the non-negotiables repeated as a final checklist, all phrased as what you want. |
The golden rule on Seedance 2.5. Dialogue lives in one place only. If a line appears in the ACTION beats and in SPOKEN WORDS, it gets spoken twice and the lip sync slips. Keep ACTION as picture only and give every line its own timing in a single block.
Defining characteristics: the unibrow principle
Cute is forgettable. Cute plus one odd detail is a character. The unibrow is why people remember her, and it is also why the model keeps her consistent across 7 hard cuts. Distinctive features are easier to lock than generic ones. Build every lead from 5 anchors.
| Anchor | Hers | Why it earns its place |
|---|---|---|
| Face | Thick dark unibrow, missing front tooth | The unibrow is the comedy instrument. The gap tooth makes every whisper cuter. |
| Hair | Two high bunches, purple scrunchies | A silhouette you can read in a thumbnail, plus a colour pop that repeats in every shot. |
| Hero garment | Oversized black puffer, a size too big | Small child, big coat. Instant "boss" energy, and it hides her hands like a mob boss in a parka. |
| Props | Bum bag of coins, lanyard of brass keys | They tell the story without a line: she is paid, and she holds the keys to every stash. |
| Voice | Low, flat, quick South London whisper | Deadpan lives in the voice. A small voice pitched low is funnier than a squeaky one. |
- Physical and specific beats vague. "Funny eyebrows" means nothing to a model. "A thick dark unibrow joined across the middle of her forehead" can only be drawn one way.
- Make the anchor act. Her unibrow does the performing: a hard flat line when she scans for adults, lifted in the middle when she plays innocent. A trait that never moves is decoration.
- Cast against the role. The joke is the gap between who she is and what she runs. The toughest boss is the smallest kid. The sweetest nan runs the bingo racket.
- Repeat the anchors in POSITIVE LOCKS. Naming them once more at the end gives the model a final checklist for every cut.
- Give supporting roles one anchor each, at least. A plaster across the nose, reading glasses on a chain, a hi-vis vest. In our render the headteacher came out as a man in a suit and the gate teacher drifted towards a police uniform, because they had a fraction of her detail. If a supporting role matters to the joke, describe them properly and lock them too.
Anchors to steal. Round glasses taped at the bridge. A gold front tooth. A mullet. One sock pulled up, one slumped. A single permanently raised eyebrow. A walkie-talkie that never works. A hi-vis vest on a toddler. A briefcase on a six-year-old. A dressing gown worn like a fur coat.
Comedy beats and timing: rhythm is the joke
Comedy in 30 seconds is rhythm. This film is 8 beats on a power ladder, each one 3.5 to 4.5 seconds long, and every beat climbs one rung higher than the last. Hook, the operation, proof, threat, twist, scale, confrontation, payoff. These are the timing rules it runs on.
- Hook inside 1.5 seconds. The first line starts at 1.2s. If the premise lands late, the scroll wins.
- One action, one line per beat. The line lands after the action, so the picture sets the joke up and the words knock it down.
- Lines under 2 seconds, 2 to 6 words. Short, flat, finished. Long lines rush the lip sync and kill the deadpan.
- Leave air before every cut. At least half a second between a line ending and the next hard cut. Cuts land in pauses, never mid-word.
- Climb the ladder. Gate teacher, kids, deputy head, dinner lady, rival, headteacher. Each person she controls outranks the last.
- Nobody reacts. Deadpan comes from the world treating madness as normal. Write it in: "everyone treats the sweet trade as normal daily life".
- Give the payoff the longest beat. 4.5 seconds and fewer actions, then end on a button: a shrug, a look, a hand reaching to stop recording.
Facial expressions: muscles, not moods
A model cannot act a mood, but it can move a face. Write what the muscles do and the emotion arrives on its own.
| Instead of | Write |
|---|---|
| She looks suspicious | Her unibrow drops into a hard flat line, eyes narrow slightly and flick left and right |
| She acts innocent | Unibrow lifted in the middle, eyes wide, lips pressed together, hands clasped behind her back, humming |
| She is in charge | Face perfectly still, unibrow level, one slow blink, eyes straight down the lens |
| She is nervous | Eyes wide, a quick swallow, the phone tilting down to the adult's shoes and back up |
| He grudgingly accepts | He licks the sherbet, nods slowly once, and steps aside |
- Pick one instrument. One feature carries the performance. Hers is the unibrow. Everything else stays still, which is what makes it deadpan.
- Direct the eyes. To the lens on every line, flicking off-frame between lines. That one instruction sells paranoia and makes her feel alive.
- Keep the mouth calm. "Restrained, unhurried mouth movement" keeps lip sync clean. Whispers go "close to the phone".
- Tie the face to the hands. Hands clasped behind the back, a hand gripping the bum bag strap. Body language finishes the expression.
- Write living skin. Cold-flushed cheeks, baby hair at the hairline, damp strands, catch-lights in the eyes, breath in the cold air. This is where hyper-real comes from.
- Flatten everyone else. "Every adult and child behaves completely normally." Neutral faces make hers the only reaction that counts.
Camera angles: the phone is a character
The camera is a phone in a nine-year-old's hand. Every angle in the film comes from that one decision, and every one of them is doing comedy work.
| The move | How it is written | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Arm's-length selfie | About 50 cm away, slightly below eye level | A touch of low angle gives a small kid quiet authority. It is how real phone vlogs look. |
| Locked lens | 84° front camera, same in every segment | Every cut feels like the same phone on the same day. Changing lens mid-film breaks the illusion. |
| Face anchors the frame | Face centred, the location readable behind | The joke needs both: her reaction and what she is reacting to, in one frame. |
| The turn-away reveal | Turns the phone away for one second, then back | Shows what she will not say out loud. Used twice: the lookouts and the deputy's shoes. |
| The tilt to the shoes | Tilts down to his polished shoes, then back up | The tension shot. An adult reduced to a pair of shoes, seen from her height. |
| Scale | Adults tower over her at full adult height | The height gap is the power gap, flipped. Big people, small boss. |
| Handheld physics | Shake that follows her steps, focus hunts, exposure shifts | Imperfection is realism. A perfectly smooth phone shot reads as fake. |
| Jump cuts | Hard cuts at set times, in the pauses | Reads as a real vlog edit and keeps the pace brutal. |
Same story, different camera. Try the same script as school CCTV (a static high wide angle, black and white), a doorbell camera (fisheye, fixed), a body cam on the deputy head, or a proper cinematic version with a low-angle hero shot and a slow push-in on the final chair. When you change the camera, rewrite OPTICS, CAMERA and FIRST FRAME together so they agree.
Make it yours: keep the skeleton
Keep the structure, swap the flesh. The bones of this prompt work for any "small person runs a big place" story.
| Swap | Ideas |
|---|---|
| The world | An office where the intern runs the biscuit trade. A hospital ward run by the tea trolley. A Sunday league dressing room where the kitman controls the orange slices. A cruise ship kids' club. A retirement village where Nan runs the bingo dabbers. |
| The currency | Sweets become biscuits, phone chargers, the Wi-Fi password, parking permits, the good stapler. |
| The boss | Change age, accent and the 5 anchors. Keep the gap between who they are and what they control. |
| The ladder | List who gets bribed in rising order of power, then give each one a beat. |
- Change one block at a time and run a Draft. If it breaks, you know exactly which change did it.
- Protect the 30 seconds. If you add a beat, steal the time from another. Cut times in ACTION, SPOKEN WORDS and POSITIVE LOCKS must all match.
- Keep every line under 2 seconds and leave half a second of air before each cut.
- Update the locks. New anchors, new cut times, new speaker list. The final block should always describe the film you actually want.
- Need a 15-second version? Four beats: hook, threat, twist, payoff (3.5, 3.5, 3.5 and 4.5 seconds). It also runs on the Seedance 2.0 tiers.
- Already got a great take? Use Remix in Cat Claw to swap the uniform, props or location on the finished video while the performance stays locked.
Starter skeleton: fill the brackets. A [30]-second hyper-real [selfie vlog], filmed by [a nine-year-old girl] on an ordinary day at [a state primary school in England]. The place runs like [a prison] and [she] is the top dog: [she] controls [the sweets], [the staff] take [her] bribes and [the kids] pay [her] from every side. The tone is dry deadpan comedy: everyone treats [the sweet trade] as normal daily life. Then rebuild CHARACTER around 5 anchors, write 8 picture-only beats up a power ladder, and give every line its own timing, once, in SPOKEN WORDS.
When it breaks: fast fixes
| Problem | Fix |
|---|---|
| A line is said twice | The line is in ACTION as well as SPOKEN WORDS. Keep it in SPOKEN WORDS only. |
| Her face changes between cuts | Lock her with a Kitten Shot character board as a reference, and repeat her anchors in POSITIVE LOCKS. |
| A supporting character comes out wrong | Give them their own anchor sentence (gender, age, outfit, one prop) and add them to the locks. |
| Gibberish writing on signs | Add: "all signs, posters and displays show pictures, colours and shapes rather than readable words". |
| A busy beat turns to mush | Cut a prop or an action. One clear action per beat. |
| The ending feels rushed | Give the last beat 4.5 seconds and fewer moves. |
| Music appears from nowhere | Add: "audio is natural ambience and dialogue only". |
| Weather or sky jumps between cuts | Lock it in LIGHTING and again in POSITIVE LOCKS. |
| One great take, one bad beat | Reshoot that moment in Cut Studio instead of re-rolling all 30 seconds. |
Post it properly: get it seen
- Words on screen in the first second. A short line like "She runs the school on sweets" works as a hook and a search signal.
- Caption for search, not just for fans. Say what it is in plain words: AI-generated comedy short, Seedance 2.5, text to video, one prompt.
- Five hashtags maximum on Instagram, counted across the caption and first comment together. Pick specific ones over generic ones.
- Switch on the AI label on Instagram and TikTok. It is the honest move and it protects your reach.
- Give people a reason to comment. Ask which line got them, or offer the prompt for a keyword. That is exactly how this one travelled.
Post yours and tag @dexter_koh_1 on Instagram. If you made one, we want to see it, and the best ones get shared. The cat, for the record, was not consulted on the sweet trade.
- Download The Tuck Shop Prompt PDF (14 pages, free)
- Cut Studio: the free AI video editor inside Cat Claw
- Best tools for posting to every platform at once
Frequently asked questions
What is The Tuck Shop prompt?
It is the exact Seedance 2.5 text-to-video prompt behind a 30-second AI school comedy about a nine-year-old who runs her primary school on sweets. The Reel passed 15,000 views on Instagram. The full prompt is on this page and in a free 14-page PDF, with a breakdown of every block so you can build your own.
Which AI model do I need to run it?
Seedance 2.5, inside Cat Claw. It is the only Seedance tier that renders a full 30 seconds in one take with native, synchronised dialogue and sound. Lock the model rather than leaving Smart mode to choose. A 15-second, 4-beat version also runs on the Seedance 2.0 tiers.
How much does a 30-second Seedance 2.5 render cost?
Run a Draft first. It renders a 480p preview for a fraction of the 1080p price with the composition, motion, dialogue and camera all testable, and a draft that lands can be finalised as the same take in 1080p within 24 hours. The live rate for each resolution is shown in Cat Claw before you confirm the render, and a failed render is refunded.
Why does a line get said twice in my render?
Because it appears in two blocks. On Seedance 2.5, dialogue must live in SPOKEN WORDS only, each line once with its own timing. If the same words also sit in an ACTION beat, the model speaks them twice and the lip sync slips. Keep ACTION as picture only.
How do I keep her face the same across the cuts?
Give her 5 specific anchors (the unibrow, the two bunches with purple scrunchies, the gap tooth, the oversized black puffer, the bum bag and keys), repeat them in POSITIVE LOCKS, and for the tightest lock generate one clean still, run it through Kitten Shot as a character board and attach it as the reference image.
Can I change the story?
Yes, that is the point. Keep the skeleton and swap the world, the currency, the boss and the ladder: an intern running the office biscuit trade, a tea trolley running a hospital ward, Nan running the bingo dabbers. Change one block at a time and run a Draft after each change so you know what broke.
How do I get the PDF?
Download it from the link on this page, or comment "tuck shop" on the Reel on @dexter_koh_1 and it arrives in your Instagram DMs. It is free, 14 pages, and contains the same prompt and method as this guide.
Do I need to credit anyone if I use the prompt?
No credit is required. If you make one, tag @dexter_koh_1 on Instagram so we can see it. Do switch on the AI label when you post, which Instagram and TikTok both ask for and which protects your reach.
Your turn.
Open Cat Claw, lock the model to Seedance 2.5, paste the prompt and run a Draft. Then swap the world, the currency and the boss, and make it yours. Free to sign up, no card needed.
The full Seedance 2.5 prompt behind the 30-second AI school comedy that hit 15,000 views, block by block, plus the 8-beat structure, the face rules and how to run your own inside Cat Claw. Free PDF.