This Skill is the default director pre-production entry point for a new episode, but it is not another source of truth for the method. The current method only reads, from the video project:
animation-method/director-system/method-v5.jsontemplates/director-state-v5.mddocs/Codex媒体生产接口规格.mdthe "V5.1 Director Pre-production" section of
Project rules and the above files take precedence over this Skill. Historical METHOD_LAB, V4 motion-plan, or old episode implementations must not be mixed into the V5 context.
Routing
Default: V5.1 new-episode director pre-production
When the user says "start a new episode", "make a director first draft", "final director review", "director layer only", or a synonymous expression, always enter this route, and enter the correct stage according todirector_draftanddirector_review.
Exception: historical METHOD_LAB
Only when the user explicitly says one of "METHOD_LAB", "old AST/dual renderer", or "restore historical episode" should you readreferences/method-lab-legacy.md. Do not switch to the historical route on your own because clean/SRT is missing or because you see old files.
V5 Input
- The current final talking-head script; it is the source of truth for content, and the script is not revised during the director stage.
- The video project's
method-v5.jsonanddirector-state-v5.md。 - The current episode's
episode-config.jsonand09-导演/director-state.md。 - If Jeffrey has already provided the real-person raw footage, use it only to observe display orientation, composition, subject position, gestures, and safe areas; do not edit, do not transcribe, and do not generate clean/SRT.
If the user requests "start a new episode", run from the video project rootnode scripts/new-episode.mjs <slug>; if a current episode already exists, this command will block and will not copy or overwrite the old episode.
Stage 1: Three rounds of director first draft
1. UNDERSTAND_CONTENT
- Distill the judgments the audience truly needs to understand, the argumentative relationships, the emotional progression, and the ending memory point.
- Determine which content needs graphical explanation, real footage, product visuals, or should remain real-person only.
- Do not mechanically turn every sentence into animation.
2. DIVERGE_2_TO_3_DIRECTIONS
- First diverge from the content into 2-3 complete and fundamentally different visual directions, rather than listing unrelated effects.
- Each direction must form a genuine difference in core visual metaphor, spatial organization, motion logic, or material role; it cannot merely change color scheme, change layout, or combine different effects.
- Each direction explains the visual world, paragraph progression, information hierarchy, relationship between the real person and overlay, role of materials, and potential memory points; at least one direction must break through the generic combination of text/cards/flowcharts and propose an expression exclusive to this episode.
- After the direction concepts are formed, only when advanced Remotion capabilities are needed should you read the minimum scope of relevant official Plugin knowledge on demand; do not load all knowledge at once, and do not downgrade creativity in advance because of local unknowns.
3. CONVERGE_ONE_COHERENT_PLAN
- Choose the single unified plan best suited to the current talking-head content based on audience understanding, raw footage composition fit, whole-piece coherence, mobile readability, and memory points, and explain the trade-offs.
- It is allowed to absorb one strong expression from another direction, but multiple visual worlds must not be pieced together into a stylistically chaotic hybrid.
- For each content segment, write the on-screen action, and add one line:
执行提示：推荐能力或包 + 大致手法 + 时长/节奏 + 安全区与退场。 - Before shooting, write only approximate seconds; even if raw footage already exists, do not fabricate a clean timeline or precise frame counts at this stage.
- Confirm the final plan in one sentence
LIGHTWEIGHT_RESULT_ONLYVisual baseline: large readable text on mobile, transparent/no large solid backing panels, clear color hierarchy, content-specific visuals, complete enter—develop/turn—exit, safe zones for eyes/mouth/subtitles. - Do not fix font sizes, coordinates, color schemes, old components, templates, or the number of advanced effects.
After the first draft is complete, write:
director_draft: COMPLETED；director_review: PENDING；status: WAITING_FOR_FOOTAGE。
Then stop; you must not automatically proceed to the final review within the same user request.
Phase two: one final director review
Enter only when the user explicitly asks to continue refining the current director draft, do a final review, or use the fixed phase-two prompt. Read the samedirector-state.md, do not rerun the full first draft, and do not change the established content mainline and visual world:
DENSITY_REVIEW
- Judge segment by segment whether low, medium, or high animation density is appropriate.
- Check for real people or static frames lasting too long, density imbalance, having only typography animation while lacking relationship/spatial/process/causal/real-material expression, attention competition, insufficient climax, and cross-segment breaks.
ADVANCED_EXPRESSION_CHALLENGE
- Select only the positions truly worth enhancing. First clarify the audience understanding task and director intent, then internally diverge 2—3 essentially different candidates for each key position; at least one candidate must not merely be a reskin of existing text or card effects.
- Read the minimal scope of Remotion official Plugin knowledge as needed according to the visual task; do not load all capabilities at once.
- Advanced expression must carry relationship, process, causal, spatial, or memory tasks; it must not merely add font pop-in, enlargement, or color change.
- Do not lower creativity in advance because local capability is unknown, and do not hand technical multiple-choice questions to Jeffrey.
- Use the following non-exhaustive technical search map to remind yourself of search dimensions, but do not check items off one by one or force their use: Shared Element/morph continuity transformation; transparent 2.5D or 3D/depth of field/parallax/virtual camera; relationship lines/paths/nodes/causal chains/data flows; masking/disassembly/perspective compositing/corner pin/real product integration; particles/trails/motion blur/shader; cross-segment spatial transitions and semantic relay. You must allow discovery of techniques outside the map.
COHERENT_RECONVERGENCE
- Choose the combination best suited to the whole film rather than the most complex one, and check whether effects compete with or duplicate each other; write only the selected enhancements back into the original segments, and do not persist unselected candidates.
- Complete the enter, develop/turn, exit, cross-segment relay, engineering suggestions, rhythm, safe zones, and equivalent implementations.
- There is no quota on the number of effects; the whole film may add at most 2 independent dependency packages in total, and Remotion core and verified runtime capabilities may be freely combined.
- Preserve the established parts; do not tear down and rewrite.
After the review is complete, writedirector_review: COMPLETEDand continue to maintainstatus: WAITING_FOR_FOOTAGE, then stop.
Persistence and stopping
The only newly added business artifact is the current episode's09-导演/director-state.md. The configuration, state, and admission skeleton generated by creating a new episode do not count as director artifacts;_status.mdis orchestration metadata that must be synchronized, not a second business artifact.
When complete, the following must be satisfied:
method: V5；workflow_revision: V5.1；status: WAITING_FOR_FOOTAGE；- Bound to the current script version;
- Content understanding, 2—3 divergence directions, and the final unified plan are all non-empty;
- Every content segment has visual action and lightweight execution hints;
- Advanced techniques, material strategy, and post-shoot items to be confirmed are recorded;
- The final plan explicitly confirms the lightweight visual baseline.
- At the end of the first-draft request it is
director_draft: COMPLETED / director_review: PENDING; at the end of the final review request it isdirector_review: COMPLETED。 _status.mdThe current position has been synchronized to the corresponding D1 director draft or D2 final review, and the correct stage has been checked; when raw exists but the shooting record is missing, ⑦ must not be incorrectly marked as complete.- Run in real time after the last write
bash scripts/check-episode-contract.sh episodes/<slug> configand obtain PASS; the old PASS from the start of the window must not be referenced, nor may a clean Git status be used as a substitute for episode admission.
Then stop immediately and report to Jeffreydirector-state.mdthe address. Even if the live-action raw footage already exists, editing or implementation must not continue in this window; the next production window will read the director status and proceed to ⑧—⑪.
If the real-time config fails due to registry/runtime drift, the actual error must be reported and work must stop; the executor lock must not be manually modified. Only when Jeffrey explicitly authorizes it may it be handed over to the workflow-controlled migration command for repair; after repair, the real-time config gate must still be rerun.
V5 Prohibited Artifacts
This route must not create or modify:
clean.mp4, transcripts, SRTs, and editing decisions;beat-sheet.md, EDL, animation brief/AST, styleframe, animatic, or the legacy renderer route;- the post-shoot timeline version of the direct brief or source manifest;
- Remotion/React code, candidate, or final;
- network asset downloads, publishing, or external replies.
If these artifacts already exist from other stages, only read them to determine boundaries; do not rewrite them in the director pre-production window.