How to Animate Midjourney Images: A Beginner’s Guide to Midjourney Video (2026)

I spent the last few days obsessed with Midjourney’s new video feature, and I have to tell you—it is both awesome and slightly frustrating. If you’ve conquered 2D images, you are ready to make them move.

This isn’t a boring manual. I’m going to show you the shortcuts I found to turn your static AI art into 5-second video clips without wasting all your fast hours.

Step 1: The Easy Way (One-Click Animation)

If you just want to see something cool happen, start here. This is the “lazy” method, and honestly, it works about 25% of the time.

1. Go to your Midjourney gallery or Discord.
2. Find a 2D image you’ve already generated.
3. Hover your mouse over the image.
4. You will see an Animate button appear.
5. Click it!

Midjourney will generate four short videos (about 5 seconds each).

Note: This burns your GPU minutes! Generating four videos costs about 8 times more than running four regular image prompts. Use this wisely.

Step 2: The Advanced Way (Manual Prompting)

Okay, the auto-animation is random. If you want your character to actually do something specific, you need to use Manual Prompting.

1. Right-click on your image.
2. Hover over Animate Image.
3. Select Low Motion or High Motion (I recommend Low Motion for better coherence).
4. This opens a prompt box. Here is the secret: Describe the Speed.

I found that adding speed words changes everything.

• Don’t just write: “She picks up the suitcase.”
• Do write: “She picks up the suitcase quickly.”

Describing how fast an action happens gives the bot a much better clue of what to do.

Step 3: Camera Hacks (Zoom and Pan)

You can’t exactly “direct” the video, but you can give strong suggestions. I tested this a bunch, and it’s a bit of a hack.

To move the camera, you need to type it into your manual prompt.

• Try this: “The camera zooms out slowly to reveal the room.”
• Or this: “The camera pans left quickly.”

Warning: Midjourney doesn’t always listen. If you ask for too many things (e.g., “She dances AND the camera pans AND it rains”), it will likely ignore you. Keep it simple!

Step 4: Transitions (Start & End Frames)

This is my favorite feature. You can tell Midjourney where to start and where to end, creating a morphing effect.

1. Drag an image into the Starting Frame slot.
2. Drag a different image into the Ending Frame slot.
3. Hit Generate.

Pro Tip: This works best if the two images are somewhat related. If you try to morph a tiger into a coffee cup, it’s going to look like a weird jump cut. But if you morph a girl with blue hair into the same girl with red hair, the transition is magic.

Step 5: Stay Organized (Don’t Lose Your Best Clips)

Video generation creates a mess in your gallery. I lost a few great clips because I didn’t organize them immediately.

Use the Folders tab at the top right.

• Create a folder named “Best Videos.”
• Create another for “Funny Fails.”
• Right-click any good result and add it to the folder immediately.

Common Pitfalls

I made these mistakes so you don’t have to.

• It’s Expensive: Serious warning here. One minute of fast hours gets eaten up quickly. I suggest not running 4 videos at once if you are low on hours. Change your settings to generate only 1 or 2 at a time if you’re testing.
• Extensions Suck: You can “Extend” a video to make it longer, but honestly? It usually turns into a garbled mess. You are better off stitching two different 5-second clips together in a video editor.
• High Motion vs. Low Motion: “High Motion” sounds cool, but it often makes the video look wacky and distorted. Stick to “Low Motion” for realistic movement.

Conclusion

Midjourney video is still in its “toddler phase”—it’s expensive, short, and sometimes throws a tantrum. But when it works? It is absolutely stunning.

Have you tried animating a collage yet? That was the coolest result I got. Give it a shot and let me know how it goes!

FAQs