Episode three of the single-shot ladder. You can already type a prompt and get a clip; today we change *which door* you walk through to get it. **Tutorial.** Text-to-video (T2V) invents the picture and the motion from words at once; image-to-video (I2V) animates a still you hand it, so the model only solves motion. We make the case that for finished, consistent, on-deadline work, I2V usually wins, on three stacking fronts: control (you lock composition, character, framing, lighting, and brand *before* spending video credits), consistency (a start frame anchors identity and kills the mid-clip [identity drift](https://medium.com/@inchristiely/why-your-ai-videos-look-wrong-and-how-to-fix-them-without-starting-over-6b6b6c48be69) that plagues T2V), and economics (drafting in cheap image generations and saving video credits for the final motion pass). The big behavior change: in I2V the image carries subject, composition, and light, so your prompt should describe **motion and camera only**, not re-describe the scene. We cover the over-prompting mistake that makes models fight their own image, per Runway's [I2V prompting guide](https://help.runwayml.com/hc/en-us/articles/48324313115155-Image-to-Video-Prompting-Guide), plus why negative phrasing ("no shake") fails and what to write instead. Also inside: the four start-frame sources (mint it in an image model, shoot a photo, grab a frame, screenshot a mock); first/last-frame conditioning for loops, reveals, and transitions; a copyable mint-load-motion-generate-chain-assemble workflow; what the real knobs look like across current tools (durations, resolution, motion brushes, multi-reference); the five failure modes you'll actually hit (identity drift, over-prompting, first-frame drift, warping on big motion, style drift); and when T2V is still the right tool. Callbacks to episode 1 (read the [Artificial Analysis Video Arena](https://artificialanalysis.ai/video/arena), and note the T2V and I2V boards are *different* rankings) and episode 2 (prompt anatomy). Forward to character consistency, keyframe chaining, and minting start frames. *AI-generated podcast by OCDevel. Models, limits, and prices move monthly; bench the live leaderboard on your own shot before trusting any ranking.*