A mood film is a short edited piece, usually 30 to 60 seconds, that communicates the tone and rhythm of a project before anything has been shot.
It is the moving version of a moodboard, and it exists because some things a board cannot carry: pace, how the piece cuts, how music sits against picture, and whether the whole thing has energy or stillness. Clients approve boards and are still surprised by the edit, because the board had no time in it.
What goes in one
Found footage, historically. Clips from films, ads, and music videos, cut to a temp track. This is why mood films almost never leave the room: the material is licensed to somebody else, and a mood film shown publicly is a rights problem.
A temp track that matches the intended rhythm, not necessarily the intended genre.
Nothing from the actual project. Traditionally, because none of it exists yet.
That last part is what changed.
The version that changed
Mood films used to be assembled entirely from other people's work. Generation makes it practical to include shots of the actual subject in the intended treatment, which turns a mood film from a reference collage into a proposal.
Canon 8frame prices, a credit being $0.01 at pack rate: six 8-second beats on Veo 3.1 Lite is 324 credits, about $3.24, so a mood film can be mostly original material rather than mostly borrowed. The practical effect is that it can be shown to a client without the caveat that none of this is the actual thing, and it does not carry the rights problem that found footage does.
Mood film versus animatic versus previz
Mood film: tone and rhythm, not the actual sequence. Answers "what does this feel like." Animatic: the actual storyboard cut to time. Answers "does the sequence work." Previz: rough moving version of the real shots. Answers "does the staging work."
Most projects need at most one. Mood films belong at the pitch and direction stage, the other two at production planning.
Where it is used
Director and agency pitches, where tone is the thing being sold.
Aligning a large stakeholder group before production, since a film gets watched and a document gets skimmed.
Music video and brand film treatments, where rhythm is half the proposal.
Related concepts
What is a treatment is the document a mood film usually accompanies. What is a style frame covers the single-image equivalent, and how to present creative concepts to a client covers the room it gets shown in.
Boards cannot carry pace. When rhythm is the argument, cut a mood film. The 8frame canvas is free and unlimited, and generation is paid from $19/month.