The Yung Lean AI Video Recreation Trend Explained
The cinematic choreography from GENER8ION – STORM starring Yung Lean has become an interesting reference point for AI creators experimenting with character replacement.
The original video combines a large group of performers, synchronized choreography and tightly controlled cinematography.
Instead of attempting to generate complicated choreography from scratch, the technique we’re using takes a different approach:
Reference Video + Your Character + Crowd Character → AI Recreation
The goal is to preserve the movement and composition of a reference clip while changing the visual identities of the performers.
We tested the workflow by replacing the central performer with our own Character Reference and transforming the surrounding performers into a consistent masked crowd.
Here’s how to try it.
What You Need
You need three inputs:
1. Reference Video
Use the video clip whose motion you want the AI model to follow.
This provides the choreography, timing, poses, crowd movement, camera movement and composition.
2. Character Reference 1 – YOU
Create a clear reference image of yourself.
For best results, include:
- Front view
- Side/profile view
- Full-body view
- Clear facial details
- Consistent hairstyle
- Consistent outfit
- Neutral lighting
We used a white/ivory suit for our protagonist so the main character remains visually separated from the darker crowd.
3. Character Reference 2 – CROWD
Create one consistent background character.
For our version, we used an anonymous cinematic character wearing:
Black structured outfit + black gloves + black mask + black boots.
The AI can then use that character design for the surrounding performers while retaining their individual positions and choreography.
Full Yung Lean AI Trend Prompt
Copy the following prompt:
Copy the following prompt:
Use the uploaded reference video as the exact motion, choreography, timing, composition, and camera reference. MAIN CHARACTER: Replace ONLY the single central main character with the person shown in Character Reference 1. The central main character must exactly match Character Reference 1 throughout the entire video. Preserve the exact facial identity, facial features, hairstyle, skin tone, body proportions, clothing, and overall appearance of Character Reference 1. The central character must remain clearly distinguishable from all surrounding characters at all times. SURROUNDING CHARACTERS: Replace ALL surrounding background people with the character shown in Character Reference 2. Character Reference 2 represents the standardized background performer. Every surrounding person must consistently match Character Reference 2 in clothing, headwear, mask, colors, body proportions, and overall appearance. Duplicate this same visual character identity across the crowd while keeping every performer as a separate physical person. Do NOT apply Character Reference 2 to the central main character. Do NOT apply Character Reference 1 to any surrounding character. ACTION AND CHOREOGRAPHY: Reproduce the exact actions, body movements, choreography, poses, timing, rhythm, and synchronization from the original reference video. The surrounding crowd must perform the same synchronized group movements and synchronized deep bowing actions shown in the reference video. The central main character must perform only the movements of the original central character. Do not invent new gestures, movements, interactions, or choreography. IDENTITY LOCK: Keep the identity of the central character completely consistent from the first frame to the final frame. Do not change, morph, merge, distort, duplicate, or swap the central character's face. Do not replace the central character with any background character. Keep all background characters visually consistent throughout the entire sequence. CROWD CONSISTENCY: Preserve the original number, placement, spacing, formation, depth, and relative positions of the surrounding people. Do not add or remove people. Do not randomly move people between positions. Do not merge bodies or duplicate characters. MOTION LOCK: Strictly preserve the original video's motion. Preserve the exact body movements, movement direction, choreography, synchronization, pacing, rhythm, and action timing. CAMERA AND FRAMING: Keep the original camera angle, camera movement, camera position, focal length, perspective, depth of field, framing, composition, shot scale, and shot duration unchanged. Follow every original camera movement exactly. Do not introduce any new camera movement. Do not re-frame, crop, zoom, rotate, tilt, or alter the original composition unless that exact movement exists in the reference video. SCENE: Preserve the original spatial arrangement, crowd formation, foreground-background relationship, and scene geometry. Maintain natural lighting, realistic shadows, realistic human anatomy, and photorealistic textures. TEMPORAL CONSISTENCY: Maintain strong frame-to-frame consistency. No flickering. No face changes. No clothing changes. No disappearing characters. No duplicated people. No warped hands or limbs. No sudden changes in body proportions. FINAL REQUIREMENT: The final video must follow the reference video's original motion, choreography, timing, crowd formation, camera work, and editing as closely as possible, while changing only the visual identities specified by Character Reference 1 and Character Reference 2.
How to Use the Prompt
Upload your files in this order:
Reference Video → Your Character Reference → Crowd Character Reference
Then paste the master prompt.
Make sure the AI understands:
Character Reference 1 = ONLY protagonist
and
Character Reference 2 = ONLY background performers.
This separation is important. Otherwise, generative video models can accidentally copy the protagonist’s face onto background performers or allow the crowd character to replace the protagonist.
Why Character References Matter
A text description such as:
“Young man wearing a white mafia-style suit”
isn’t enough to reliably maintain someone’s appearance throughout a moving sequence.
The reference image provides significantly more visual information about the subject’s face, hairstyle, proportions and wardrobe.
The same principle applies to the crowd.
Instead of describing every background performer individually, we use one standardized crowd character and instruct the model to apply that visual design across the existing performers.
How to Create Character Reference 1
Upload several clear photographs of yourself to an AI image generator and ask it to produce a character reference sheet.
You can use this prompt:
Copy the Character Reference 1 prompt:
Create a professional photorealistic character reference sheet using the uploaded person as the identity reference. IDENTITY LOCK: Preserve the person's facial identity exactly. Maintain the same face shape, forehead, eyes, eyebrows, nose, lips, jawline, ears, skin tone, facial hair, hairstyle, hairline, and natural facial proportions. The person must remain unmistakably the same individual in every view. Do not beautify, redesign, stylize, reshape, or reinterpret the face. Do not change facial proportions. Do not change the hairstyle or hairline. Do not make the face wider, narrower, younger, older, or more symmetrical. CHARACTER VIEWS: Show the exact same person consistently across multiple reference views: 1. Full-body front view 2. Full-body 45-degree view 3. Full-body side profile 4. Full-body rear view 5. Front facial close-up 6. Left facial profile 7. Right facial profile 8. Neutral expression 9. Serious expression WARDROBE: Dress the character in an elegant luxury white mafia-style suit. Tailored ivory-white suit jacket. Premium white open-collar dress shirt. Matching tailored ivory trousers. Clean luxury dress shoes. Minimal accessories. The styling should feel powerful, sophisticated, cinematic, expensive, and understated. Do not add hats or unnecessary accessories. Keep the exact same wardrobe across every reference view. REFERENCE PRESENTATION: Use a clean neutral gray studio background. Use soft professional studio lighting. Show realistic skin texture. Maintain realistic human anatomy and natural body proportions. High facial detail. Photorealistic photography. No exaggerated cinematic grading. No environmental distractions. FINAL CONSISTENCY REQUIREMENT: The exact same person must appear in every panel. No identity changes. No facial morphing. No different hairstyles. No different facial hair. No different clothing. No body proportion changes. No duplicated facial features. No stylization. Prioritize facial identity accuracy above everything else.
How to Create Character Reference 2
For the crowd, try:
Copy the Character Reference 2 prompt:
Create a professional photorealistic cinematic character reference sheet for a single anonymous background performer. CHARACTER DESIGN: Create one mysterious anonymous human character dressed entirely in matte black. The character wears: A structured matte-black high-collar outfit. Black long sleeves. Loose tailored black trousers. Black gloves. Heavy minimal black boots. FACE AND MASK: The entire face must be completely concealed by a smooth fitted matte-black fabric mask. Include only a very narrow horizontal opening around the eyes. Do not expose the nose, mouth, cheeks, chin, or other facial features. The mask must look physically wearable and realistic rather than supernatural. The character should feel anonymous, mysterious, disciplined, intimidating, minimalist, and cinematic. Avoid recognizable logos, branding, text, symbols, armor, weapons, or excessive futuristic details. CHARACTER VIEWS: Show the exact same character and costume consistently across multiple views: 1. Full-body front view 2. Full-body 45-degree view 3. Full-body side profile 4. Full-body rear view 5. Upper-body front view 6. Head and mask close-up 7. Costume detail 8. Glove and material detail CONSISTENCY: Maintain exactly the same mask construction, clothing design, materials, proportions, footwear, and overall silhouette in every view. This character will be used as a standardized identity reference for multiple background performers in an AI-generated video. The design therefore needs to be extremely clear, simple, repeatable, and visually consistent. REFERENCE PRESENTATION: Clean neutral gray studio background. Soft professional studio lighting. Realistic fabric texture. Realistic human anatomy. Natural body proportions. Photorealistic photography. Sharp costume details. No dramatic environment. No cinematic background. No text. No logos. FINAL REQUIREMENT: The exact same character design must appear in every reference panel. No costume changes. No mask changes. No color changes. No exposed face. No different footwear. No body distortion. No additional accessories. Prioritize character-design consistency and repeatability above everything else.
Tips for Better Results
Current AI video models can still struggle with complex crowd scenes. Common failure modes include distorted hands, cloned people, facial drift, clothing changes and inconsistent background performers. These are recurring limitations in contemporary AI-generated video, particularly when scenes contain many humans or intricate motion.
The prompt therefore needs to describe not only appearance but also movement, camera behavior and continuity. Current guidance for AI music-video prompting similarly emphasizes subject action, camera movement and continuity rather than describing appearance alone.
If your first generation isn’t clean, don’t completely rewrite the prompt. Keep the identity and motion instructions locked and regenerate or correct the specific problem.
The Basic Formula
The interesting part of this workflow is that it isn’t limited to one music video.
You can use the same structure for other reference-video transformations:
Original Motion
+
Your Character
+
Custom Background Characters
+
Identity Lock
+
Motion Lock
Your AI Recreation
Once you’ve created good Character Reference 1 and Character Reference 2 images, you can reuse them across multiple experiments.
Important Note
This tutorial is for creative experimentation and educational purposes. The original music video, choreography, music and associated intellectual property belong to their respective rights holders. If you’re publishing a recreation, present it as an AI recreation/fan experiment rather than implying that it’s an official Yung Lean or GENER8ION production.
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