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Role Guide

Idea Person (Creative Director)

Narrative ownership, scripting, character profiling, genre integrity, and executive producer review.

Idea Person — Role-Specific Production Guide

This document contains the detailed mandates, checklists, and procedures for the Idea Person (Creative Director / Executive Producer) across all 7 production steps. Read the main Video Production Playbook first for the overall workflow and cross-role coordination.

Genre Integrity

You own the genre. Generative AI models default to moody, dramatic, cinematic realism. Without active, continuous intervention from you, every film — regardless of intended genre — will drift toward noir/thriller. This section applies to every step of production.

1. Tone Anchors in Prompts

AI video and image models will not infer genre from your script. You must explicitly instruct the Technical Lead to include genre-defining keywords in every generation prompt. If the model isn’t told it’s a comedy, it will generate a drama.

For each genre, define a set of Tone Anchor keywords in the design_brief.md and require their inclusion in all image/video prompts. Examples:

2. The Constraint Counterbalance Rule

Teams will naturally pick settings that maximize AI visual consistency — dark interiors, static characters, moody lighting. These settings inherently pull toward drama/noir.

If your technical setting fights your genre, you must aggressively counterbalance it with performance and audio. For example: if the scene is in a dark, claustrophobic limo, the acting and music must be overtly ridiculous to stop it from becoming a noir thriller. Write this counterbalance explicitly into the scene notes — don’t assume the Tech Lead or Editor will infer it.

3. Editorial Guardrails

Editors instinctively build tension. You must set hard boundaries on pacing and sound design to protect your genre. Explicitly specify what the Editor should avoid for your genre. Examples:

Include these guardrails in the design_brief.md so the Editor has them from the start.

4. Genre Reality over Actual Reality

Write heightened, genre-appropriate reactions, not realistic ones. Realistic panic looks terrifying. Realistic anger looks like a crime drama. In a comedy, characters should react with comedic panic — exaggerated, absurd, over-the-top. In a romance, characters react with warmth and vulnerability, not stoic restraint.

Apply this when writing dialogue and action in the scene list (Step 2). Ask: “Is this reaction serving the genre, or fighting it?“

5. The “Blind Watch” Check

This is a mandatory genre vibe check at two points:

If the answer doesn’t match the intended genre, revise. This is not a strict pass/fail — it’s a gut-check that forces the team to confront drift before it compounds.

Step 1: Concept & Idea

You lead this step.

Safety-Conscious Concept Selection

During the “sparks” phase, proactively evaluate concepts for safety filter risk.

Step 2: The Beat Sheet

Mandate: Narrator Opening Context

To ground the audience and ensure immediate narrative engagement, the film MUST open with a narrator-driven introduction (Step 2).

You lead this step.

Decompose the short story into a structured Scene List Document (scene_list.md).

Crucial Guidance: These videos are meant to tell a cohesive story, not just be a loosely strung together set of visual “moments” hanging in space.

Master Settings List

Define a master list of settings ONLY for locations where multiple shots will return in the narrative. Do not pre-generate settings for unique, one-off shot locations.

CRUCIAL: For recurring hubs, the prompts must be rich and highly detailed, describing the physical space exhaustively. (e.g., “Interior of a 1950s diner at night. Chrome trim reflects neon pink light…”). The setting must ONLY describe the physical environment and background ambiance. ALL character action or narrative progression must be excluded and left strictly to the Scene/Shot descriptions.

Scene Narrative & Vibe

Each scene must capture a specific, contiguous section of the overall short story. Explicitly summarize:

Mandate: Integrated Audio Notes. Include the exact wording for ambient/background noise requirements (e.g., ‘Distant coastal wind and rhythmic grandfather clock ticking’). Use the exact same wording across different scenes/shots where background audio consistency is required.

Shot Breakdown (Narrative Architecture)

Shots are NOT just visual moments; they are the delivery mechanism for the story.

Mandate: Dense Storytelling. Each shot must contribute a specific beat of narrative progression or character insight.

Mandate: Max 2 Characters Per Shot. No shot may feature more than 2 characters on screen at the same time. With the Veo reference image limit of 3, having 2 character references leaves room for 1 setting or object reference — this is the budget that makes visual consistency possible. If a scene involves more characters, break it into shots that focus on subsets (e.g., shot/reverse-shot between pairs, individual reaction shots). Group scenes should be conveyed through editing, not by cramming everyone into one frame.

Mandate: Narrative Carrying (VO & Dialogue).

Shot Audio Classification

Every shot in the scene list MUST be explicitly tagged with an audio type. This governs both the motion prompt design and the audio track placement.

Dialogue Quality Guidelines

Ask these questions about every dialogue line:

  1. Character Specificity: Could any character say this line? If yes, rewrite it until only THAT character could say it.
  2. Worldview Reveal: Does this line show how the character sees the world, not just what they want?
  3. Verbal Patterns: Does the line use character-specific verbal tics or patterns (e.g., metaphors, jargon, citation of policy)?
  4. Efficiency: Does it advance the story AND reveal character simultaneously?
  5. The Short-Line Trap: Avoid one-word or purely functional lines (e.g., “Yes,” “Go,” “You’re hired”). Use the 2+ sentences rule for protagonists to provide enough audio weight and character flavor.

Two-Character Dialogue (The Missing Layer)

Films tell stories through relationships. Solo statements in solo shots feel like monologues. Aim for at least 2-3 compound dialogue shots per film where two characters speak sequentially within the same shot.

Temporal Cueing (Timing Hints)

Every dialogue or VO entry MUST include a timing hint to communicate creative intent to the Editor.

  1. The Action: What specifically occurs from start to end of the shot.

  2. Duration: Approximate runtime in seconds. (Avoid individual shots over 15-20s.)

  3. Camera Direction: Specific cinematic instructions (e.g., handheld, fast pan, slow zoom).

  4. In-Scene Dialogue: Exact lines spoken by characters ON SCREEN. (Synthesized directly into the video if the model supports native audio.)

  5. Narrator Voiceover (VO): Exact lines spoken by an off-screen narrator. (Generated separately via TTS and spliced during Final Cut.)

  6. Reference Manifest: Explicitly list the reference assets for this shot:

    • Characters: Which characters appear on screen (max 2). The Tech Lead will use each character’s composite character_sheet.png (one image per character) as the reference.
    • Setting: Which Master Setting applies (by name).
    • Objects: Which anchored objects from Step 2.5 should be injected.

    This manifest is what the Technical Lead uses to select --reference-image inputs. It must be explicit — do not leave the Tech Lead guessing which characters are in frame. Typical Veo budget: 1 character sheet per on-screen character + 1 setting reference = 2-3 images out of the 3-image limit.

Step 2.5: Scene Review & Object Anchoring

Co-lead with Editor.

Step 3: Character Workshop

Step 4: The Storyboard

You lead this step.

Step 5: Principal Photography

Step 7: The Editing Suite

You act as Executive Producer during the Final Cut.

Other Role Guides

TL Technical Lead ED Editor