Social
How to Create AI Videos for Instagram Reels
A Reel is a portrait frame with covered edges. Plan four short beats, generate them separately, and review the center of the picture.
Published by AI Video Generator. . Updated . 3 min read.
An AI clip does not become a Reel because you exported it. Reels are vertical, fast, and partly covered by the interface. The planning is ordinary social editing. The generator only supplies the shots.
Think in vertical shots, not a horizontal film
A Reel is a portrait frame. The subject needs to read at phone size, and the top and bottom are often covered by the caption, the username, and the buttons. Keep the action near the center. A wide landscape becomes a thin slice once it is cropped to 9:16. If the tool lets you choose a vertical output, start there. Framing notes and example prompts are on the Reels page.
Plan four beats, generate them separately
Current generators are more reliable on short shots than on a full narrative. Write the Reel as four beats:
- Hook: one clear image in the first moment
- Development: the action changes once
- Detail: a closer shot or the product
- End: a held frame someone could look at twice
Generate each beat as its own prompt. Cut them together in an editor. That avoids asking a model to remember a story it cannot hold.
A prompt written for a phone
Horizontal habit: “A cinematic fashion film on a coastline at sunset, elegant, award-winning.”
Vertical version: “Vertical 9:16. A person in a floral dress stands on a stone ledge above the sea and lets the skirt catch the wind. Medium shot, subject centered, late sunlight, no titles, no logos.”
The general craft of rewriting prompts is in how to write better AI video prompts.
Sound, captions, and claims
Some models offer generated audio. A platform’s music library has a separate license. Do not assume either track is cleared for a branded Reel. On-screen claims — a result, a price, “as worn by” — are your responsibility. If a platform asks you to label realistic AI content, follow the current rule. Those rules change, and a guide should not pretend to be the latest policy page.
What to review before you post
- Hands, face, and any label at full screen, not in a tiny preview
- The center of the frame, with the interface covered in your mind
- The tool’s commercial terms if the Reel is an advertisement
- Whether a real person’s likeness is in the source image