Direct, write, and edit AI video sequences with dramaturgy-first discipline. Prompt engineering serves cinema: frame, emotion, motivated camera, and cut rhythm come before model syntax.
Mandatory Process & Reading Order
Do not write a prompt from memory. Each model has its own physics; load these references in order:
1. Dramaturgy & Core Laws → dramaturgy.md
- Scene Formula:
desire + obstacle + geometry + gaze + rhythm(named in 1 sentence before prompting). - Details Law: Every shot must own three physical facts: environmental pressure + body micro-action + sound anchor/visual motif.
- Walter Murch's Rule of Six: Emotion (51%), Story (23%), Rhythm (10%), Eye-trace (7%), Screen plane (5%), 3D space (4%).
- Three-Jobs Rule: A shot must change emotion, advance action, or increase pressure. If none, delete.
- Staging: Fincher (camera moves only on change), Spielberg (readable geometry), Kurosawa (weather pressure).
- Montage Staircase:
long → shorter → shorter → pause → impact. Never skip the Crack.
2. Universal Rules → universal-rules.md
- Universal U1–U12 rules: prompt skeleton, weight-at-start, show-don't-tell, lens language, character anchors, duration discipline, final-image rule.
3. Model Physics Selection (Read Exactly One)
- Seedance 2.5 / Doubao → seedance.md & seedance-25.md: 30s single-pass, 50-slot reference kits, dialogue markers
{ }, video editing, 3D blockout. - Kling 3.0 / 2.6 Pro → kling.md:
[Character A: ...]labels, native dialogue + lip-sync, Element Binding, Motion Brush, negative prompt field. - MiniMax Video (Hailuo) → minimax-video.md: Volumetric physics, motion intensity
1-10, camera vectors (pan,tilt,zoom,dolly,orbit), and bilingual tags. - Veo 3 / 3.1 → veo.md: JSON prompts, dialogue / synchronized SFX, commercial polish with voiceover.
- Other engines (Runway Gen-4, Luma, Pika, Sora) follow universal-rules.md.
4. Task-Specific Specialized Modules
- Storyboards, shot lists, role modes → role-modes.md
- Animatic keyframes & still pitch panels → animatic-keyframes.md
- Race, drift, chase, dynamic kinetic montage → race-and-speed.md
- Commercial, music video, drama, action, UGC, product film → patterns-and-genres.md
- Prompt audit, failure fixes, melted hands, face drift → fixes-and-skeletons.md
- Studio camera, lens, movement, lighting & sound terms → camera-lighting-vocabulary.md
Preflight Verification Gates
Before outputting any prompt or shot list, execute:
- Dramaturgy Check: Scene formula complete, motivated camera, readable geometry, five anchors named (emotion, motif, object, break, final image).
- Three-Detail Audit: Environmental pressure + physical micro-action + sound anchor on every shot.
- Slop & Banned Word Filter: Purge
cinematic,epic,stunning,masterpiece,beautiful lighting,dynamic camera.
Output Formats
- A. Single Prompt: Header (
Model,Quality,Duration,Aspect Ratio) + prompt text + notes. - B. Multi-Clip Sequence: Prompts with repeating identity / style / continuity blocks.
- C. 14-Field Storyboard: Time, Shot, Function, Action, Camera, Light, Sound, Emotion.
- D. Prompt Audit: Working points, broken elements, missing direction, continuity risks, rewritten prompt.
- E. Director Treatment: Core idea, emotional arc, visual motif, rhythm, camera language, ending image.
Cross-Skill Neural Connections & References
Peer & Downstream Skills
- Image Director — Keyframes, character sheets, and still panels
- Creative Director — Upstream Big Idea and commercial script
- Visual Storytelling — Narrative arcs and story structures
- Prompt Compiler — Multi-model prompt compilation
- Visual QA — Motion critique and dramaturgy gate
- Designly Director — Orchestrator and state owner
Schemas & Contracts
- Signal Packet — Neural Mesh handoff
- Routing Graph — Orchestration graph
Attribution: Dramaturgy and model synthesis created by Serge Shima (github.com/smixs/visual-skills), licensed under CC BY 4.0.