Prompt Seedance for video editing

Last updated: October 12, 2026

Seedance changes one thing in a clip you already have (a costume colour, a spell effect, a prop) and keeps the rest of the shot: the same motion, camera and timing, frame for frame. Pick it when the clip is approved and only one detail has to change.

Let the agent write it

You don't have to write any of this yourself. The Layer agent knows how to prompt each model it runs, from the same guidance this page is built on. Attach the clip in chat, name the model and say what should change, for example: Edit this clip with Seedance 2 Reference: make the mage's cloak deep blue and keep everything else the same. The agent writes the prompt, shows you its plan, and runs it when you approve. Use the rest of this guide when you want to write or adjust the prompt yourself, and see Write a brief for the agent for how to brief it.

When to use it

Use Seedance to make variants of a clip without re-animating it: team colours, a new element for a spell, a swapped prop, a removed watermark. The edit follows the source frame for frame, so a variant lines up with the original in a trailer or a menu.

It is not the tool for new motion. To animate a still, see Prompt Seedance for image-to-video; to generate a clip from nothing, see Create a video.

Versions on Layer

Seedance 2 Reference

The version this guide's examples were made with. It takes the clip as its source video and edits it in place; in our tests it kept everything we did not mention. Source clips run 2 to 15 seconds.

Seedance 2 Fast Reference

The same inputs as Seedance 2 Reference, quicker and cheaper, at 480p and 720p. Use it to try an edit, then run the keeper on Seedance 2 Reference.

Seedance 2.5 Reference

Takes the clip as a Reference video and decides from your wording whether to edit it, so start with an edit word: edit, change, replace, add or remove. It supports timed edits (see below). In our test it made the same change but redrew more of the scene around it, so use Seedance 2 Reference when the rest of the shot must not move.

How to write the prompt

The clip and the change, then what stays, then the style, then what must not appear:

Strictly edit Video 1 and change the mage's red hooded cloak to a deep blue hooded cloak. Keep everything else unchanged: his face, the staff, the fireball, the background, the camera and the timing. Stylised painterly game art. No subtitles, no text, no watermark.

"Video 1" is the clip you are editing. Say what it is now and what it becomes ("change the red cloak to a deep blue cloak"), and Seedance leaves everything you don't mention as it was. That prompt is the one in the clip above: the cloak is blue in every frame, and the cast, the castle and the sunset are untouched.

What works

Keep the light out of the change

Name what must stay, and name the scene's light among it. We turned the mage's fire green twice on the same clip. Asking for the fire's "glow on the mage and the rocks" to turn green tinted the whole shot: the sunset went teal and the valley turned green. Changing "only the colour of the fire" and listing "the orange sunset sky, the warm scene lighting" as things to keep gave green fire in an unchanged scene.

Adding and removing

To add something, say what it is, when it appears and where: "a raven lands on the ruined wall behind him in the last second". To remove something, name it and repeat what must stay: "remove the watermark in the corner; keep everything else unchanged".

Swapping in your own asset

Attach the character or prop as a Reference image and name both: "Replace the staff in Video 1 with the staff from Image 1". Keep to one to five reference images for an edit.

Timed edits on 2.5

On Seedance 2.5 Reference, whole-second ranges limit the change to part of the clip: "From 2-4 seconds in Video 1, change the fireball to ice; leave the rest of the content unchanged."

Name the style

End with the medium ("stylised painterly game art") so a stylised clip keeps its look through the edit.

What to avoid

Several changes in one pass

An edit that changes several things at once, or mixes an edit with new references, comes back unstable. Run one change per pass and edit the result again.

A new shape

An edit keeps the source clip's shape and length. Asking it for another aspect ratio fills the new area with imagery that doesn't match. Reframe the clip first, or generate a new one.

Expecting the original sound

With Generate audio off, the edited clip comes back silent: the source's sound is not carried over. Turn it on and describe the sound when the clip needs it.

Expecting a negative prompt

Seedance has no negative prompt. Close the edit with plain constraints: "no subtitles, no text, no watermark".

ByteDance's guide also warns against writing "reference Video 1", which can turn an edit into a new clip. On Seedance 2 Reference our "Reference Video 1" run still edited the clip, because Layer passes it as the source video, but "Video 1" is the safe wording on every version.

Settings that matter

The clip you open is the source. Duration and Aspect ratio follow it on an edit, so leave them as they are. Generate audio adds sound in the same pass. Reference image takes the asset to swap in.

Prompts to start from

Recolour a costume

Strictly edit Video 1 and change the mage's red hooded cloak to a deep blue hooded cloak. Keep everything else unchanged: his face, the staff, the fireball, the background, the camera and the timing. Stylised painterly game art. No subtitles, no text, no watermark.

Recolour a spell effect

Strictly edit Video 1 and change only the colour of the fire: the ember on the staff and the fireball burn emerald green with pale green sparks. Keep everything else exactly as it is in Video 1: the orange sunset sky, the warm scene lighting, the mage's red cloak and face, his motion, the background, the camera and the timing. Stylised painterly game art. No subtitles, no text, no watermark.

Use it in Layer

  1. Add the clip to a session's board.

  2. Click View on the clip to open it in the viewer.

  3. In the prompt bar under the clip, click the model name and choose Seedance 2 Reference. Then write the change, what stays, the style and the constraints.

  4. Click Edit video. The cost shows on the button before you click.

  5. The edit runs in the viewer and lands next to the original, so you can step between the two. Then change one thing in the prompt at a time and run it again.

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