# Tiffin carrier among glass towers

> A stylized 3D lunchbox delivery story pairs a stern, angular carrier with colorful market awnings, street traffic and blue glass towers, ending with a steaming steel tin on an office desk.

- Kind: Video
- Page: https://meetreference.com/v/video-tiffin-carrier-among-glass-towers-2c7ce8/
- Ready-to-use agent handoff: https://meetreference.com/v/video-tiffin-carrier-among-glass-towers-2c7ce8/agent.txt
- Exact prompt as plain text: https://meetreference.com/v/video-tiffin-carrier-among-glass-towers-2c7ce8/prompt.txt
- Authorship: AI-made, per the source
- Made with: Not stated
- Model: Seedance 2.5
- Built with: not stated
- Services: ChatGPT
- Style: Short films; stylized 3d, faceted, character-led, cinematic, urban, warm-to-cool
- Length and format: 31 sec, 16:9 (1280x720 source)
- Playback: a muted visual reference. The original soundtrack is available only at the source.
- Shared by @Dheepanratnam in X, Aug 11, 2026: https://x.com/Dheepanratnam/status/2087207404463141060
- Prompt fidelity: Verbatim. This is the complete prompt exactly as the creator published it.

## Before you start

Guidance from Reference, separate from the creator's instructions.

1. Read the reference and inspect the project, installed libraries, and available agent skills before writing code. Reuse suitable tools already present.
2. Prefer the creator-reported libraries and skills when they fit the task. Explain what useful additions help with, and install missing project dependencies or relevant skills from official sources when the environment and the user's existing permissions allow it. Respect the project's package manager and setup rules; do not ask again for routine setup already authorized.
3. Distinguish tools used by the creator from your own recommendations. A listed tool is not automatically required, and an empty tools or requirements list means the setup is unknown, not that nothing is needed.
4. Ask concise questions when missing inputs or choices materially affect the result: paid services, credentials, the user's assets, or a different production approach. Use existing answers and permissions; continue independent work while waiting.
5. If a useful library, skill, or service cannot be installed or used, explain an available alternative and its expected effect on quality, features, or effort. Get the user's choice before a material compromise; otherwise state the fallback and continue. Never silently simplify the result or claim to have used a tool you did not use.

## Recreating this video

These are the creator's published instructions, unedited.

## Prompts

### 1. Character reference prompt

```text
Character turnaround model sheet, four consistent full-body views in a row evenly spaced — front view, 3/4 view, side profile, back view — identical original character in every view, single subject per view, pure white seamless studio background, professional character sheet presentation, standing full-body head-to-toe with both feet flat and fully visible, not cropped, not sitting.

CHARACTER: original 41-year-old Indian man, a Mumbai tiffin carrier, dark brown skin with a sun-hardened forehead, mature adult bone structure, square heavy jaw, broad nose, deep crow's feet and a permanent frown line, small dark eyes with muted catchlights, thick grey-flecked moustache, grey stubble, a small pale scar across the bridge of the nose, close-cropped grey-black hair.

BUILD: short and extremely broad — a porter's body. Thick neck, barrel chest, sloping heavy shoulders, cable forearms, huge hands, short bandy legs, exaggerated stylised proportions with an oversized head. The silhouette is a wide, low, immovable block.

WARDROBE head to toe: a white cotton Gandhi topi cap, a loose white cotton kurta yellowed at the collar and cuffs with sweat rings under the arms, white cotton trousers rolled to mid-calf, plain blue rubber slippers, a thick coiled red cotton load-pad sitting on the crown of the head, a plain steel wristwatch worn with the face turned to the inside of the wrist, no bag.

PROPS (small inset row, bottom right): a stack of four cylindrical steel tiffin tins clipped in a wire frame.

RENDER: stylised 3D character render in high-end feature animation style, faceted low-poly geometry with hand-chiselled planar cuts, fabric folds carved as hard wedges rather than simulated cloth, matte painterly surfaces with zero gloss, fine canvas grain, cel-adjacent shading with crisp terminator lines, soft subsurface warmth in the skin, soft ambient occlusion in every crease.

LIGHTING: soft neutral three-point studio lighting with a gentle warm rim light on the right edge, even and identical across all four views, no harsh shadows.

QUALITY: high-end 3D animation studio quality, appealing exaggerated proportions, clean silhouette readable at thumbnail size, consistent character model across every view, sharp, 4K.

NEGATIVE: no text, no watermark, no logos, no frame borders, no babyface, no youthful rounded proportions, no photorealism, no glossy or plastic skin, no beauty filter, no digital smoothing, no other people, no duplicate figures, no mannequin, no reflections, no furniture, no background objects, no distorted anatomy, no extra fingers, empty seamless studio, original character not resembling any real person or existing property.
```

### 2. Video generation prompt

```text
30-second stylised 3D animated short film. 19 hard cuts, average 1.58s per shot. NO on-screen text, NO subtitles, NO readable lettering anywhere.

STYLE (every frame): Stylised feature-animation 3D CG. Faceted low-poly geometry with hand-chiselled planar cuts — folds read as carved wedges, not simulation. Exaggerated cartoon proportions. Matte painterly surfaces, zero gloss, fine canvas grain. Cel-adjacent shading, crisp terminators, soft ambient occlusion, hard rim light. Wide-angle 18-24mm, barrel distortion, shallow depth of field. Cuts land hard on the beat.

KINETIC RULES — TRAVERSAL, not a location. The subject is travelling and the world changes behind them; never return to an earlier environment. Subject moves LEFT TO RIGHT or into screen except in the shot marked REVERSE. Camera TRACKS with the subject and never orbits except the shot marked ORBIT. Hold the subject at constant height in frame while the background changes completely. Speed lives in the background: heavy radial blur plus foreground occluders swiping the lens. Most cuts are WIPE CUTS — an occluder crosses the lens and the next shot is already mid-motion.

CAST (locked, identical in every shot): ARUN — 41-year-old Mumbai dabbawala. Short and extremely broad, thick neck, barrel chest, bandy legs, huge hands, forearms like cable. Dark brown skin, deep crow's feet, thick grey-flecked moustache, grey stubble, a small scar on the bridge of the nose. Wardrobe: white Gandhi topi cap, white cotton kurta yellowed at the collar, white trousers rolled to mid-calf, blue rubber slippers, a coiled red cotton load-pad on his head, a steel wristwatch worn face-inward. Props: a tower of steel tiffin tins.

ROUTE (four acts, never revisited): Churchgate platform — crowd, tiles, pigeons, hard noon | Train doorway — strobing light, city flickering past | Market lane then bicycle — saturated chaos, trucks | Glass tower — lift shaft, cold interior, one desk

PALETTE: hard vertical noon key. White cotton on ochre dust, steel tin grey, saturated market colour mid-film, cold blue-grey glass at the end. One accent throughout: the red head-cloth.

STORY: A Mumbai dabbawala moves one lunch tin across six modes of transport and gets it to a desk hot.

BEATS:
0.0-1.4 ACT 1. Macro static: a steel tiffin lid clicks shut, red cloth coiled beside it. A body wipes the lens.
1.4-2.6 Ground-level 18mm tracking right: white-clad legs and blue slippers surge along platform tiles, feet only.
2.6-4.2 Low hero track: Arun rises into frame under a tower of tins, crowd streaming past both sides.
4.2-5.6 WIPE — a train slams across the foreground, cut through it.
5.6-7.2 Interior tracking, doorway light strobing: he braces the stack, city flickering past behind him.
7.2-8.4 Macro snap: the wristwatch worn face-inward, second hand sweeping. Two frames.
8.4-10.2 ACT 2. Speed ramp, low wide: he steps off a still-moving train, the tins never tilting a degree.
10.2-11.6 Ground-level track: sandals hit tile, pigeons exploding upward across the lens as occluders.
11.6-13.2 ACT 3. Fast lateral track through a market lane, awnings and fruit smearing to colour bands.
13.2-14.4 Crash zoom on his face: jaw set, sweat cutting through dust, noon glare.
14.4-16.2 REVERSE — a handcart cuts right-to-left across him; he stops dead, the whole stack swaying.
16.2-17.6 ORBIT, slow motion, macro: one tin tips off the top of the tower.
17.6-19.2 Snap to real time, whip tilt: he catches it against his chest without looking up.
19.2-20.6 Low track alongside a bicycle now, a crate of tins lashed to the rear rack, lane blurring.
20.6-22.4 WIPE — a bus fills the frame, cut through it.
22.4-24.0 Reverse low angle: he threads the gap between two trucks, the city opening ahead of him.
24.0-25.8 ACT 4. Drone crane pull-up: the bicycle a white dot in a river of traffic, glass towers rising.
25.8-27.8 Vertical track up a lift shaft: he stands still for the first time, tins on his hip, floors ticking past.
27.8-30.0 Static: a tin lands on a desk, the lid opens, steam rises — and he is already gone from frame. Hold, fade.

AUDIO — DIEGETIC SFX ONLY. Do NOT generate music, score, soundtrack, BGM or any musical instrument; the track is composed separately. No dialogue, no singing, no voiceover. Only: platform announcements as unintelligible murmur, a train horn, wheels on rail joints, thousands of sandals on tile, pigeon wings, market shouting as texture, bicycle chain, truck air horns, a lift motor, the small click of a tin lid, and clean silence under the final beat.

NEGATIVE: no music, no score, no soundtrack, no BGM, no musical instruments, no singing, no voiceover, no text, no lettering, no watermark, no photorealism, no gloss, no live action, no plastic skin, no extra fingers, no morphing faces, no character/wardrobe/palette drift, no crossfades, no still frames, no returning to an earlier location.
```

## What it looks like

Written by Reference from the video frames, not by the creator.

Stylized 3D animated city imagery, including a close-up of a stern older man, a wristwatch, a handheld object, traffic, and modern buildings.

- Color: Muted blue-gray and charcoal tones contrasted with warm orange, red, and cream accents.
- Type: Polished, cartoon-like 3D illustration with simplified shapes and soft shading.
- Framing: Mix of close-up object and character portraits with low-angle street views and a distant city skyline.
- Structure: A sequence of separate character, prop, and urban scenes; some frames are very dark or visually indistinct.

Storyboard, nine frames spread across the video: https://meetreference.com/media/video-tiffin-carrier-among-glass-towers-2c7ce8/storyboard.webp

- Frame 1 at 1.7s: https://meetreference.com/media/video-tiffin-carrier-among-glass-towers-2c7ce8/f1.webp
- Frame 2 at 5.2s: https://meetreference.com/media/video-tiffin-carrier-among-glass-towers-2c7ce8/f2.webp
- Frame 3 at 8.6s: https://meetreference.com/media/video-tiffin-carrier-among-glass-towers-2c7ce8/f3.webp
- Frame 4 at 12.0s: https://meetreference.com/media/video-tiffin-carrier-among-glass-towers-2c7ce8/f4.webp
- Frame 5 at 15.5s: https://meetreference.com/media/video-tiffin-carrier-among-glass-towers-2c7ce8/f5.webp
- Frame 6 at 18.9s: https://meetreference.com/media/video-tiffin-carrier-among-glass-towers-2c7ce8/f6.webp
- Frame 7 at 22.3s: https://meetreference.com/media/video-tiffin-carrier-among-glass-towers-2c7ce8/f7.webp
- Frame 8 at 25.8s: https://meetreference.com/media/video-tiffin-carrier-among-glass-towers-2c7ce8/f8.webp
- Frame 9 at 29.2s: https://meetreference.com/media/video-tiffin-carrier-among-glass-towers-2c7ce8/f9.webp

## Links

- Watch: https://x.com/Dheepanratnam/status/2087207404463141060
- Original post: https://x.com/Dheepanratnam/status/2087207404463141060
- Discovery collection: https://beatapi.io/seedance-2-5-prompts