AI Video Model Benchmark 2026
Speed, price and success rate for the video and image models we run, measured on real production jobs. Methodology, CSV and citation included.
Learn the grammar.
Direct the shot.
Field guides, prompt recipes and studio walkthroughs for directing AI video and image models, from your first frame to a finished cut.
FXI Studio field guides are long-form tutorials from the cutting room: shot grammar, prompt structures and real clips rendered inside FXI Studio. Frame chaining and consistent characters are the two techniques every multi-shot AI film needs, so most directors start there.
Speed, price and success rate for the video and image models we run, measured on real production jobs. Methodology, CSV and citation included.
Realistic motion with synchronized sound in a single pass. A director’s guide to intensity modifiers, camera language, and writing the Sound line like a sound designer.
Six shot types, six prompt structures, six real clips. The working grammar that separates an AI-generated clip from one worth projecting on a wall.
Install the free extension, sign in once, and drop generated takes, stems, and vocals straight onto your tracks without leaving the session.
How to choose an AI tool for a short film: check for a shot plan, one cast across shots, continuous motion between shots and a finished cut. What each approach suits, and where FXI Studio fits.
Veo 3.1 is a text-to-video and image-to-video model known for physical realism, native audio, and prompt adherence. In FXI Studio you direct it per shot with a named lens, then chain shots into a scene.
Kling v3 is an AI video model strong on expressive character motion, dynamic action, and typography coherence. In FXI Studio you direct it per shot and chain shots into a continuous sequence.
LTX 2 is a fast AI video model built for quick iteration and camera-controlled shots, with first-frame and last-frame inputs for frame chaining. In FXI Studio you direct it per shot and chain shots into a scene.
Nano Banana is an AI image editor that edits a photo from a plain-language instruction and keeps the same subject across edits. In FXI Studio you use it to restyle, retouch, and prepare frames for video.
Turn listing photos into a real estate video in FXI Studio. Seedance 2.0 Mini reads up to 9 room photos; a 30-second walkthrough is 150 credits.
Turn flat product photos into moving ecommerce shots without a studio booking. In FXI Studio you edit the frame, animate it into a clean product move, and chain shots into a short spot, directed end to end.
Produce ad creative and UGC-style video variations fast, without booking creators for every concept. In FXI Studio you direct a spot shot by shot and chain shots into a finished ad, then spin variations to test.
Frame chaining feeds the last frame of one AI video clip in as the first frame of the next, so a whole sequence reads as one continuous shot with no clip stutter or crossfades. Here is the exact first-frame / last-frame workflow, the models that support it, and how FXI Studio runs it natively.
Make a kids counting song cartoon with AI: write the lyrics, design one consistent mascot, and lip-sync it to each sung line. 32-second demo, real credit costs.
Make a music video with AI: lock the song, draw a still per shot, lip-sync the singer line by line, and chain camera moves. Real credit costs, free to start.
Turn an image into a video with AI: attach it as the first frame, describe only the motion, add a last frame to steer the ending. Models and credit costs compared.
Make an AI drama series: write a series bible, save a recurring cast, and build each episode from cold open to cliffhanger. Real credit costs per episode.
Make an animated kids values story with AI: pick one value, write five beats, design an original mascot, chain the shots and add a narrator. Real credit costs.
Get the perfect shot with ready-to-use camera moves. Copy a recipe, drop it into any shot.
Every written FXI Studio tutorial sits in one filterable index, grouped by what you are making: a model to learn, a pipeline to run, or a finished piece.
Showing 46 tutorials
Original Study
Speed, price and success rate for the video and image models we run, measured on real production jobs. Methodology, CSV and citation included.
Model Guide
Realistic motion with synchronized sound in a single pass. A director’s guide to intensity modifiers, camera language, and writing the Sound line like a sound designer.
Field Guide
Six shot types, six prompt structures, six real clips. The working grammar that separates an AI-generated clip from one worth projecting on a wall.
Workflow
Install the free extension, sign in once, and drop generated takes, stems, and vocals straight onto your tracks without leaving the session.
Pipeline
Frame chaining is the workflow of feeding each AI clip’s last frame into the next clip’s first frame, so a series of separate shots becomes one continuous, flowing sequence with no hard cuts. It is how you turn a storyboard of stills into a single cinematic move — and it is a built-in FXI Studio capability.
Pipeline
AI character consistency means holding one character’s face, wardrobe, and identity stable across many shots. You achieve it by building a reference sheet once, attaching it to every generation, and describing the character with identical words each time — or by tagging a reusable character so the studio carries the identity for you.
Pipeline
You build an AI storyboard by rapidly generating one still per shot with a fast image model, keeping your character consistent across every frame, then ordering the stills as a shot list. In FXI Studio a creator can go from an idea to a multi-shot storyboard in well under a minute, then animate it.
Model Guide
Veo 3.1 Fast is a text-to-video model that renders short cinematic clips with synchronized audio in one pass. Prompt it with one camera move, a named light source, a mood, and a sound line — then chain each clip’s last frame into the next for a continuous shot.
Model Guide
Kling v3 is a text-to-video model with unusually strong on-screen text rendering and steady, native multi-shot framing. Prompt it with the exact words you want on screen in quotes, one camera grammar, and a clear subject — it holds legible typography where most models smear it.
Model Guide
Nano Banana 2 is an image model that excels at fast, clean, well-composed stills and at holding a character consistent across many frames when you feed it reference images. Attach one or more references, describe the same subject in the same words each time, and it keeps the identity locked across a whole storyboard.
Model Guide
Z-Image Turbo is a fast image model built for ideation — it turns a written idea into a filmic still in seconds, so you can explore a look before committing credits to video. Prompt it like a cinematographer: name the film stock, the light, and the frame, then iterate quickly toward your storyboard.
Model Guide
Paste this LTX 2.5 prompt: "Slow dolly-in through a misty forest clearing from the first frame to the last frame, morning light through the canopy. Steady, cinematic, no cut." The pattern is subject, one camera move, light, then "no cut". Describe only the motion between your frames and keep draft previews short.
Model Guide
P-Video is a transition model: give it a first frame and a last frame and it generates the continuous motion between them, handing one shot to the next with no visible cut. It is the engine behind frame chaining — the workflow that turns a stack of separate stills into one flowing sequence.
Use Case
You make a cat-and-mouse comedy short by ideating the gag as stills, storyboarding the chase with a fast image model, locking both characters as consistent references, animating each beat, and frame-chaining the clips into one continuous film. A whole 7-shot chase can come together in a single session.
Use Case
You make an AI product ad by rendering a clean hero still, generating macro detail shots that keep the product identical, adding a legible on-screen callout, and frame-chaining the shots into one polished sequence with synced sound. The whole spot can be built and finished in a single session.
Use Case
A character sheet for AI video should include aligned front, three-quarter and profile views on a neutral background with even light, plus one or two memorable details. Make it with AI by rendering those views of one character, then save the sheet as a reusable reference you attach to every still and shot so the character stays the same.
Use Case
You make an AI movie trailer by ideating the film’s look as stills, generating a handful of striking hero shots with synced sound, cutting in legible text stings, scoring it to a rising beat, and frame-chaining the montage into one escalating sequence. The whole trailer can be assembled in a single session.
Workflow guide
Judge a short-film tool by what a film needs and a single clip does not: a shot plan, the same characters in every shot, continuous motion between shots, and a finished cut. If a tool only turns one prompt into one clip, the rest of the film is still manual work.
Workflow guide
First-frame to last-frame generation can also change shot size inside one move: give the model a wide first frame and a close-up last frame of the same subject, and it authors the push-in between them. Keep light, wardrobe and subject position consistent across the two frames.
Workflow guide
The cheapest way to iterate AI film shots is to refine on still images first, lock the exact frame you want, then generate video from it only once. An image iteration costs about $0.02, while video costs far more, so getting the frame right before you commit to motion is where the savings live.
Workflow guide
Board in stills, animate only what you approved. One key frame per shot sets where the shot starts; add an end frame only where the shot must land on a specific composition. That order keeps video credits for shots that are already right.
Workflow guide
Directing an AI video means deciding the coverage, the lens, and the continuity up front, then revising each shot against that plan, instead of typing one prompt and hoping. FXI Studio gives you an AI director who proposes shots and flags problems, so you make the calls a director makes rather than gambling on a single generation.
Workflow guide
To keep a character consistent across AI video shots, anchor every shot to the same character reference and carry frames forward instead of re-describing the character each time. FXI Studio holds a character across a directed scene, so a face, a wardrobe, and a look stay the same from the first shot to the last.
Model guide
Seedance Fast is a speed-first AI video model built for quick, low-cost shots while you are still exploring a scene. It trades some polish for turnaround, so you can iterate coverage cheaply and only reach for a premium model once the shot is settled. In FXI Studio it is the sensible default for early passes.
Model guide
WAN is a versatile AI video model that generates motion from either a text prompt or a starting image, which makes it a flexible general-purpose choice for shots that begin from a still or from a description. In FXI Studio it sits alongside the other video models so you can pick it per shot rather than being locked to one engine.
Model guide
Hailuo 2.3 is not available in FXI Studio. The MiniMax video models you can use today are MiniMax H3 Turbo, a fast, low-cost model for blocking an idea, and Minimax H3 Max, a higher-fidelity model for the final take once the preview is right. Pick either per shot from the composer.
Workflow guide
To split a storyboard grid into individual shots for AI generation, drop the grid image into a grid splitter that detects its rows and columns and cuts each panel into a separate image. Board-Chop does this free in your browser, then lets you download the frames or hand one to an image-to-video shot to animate it.
Model guide
Veo 3.1 is an AI video model that turns a text prompt or a still image into a short cinematic clip with synchronized native audio. It is prized for physical realism, steady camera motion, and close prompt adherence. In FXI Studio you direct it one shot at a time and chain shots into a continuous scene.
Model guide
Kling is an AI video model built for expressive motion: fluid character movement, dynamic action, and coherent on-screen text. Kling v3 handles fast movement and gesture more convincingly than most models, which makes it a strong pick for performance and energetic shots. In FXI Studio you direct it per shot and chain the shots into a scene.
Model guide
LTX 2 is a fast AI video model built for quick iteration and camera-controlled shots. It renders in seconds rather than minutes and accepts first-frame and last-frame inputs, which makes it well suited to frame chaining. In FXI Studio you use it to draft and direct coverage quickly, then chain shots into a continuous scene.
Model guide
Nano Banana is an AI image editor that changes a photo from a plain-language instruction while keeping the same subject recognizable across edits. It handles restyling, retouching, background changes, and character-consistent edits. In FXI Studio you use it to refine a frame and prepare it to become the first frame of a video shot.
Use-case guide
Many room photos need an engine that reads them together. Seedance 2.0 Mini is the intro pick because it holds a whole set of listing photos as references, so the kitchen still matches the living room it flows from. Plan one move per clip, check every clip against the home, and step up to a premium engine only for the hero shot.
Use-case guide
To make AI product video for ecommerce, turn your existing product photos into clean moving shots. In FXI Studio you refine the product frame with an AI image editor, hand it into an image-to-video shot so the camera turns around the product, and chain shots into a short spot, without booking a studio or a rotating table.
Use-case guide
To make AI ad creative and UGC-style video, direct a short spot shot by shot and chain the shots into a finished ad, then spin variations to test. In FXI Studio you build the hook, the product beat, and the payoff as directed shots rather than prompt-and-pray clips, so you can produce many creative variations without booking a creator for each one.
Workflow guide
To make AI video clips flow as one continuous shot, extract the final frame of each clip and use it as the starting frame of the next. That shared frame removes the jump between clips. FXI Studio automates this handoff in its node pipelines, Director Mode, and the CineGraph Seamless Loop, so you chain shots without stitching frames by hand.
Workflow guide
A one-line idea is enough to start, but the film comes from the plan, not the line. Bezaleel turns the idea into scenes you can read, edit and approve before any video credits are spent, so you direct the result instead of re-rolling one long prompt.
Workflow guide
Scripts become video one scene at a time. The work is in the breakdown: which beats become shots, what each shot looks like, and which characters must match across shots. Automating that breakdown, then approving it, is what makes a script-to-video workflow hold together.
Use-case guide
A good AI launch video is directed, not prompted. Lock the product look in a still first, animate from that frame so the product does not drift, and keep words and logos out of the generated frames: add them last, where they stay sharp.
Workflow guide
The cost of an AI film is set by how many takes you render, not by crew or locations. Plan the shots and approve stills first, so most takes land on the first or second try, and a minute of film stays in the single-digit to low double-digit dollars.
Use-case guide
A gratitude film works because it is specific: one person, one memory, one sentence of thanks. Plan it as stills first, where changes are cheap, and spend on motion only for the frames you have already approved.
Workflow guide
Frame chaining is simple to describe and easy to get wrong in practice: the model does not always honor the last-frame anchor, so a real production budgets for a retake on at least one seam. The worked example below needed one retake on two of its four chained shots and still finished for 90 credits.
Use-case guide
The trick is the slice: each video clip hears only its own line of the song, so the mascot sings exactly those words. Our 32-second demo below took 6 singing shots and about 253 credits for one pass.
Use-case guide
Treat the song as the script. Every sung line becomes a singing shot that hears only its own slice of the audio, and every instrumental gap becomes a camera move. A 58-second cut planned this way costs about 368 credits in FXI Studio.
Use-case guide
The image already decides the look, so the prompt should only decide the motion. In FXI Studio a 5-second image-to-video clip costs from 20 credits, and free accounts can animate images with P-Video.
Use-case guide
A series is a cast that keeps coming back, so build the cast once and the episodes get cheaper. Episode 1 of the plan below is 52 seconds and about 367 credits; every later episode with the same cast is about 352.
Use-case guide
Kids remember a story when the value is something the character does, not something the narrator says. The 30-second plan below is 6 chained shots on P-Video and about 195 credits, with one mascot held across every shot.
Each FXI Studio surface has a short walkthrough of what it does, ready to open.

Screen walkthrough · 46 sec
Carry the last frame of one clip into the next as its first frame, until a storyboard plays as one continuous shot.
Watch the walkthrough
Director
From a blank canvas to a cut with Director Mode.

Generate
Models, settings and styles on the Generate page.

Image to video
Turn a finished still into a moving shot.

Atmosphere
Ambient loops built from vibe, light and motion presets.

CineGraph
Node-based pipelines that chain models together.

Reference
Every tool, setting and model, explained in one place.
FXI Studio’s free browser tools need no sign-up. The video tools run on your device, so your footage never leaves it.

Free tool
Paste a story and get a six-scene film plan: shots, characters, sound and edit notes.

Free tool
Turn any clip into a GIF. Trim, size and download in seconds.

Free tool
Save the first or last frame of a video as a JPG, ready to chain into the next shot.

Free tool
Cut the start and end of a clip on a filmstrip. Lossless when it can be.

Free tool
Reframe a video to 9:16, 1:1, 4:5 or 16:9 for TikTok, Reels and YouTube.

Free tool
Shrink a video under 25 MB, 16 MB or any size you pick, and see the saving.

Free tool
Count your shots, pick an engine, and see the credit range and the plan that covers it.
Short, direct answers to the questions directors ask most.
Browse guidesEvery tool in the studio, how it works and when to reach for it.
Read the docsFinished work made in FXI Studio, with the prompts behind it.
Explore the galleryLooking for a specific tool? Browse the documentation, the guides, or all tutorials.