Runway Gen-4.5 Prompting Cheat Sheet

Full sentences, not keywords — and the one model whose vendor documents that negatives can produce the opposite.

TL;DR — THE SHORT VERSION

Order: subject → action → setting → camera → motion over time → style.
Write full sentences in natural language. Not keyword strings, not brackets.
Simple already works. Extra length buys stylistic control, not obedience.
Negatives are unsupported — and can backfire. Runway: including one "may result in the opposite happening".
Their instruction: "Avoid negative prompting, such as no clouds in the sky, for the best prompt adherence."

VENDOR-DOCUMENTED

This sheet quotes the vendor's own published prompting guidance.

The formula

Subject → Action → Setting → Camera → Motion over time → Style

Template:

[Subject] [does what] in [setting]. The camera [movement]. Over the clip, [how the motion develops]. [Style and mood].

Worked example:

A ceramicist centres a ball of clay and draws it upward in a north-facing studio at dusk. The camera pushes in slowly on her hands. Over the clip the form rises and steadies. Muted earth palette, window light only, documentary realism.

Breakdown — what each part does

Subject

Anchor the prompt to what matters. Full sentence, not a tag.

Action / pose

What the subject does.

Setting

Environment and surroundings.

Camera

How the camera behaves — stated once, plainly.

Motion over time

How the shot develops across its length. This is the part keyword prompts always omit.

Style

Atmosphere and artistic direction, last.

Does it take a negative prompt?

Not supported — and Runway documents that using one can invert.NO

Every exclusion must become a description of what is present. Not "no crowd" but "an empty platform, the benches bare". Runway's stated reason is prompt adherence: negation degrades it, and their documentation goes further and warns the excluded thing may appear.

What not to do

Do not write negative phrasing anywhere in the prompt — it is the documented failure case for this model.✕

Do not write keyword strings. Runway asks for natural sentences.✕

Do not assume more words means more control; they state simple prompts already work well.✕

Do not use bracket formats carried over from Seedance — they cut against natural-language parsing.✕

WHY THE FOLKLORE IS TRUE HERE

"Negatives make it do the opposite" is widely repeated about AI video generally and is usually wrong. On Runway it is the vendor's own documented behaviour. If you have pasted a generic negative block into Runway and still got watermarks and text overlays, this is the likely reason.

The checklist

Before you send it:

1 — Written as full sentences?□

2 — Subject first, style last?□

3 — Camera behaviour stated once?□

4 — Included how the motion develops over time?□

5 — Zero negative phrasing anywhere in the prompt?□

SOURCE

Runway, Gen-4 Image and Gen-4 Video prompting guides, help.runwayml.com. Checked 25 Aug 2026.

Model versions and vendor documentation both move. Re-read the source before relying on a specific number. Errors are logged at corrections.

Every other sheet in this set: all model cheat sheets.