Runway AI: What It Can Do and What to Expect

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Runway is a set of AI-powered video tools: generating shots from text descriptions, animating images, removing objects from footage, and extracting backgrounds without a green screen. It’s not a single generator but a complete toolkit, and that’s what sets it apart from tools that only make clips from text.

What Runway Actually Does

Video from text. You type what should happen in the frame, and you get a few seconds of footage. This is the best-known feature and also the most unpredictable.

Image animation. You upload a still image and describe the motion. In practice, this gives more predictable results than generating from scratch because the composition is already set.

Object removal. You mark something in the footage and it disappears, with the background filled in. Works surprisingly well with simple backgrounds.

Background removal. No green screen needed, straight from the footage. This is the feature many people use Runway for in the first place.

Style transfer. Applying a different aesthetic to existing footage.

What It’s Good For and What It’s Not

Good for short filler shots, cutaways, social media content, animating product photos, and editing work where cutting out a background or removing an object would take hours.

Not good for longer scenes with action continuity. Shots are short, and maintaining the same character between them remains difficult. This is the same weakness I described with variants of a single logo: repeatability is the bottleneck here.

What to Expect on Day One

Three things surprise beginners. First, generation costs credits, so every failed attempt is a real expense, which changes how you write prompts: it pays to think before you click. Second, camera movement needs to be described separately from what’s happening in the frame, or the model will choose it on its own. Third, the longer the description, the lower the chance everything will be included: short, specific prompts work better than elaborate ones.

The principles of writing prompts are common to all tools, and I’ve laid them out in the article about what a prompt is.

Runway vs. the Competition

The AI video market is changing faster than any other, and Runway is a veteran here that bet on a complete toolkit instead of just a generator. Competitors focused solely on generation can be better at the quality of a single shot, but they don’t offer editing and processing. I maintain current comparisons in the tools directory.

The interface is in English, but you can write scene descriptions in other languages. Film terminology, such as shot names and camera movements, is better given in English because they have established forms.

How Much It Costs

Runway works on credits: free accounts get a starter pool, and paid plans add more credits plus access to higher resolution and longer shots. Pool sizes and prices change more often than the models themselves, so instead of copying a price list that will be outdated in a month, I recommend checking it directly before purchasing. Sensible order: try the free pool, count how many attempts you need for one usable shot, and only then calculate which plan fits your needs.

How to Write a Video Prompt

Describing a scene in video follows different rules than in images because time is involved. It works well to break the prompt into three layers, given in this order.

1. What’s in the frame. Character, location, time of day, lighting. Same as with a still image.

2. What’s happening. One movement, not three. “Woman turns her head toward the window” will work; “woman stands up, walks to the window, and opens it” will fall apart over a few seconds.

3. What the camera does. This is the layer beginners skip, and then the model chooses the movement itself and usually overdoes it. Slow push in, static shot, pan left: you need to name it.

Give film terms in English because they have established forms: slow push in, static shot, pan left, handheld. You can write the rest of the description in your own language.

Five Mistakes That Waste Credits

1. Too much happening at once. The most expensive mistake because the result is unsalvageable. One shot, one event.

2. No camera description. The model adds movement on its own, usually too dynamic.

3. Text in frame. Signs and screen text come out as gibberish. Better to exclude them and add text in editing.

4. Hands in the foreground. The biggest weakness of video generators. If hands aren’t needed, keep them out of frame.

5. Expecting repeatability. Two shots from the same description won’t be the same scene. A series needs to be built from animated images with a common source, not from independent generations.

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Practical Work Order

The most effective approach I’ve seen from professionals looks like this: first generate an image in a graphics tool where attempts are cheaper and faster, refine the composition, and only then animate the finished frame in Runway. You control what’s visible that way and pay credits only for motion. How to refine the image itself is covered in the guide on editing photos with AI.