Every portrait culture on Earth agrees on one hour. The light just before sunset forgives skin, gilds fabric and turns ordinary rooms into sets — which is why half the briefs at this desk ask for it, and why half of those ask badly.
Name the sun’s position, not the hour’s name
“Golden hour” is a label; the renderer needs geometry. Write “low sun from frame left, long shadows, warm rim on her hair” and the hour appears. Write the label alone and you will get a yellow filter over noon — the colour of dusk with none of its behaviour.
Decide what the light leaves
Dusk is defined by its shadows as much as its gold. Commission both: what the sun strikes (her shoulder, the sphere’s curve) and what it abandons (the room’s far half). A prompt that lights everything describes a studio at noon wearing sunglasses.
Chased properly, the hour holds still for as many frames as the series needs — one of the few unfair advantages an invented world has over the real one. Use it like professionals: consistently, and logged in the brief.