# CineTrans: Learning to Generate Videos with Cinematic Transitions via Masked Diffusion Models

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.11484 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.11484/

## Key facts

- Cited by 29 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Video generation, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models.
- Builds on 53 of its 59 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 15 Aug 2025.

## Placed in

- Diffusion models / [Video generation](https://mlsanity.com/diffusion/video-generation/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 53)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [GPT-4 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.08774/) (2023)
- [Denoising Diffusion Implicit Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.02502/) (2020)
- [Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.13456/) (2020)
- [Wan: Open and Advanced Large-Scale Video Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.20314/) (2025)
- [Stable Video Diffusion: Scaling Latent Video Diffusion Models to Large Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.15127/) (2023)
- [BEiT: BERT Pre-Training of Image Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.08254/) (2021)
- [CogVideoX: Text-to-Video Diffusion Models with An Expert Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.06072/) (2024)
- [VBench: Comprehensive Benchmark Suite for Video Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.17982/) (2023)
- [HunyuanVideo: A Systematic Framework For Large Video Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.03603/) (2024)
- [VideoMAE: Masked Autoencoders are Data-Efficient Learners for Self-Supervised Video Pre-Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.12602/) (2022)
- [Frozen in Time: A Joint Video and Image Encoder for End-to-End Retrieval](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.00650/) (2021)
- [ImageBind: One Embedding Space To Bind Them All](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.05665/) (2023)
- [MaskGIT: Masked Generative Image Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.04200/) (2022)
- [HowTo100M: Learning a Text-Video Embedding by Watching Hundred Million Narrated Video Clips](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.03327/) (2019)
- [Movie Gen: A Cast of Media Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.13720/) (2024)
- [VideoCrafter2: Overcoming Data Limitations for High-Quality Video Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.09047/) (2024)
- [VideoCrafter1: Open Diffusion Models for High-Quality Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.19512/) (2023)
- [InternVid: A Large-scale Video-Text Dataset for Multimodal Understanding and Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.06942/) (2023)
- [Panda-70M: Captioning 70M Videos with Multiple Cross-Modality Teachers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.19479/) (2024)
- [Latent Video Diffusion Models for High-Fidelity Long Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.13221/) (2022)
- [MAGVIT: Masked Generative Video Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.05199/) (2022)
- [OpenVid-1M: A Large-Scale High-Quality Dataset for Text-to-video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.02371/) (2024)
- [VideoFusion: Decomposed Diffusion Models for High-Quality Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.08320/) (2023)
- [MERLOT: Multimodal Neural Script Knowledge Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.02636/) (2021)
- [Open-Sora Plan: Open-Source Large Video Generation Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.00131/) (2024)
- [StoryDiffusion: Consistent Self-Attention for Long-Range Image and Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.01434/) (2024)
- [SEINE: Short-to-Long Video Diffusion Model for Generative Transition and Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.20700/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 29 of 29)

- [HoloCine: Holistic Generation of Cinematic Multi-Shot Long Video Narratives](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.20822/) (2025)
- [MultiShotMaster: A Controllable Multi-Shot Video Generation Framework](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.03041/) (2025)
- [OneStory: Coherent Multi-Shot Video Generation with Adaptive Memory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.07802/) (2025)
- [ShotStream: Streaming Multi-Shot Video Generation for Interactive Storytelling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.25746/) (2026)
- [RAPO++: Cross-Stage Prompt Optimization for Text-to-Video Generation via Data Alignment and Test-Time Scaling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.20206/) (2025)
- [MuSS: A Large-Scale Dataset and Cinematic Narrative Benchmark for Multi-Shot Subject-to-Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.23789/) (2026)
- [Script-a-Video: Deep Structured Audio-visual Captions via Factorized Streams and Relational Grounding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.11244/) (2026)
- [InfinityStory: Unlimited Video Generation with World Consistency and Character-Aware Shot Transitions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.03646/) (2026)
- [ShotDirector: Directorially Controllable Multi-Shot Video Generation with Cinematographic Transitions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.10286/) (2025)
- [EntityBench: Towards Entity-Consistent Long-Range Multi-Shot Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.15199/) (2026)
- [CineDance: Towards Next-Generation Multi-Shot Long-Form Cinematic Audio-Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.09639/) (2026)
- [OmniDirector: General Multi-Shot Camera Cloning without Cross-Paired Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.13432/) (2026)
- [UnityShots: Memory-Driven Multi-Shot Audio-Video Generation with Boundary-Aware Gating](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.21661/) (2026)
- [Memento: Reconstruct to Remember for Consistent Long Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.14667/) (2026)
- [CineWeaver: Training-Free Reference-Controllable Multi-Shot Long Video Generation for Cinematic Storytelling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.26529/) (2026)
- [Breaking Dual Bottlenecks: Evolving Unified Multimodal Models into Self-Adaptive Interleaved Visual Reasoners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.14709/) (2026)
- [Delta Forcing: Trust Region Steering for Interactive Autoregressive Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.14382/) (2026)
- [SubjectAnchor: Subject-Aware Memory-to-Video for Multi-Shot Storytelling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.34502/) (2026)
- [CineOrchestra: Unified Entity-Centric Conditioning for Cinematic Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.13768/) (2026)
- [MAVIN: Multi-Shot Audio-Visual Generation with Customized Narrative Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.29473/) (2026)
- [ShotPlan: Cinematic Video Generation with Learnable Planning Token](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.17675/) (2026)
- [PersonaShot: Benchmarking Person-Centric Narrative Continuity in Multi-Shot Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.16717/) (2026)
- [The Missing Temporal Link: Temporal Context Routing for Script-Driven Audio-Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.02367/) (2026)
- [PACE: Precise AI Cinematic Expression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.19853/) (2026)
- [Complementary Retrieval-Augmented Prompting for Consistent Long-Form Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.37407/) (2026)
- [Weave Forcing: Compositional Memory Routing for Interactive Long Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.03510/) (2026)
- [AdSpark: A Large-Scale Dataset and Benchmark for Product-Centric Advertisement Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.10047/) (2026)
- [Structured Stateful Relational Scripts with a High-Quality Dataset for Multi-Shot Audio-Visual Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.15512/) (2026)
- [CineMem: Attention-Aligned Fine-grained Memory Retrieval for Multi-Shot Long Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.17926/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Despite significant advances in video synthesis, research into multi-shot video generation remains in its infancy. Even with scaled-up models and massive datasets, the shot transition capabilities remain rudimentary and unstable, largely confining generated videos to single-shot sequences. In this work, we introduce CineTrans, a novel framework for generating coherent multi-shot videos with cinematic, film-style transitions. To facilitate insights into the film editing style, we construct a multi-shot video-text dataset Cine250K with detailed shot annotations. Furthermore, our analysis of existing video diffusion models uncovers a correspondence between attention maps in the diffusion model and shot boundaries, which we leverage to design a mask-based control mechanism that enables transitions at arbitrary positions and transfers effectively in a training-free setting. After fine-tuning on our dataset with the mask mechanism, CineTrans produces cinematic multi-shot sequences while adhering to the film editing style, avoiding unstable transitions or naive concatenations. Finally, we propose specialized evaluation metrics for transition control, temporal consistency and overall quality, and demonstrate through extensive experiments that CineTrans significantly outperforms existing baselines across all criteria.