Important: You can still learn from Sora prompt examples, but you can no longer generate videos with OpenAI’s Sora product. OpenAI says the Sora web and app experiences ended on April 26, 2026, and the Sora API was discontinued on September 24, 2026. (help.openai.com)
For a video prompt you can adapt to another currently available generator, describe the subject and action first, then add the setting and the visual details that matter. Include camera movement, lighting, mood, and style when they help communicate your idea. The scaffold and examples below are editorial aids—not official syntax, tested outputs, or prompts you can run with Sora today.
A practical structure for a video prompt
Treat a prompt like a short creative brief. A useful starting checklist is:
- Subject: What should the viewer see?
- Action: What happens, and how does it move?
- Setting: Where and when does the scene take place?
- Distinctive details: What colors, textures, objects, or background activity make it specific?
- Camera and light: What viewpoint or movement should the shot have? What is the light like?
- Mood or style: What overall feeling or visual treatment are you aiming for?
A fill-in template:
[Subject] [action] in [setting]. [Distinctive visual details]. The camera [viewpoint or movement]. [Lighting] creates a [mood] atmosphere, in a [visual style].
You do not need to fill every slot. Keep the elements that clarify the shot; leave room for interpretation where you want creative variation. OpenAI’s archived Sora 2 prompting guide described the same trade-off: more detail can provide direction, while a lighter prompt leaves more creative freedom. It also cautioned that a prompt is not a guarantee and recommended iteration. The guide is explicitly archived and may refer to outdated models or APIs, so use it as historical prompting advice—not current product documentation. (developers.openai.com)
Sora-style prompt examples to adapt
These are newly written examples to illustrate the structure. They have not been generated or tested, and they are not official Sora templates.
Quiet, realistic scene
A red bicycle rolls slowly along a rain-wet city street at dawn. Reflections from a small bakery window ripple across the pavement as the wheels pass. The camera tracks beside the bicycle at street level. Soft gray morning light and muted colors create a calm, documentary feel.
What to adapt: Change the subject and action first; then adjust the setting, camera movement, lighting, or mood to suit your idea.
Imaginative, stylized scene
In a miniature papercraft coral reef, two bright yellow fish weave between folded seaweed and layered paper coral. The camera glides past the reef in a gentle close-up. Clear blue tones and soft, even light give the scene a playful handmade look.
What to adapt: Keep the medium or visual style if it is central to the idea. Swap the setting, characters, colors, and movement to make a different scene.
One-shot camera movement
A small lighthouse stands on a rocky island as waves break below. The camera slowly circles the lighthouse, revealing distant cliffs and a band of warm sunset light on the water. The scene feels spacious and reflective.
What to adapt: Specify one main camera move and the detail it should reveal. This communicates an intention; it does not ensure a model will reproduce the move exactly.
OpenAI’s original Sora page also presented examples built around concrete subjects, actions, settings, camera viewpoints, and visual details—for example, a neon-lit street scene and mammoths moving through a snowy landscape. Those examples illustrate prompt-writing ideas, but the page now states that Sora is no longer available. (openai.com)
How to revise a prompt
There is no currently usable Sora workflow to test revisions against. As a general writing approach for another video generator:
- Find the ambiguity: Is it unclear what the subject is doing, where it is, or what the camera should show?
- Change one part at a time: For example, clarify the action without also changing the setting, style, and lighting.
- Review the new result: Decide whether the changed detail helped express your intent, then keep or undo it.
This is a practical editing method, not a verified Sora-specific technique or a promise of improved results. For the model you actually use, consult that provider’s current guidance and test prompts with the same settings when comparing versions.
Can you submit a Sora prompt through a production API?
No—not through OpenAI’s Sora API. OpenAI says that API was discontinued on September 24, 2026. Because it is discontinued, this guide does not provide a Sora endpoint, model identifier, authentication steps, request code, or a substitute workflow. (help.openai.com)
Token Forge Cloud’s homepage describes production APIs for Qwen, DeepSeek, GLM, and Seedance; the material reviewed here does not establish that it offers Sora. Do not assume that a Sora-inspired prompt can be sent to another provider unchanged, or that another provider supports the same inputs or controls. Before building a production integration, choose an available model and confirm its provider’s current documentation for the model, endpoint, authentication, request fields, output retrieval, limits, and pricing. (tokenforgecloud.com)
What this guide does—and does not—claim
- The prompt checklist and examples are general writing guidance, informed in part by OpenAI’s now-archived Sora 2 prompting guide.
- The examples above are not real generations, official prompts, or tested comparisons.
- Sora’s product and API have been discontinued, according to OpenAI’s Help Center.
- No current Sora production API workflow is supplied because the API is discontinued.
- The Token Forge Cloud homepage lists several production model APIs, but that is not evidence of Sora support.
If your goal is to create video now, use the documentation for a currently available video model and treat these examples only as starting points for expressing a scene idea.
Sources
What to know about the Sora discontinuation — OpenAI Help Center
Sora: Creating video from text — OpenAI