pellicola

name

pellicola

description

"Generate cinematic case study pages for films, documentaries, photography portfolios, and creative projects — film-frame hero images, structured crew credit grids, dark footage galleries, festival award sections, scroll-choreographed reveals via data-attribute animation orchestration. Warm cream palette with analog typography. Single-file HTML, zero build step. Triggers on film case study, documentary showcase, filmmaker portfolio, production company website, film credits page, creative project case study, director portfolio, photography case study."

Build cinematic case study pages — the kind you see on film production company sites, documentary showcases, and photographer portfolios. Warm analog palette, domain-specific components, scroll-choreographed reveals. Single-file HTML, zero build step.

"Pellicola" is Italian for film — literally "little skin," the celluloid stock.

Creative Direction

The aesthetic is analog cinema on the web — warm cream backgrounds like unbleached paper stock, deep ink-black text, a single red accent reserved exclusively for the play button. Typography pairs a dramatic display serif (headlines, names) with a precise geometric sans (labels, navigation). Every image is framed like a film still — cream padding, rounded corners, subtle shadow creating a polaroid/celluloid look.

If the minoan-frontend-design skill is available, read it for broader aesthetic principles. Pellicola encodes those principles into a concrete design system for the cinematic case study genre. Pages built with Pellicola should score 16+/20 on /design-audit and 28+/40 on /design-critique.

Name the conceptual direction before coding. Default: "analog screening room." Override with project-specific direction when appropriate — "70mm documentary," "festival press kit," "darkroom portfolio."

Quick Start

# Generate a full case study page
python3 scripts/pellicola_generator.py --mode case-study --title "Taboo" --output taboo.html

# Generate just the hero section
python3 scripts/pellicola_generator.py --mode hero --title "Ana Maxim" --output hero.html

# Generate a credits grid
python3 scripts/pellicola_generator.py --mode credits --output credits.html

# Generate a dark footage gallery
python3 scripts/pellicola_generator.py --mode gallery --output gallery.html

# Validate a pellicola page
python3 scripts/validate_pellicola.py output.html

Or let Claude generate directly from the templates and references.

Modes

Mode	Template	What it generates
case-study	assets/templates/case-study.html	Full page: hero + credits + footage gallery + prizes + investors + next-project
hero	assets/templates/hero-section.html	Film-frame hero + title overlay + play button only
credits	assets/templates/credits-grid.html	Credit grid + director portrait card only
gallery	assets/templates/footage-gallery.html	Dark gallery section only (reusable dark image grid)

Components (9)

Component	Class Prefix	What it renders
pel-hero	.pel-hero	Film-frame image with title overlay, genre label, play button, down arrow
pel-credit-grid	.pel-credits	Role/name pairs in bordered grid (2-3 columns), tracked small caps roles
pel-director-card	.pel-director	Cropped portrait with dark overlay, display serif name, small caps role
pel-context-widget	.pel-widget	Sticky top-right nav: thumbnail, title, metadata tags, dropdown
pel-play-button	.pel-play	Red circle + play triangle + text reveal on hover
pel-gallery	.pel-gallery	Dark-background masonry image grid with hover scale + brightness shift
pel-prizes	.pel-prizes	Festival award logos + names in grid layout
pel-next-project	.pel-next	Large typography + image preview for adjacent case study navigation
pel-section-divider	.pel-divider	Labeled line divider between content sections

Copy-paste HTML snippets for every component: references/component-catalog.md.

Color System

All components read from --pel-* CSS custom properties. Override at :root to re-theme:

:root {
  /* Background */
  --pel-cream: oklch(97.5% 0.012 85);
  --pel-cream-deep: oklch(95% 0.015 80);
  --pel-black: oklch(10% 0 0);

  /* Text */
  --pel-ink: oklch(15% 0.005 80);
  --pel-ink-muted: oklch(40% 0.01 80);
  --pel-ink-light: oklch(98% 0 0);

  /* Accent */
  --pel-red: oklch(55% 0.22 25);

  /* Borders */
  --pel-border: oklch(85% 0.01 80);
  --pel-border-dark: oklch(25% 0 0);

  /* Typography */
  --pel-font-display: 'Playfair Display', 'Cormorant Garamond', serif;
  --pel-font-body: 'DM Sans', 'Outfit', sans-serif;

  /* Easing */
  --pel-ease: cubic-bezier(.19, 1, .22, 1);
  --pel-ease-back: cubic-bezier(.175, 0, .77, 1);
  --pel-duration: 0.8s;
  --pel-duration-long: 1.1s;
}

Full token reference: references/design-tokens.md. OKLCH palette deep-dive: references/color-system.md.

Typography

Display serif carries the cinematic weight — dramatic, editorial, italic for emphasis. Geometric sans handles navigation, labels, metadata — precise and clean. Never Inter, Roboto, Arial, or system-ui. Follow minoan-frontend-design font reflex-reject procedure.

Primary pairings (Google Fonts):

Role	Font	Weight	Usage
Display	Playfair Display	400, 700, 400i	H1, H2, names, pullquotes
Body/UI	DM Sans	400, 500, 700	Body text, labels, navigation, metadata

Alternative pairings:

• Cormorant Garamond (display) + Outfit (body)
• Lora (display) + Karla (body)

Full pairing guide: references/typography-pairing.md.

Scroll Animation System

Pellicola uses declarative data-pel attributes to orchestrate scroll-triggered reveals via IntersectionObserver. No animation library required.

Attribute	Effect	Default
data-pel="y"	translateY(40px → 0) + fade in	duration: 0.8s
data-pel="alpha"	opacity 0 → 1	duration: 0.6s
data-pel="line"	scaleX(0 → 1) horizontal line reveal	duration: 0.6s
data-pel="parallax"	Parallax scroll offset on image	speed: 0.15
data-pel="stagger"	Parent: children animate with cascade delay	delay: 0.1s each
data-pel="title"	Split text into lines, per-line translateY reveal	delay: 0.12s/line

All animations respect prefers-reduced-motion — reduced to instant opacity with no transforms.

Full spec with IntersectionObserver setup and stagger math: references/animation-system.md.

Section Sequence

Case study pages follow a canonical section order. Sections can be omitted but the order is fixed:

1. Hero — Film-frame image, title, genre label, play button
2. Credits — Director card + credit grid
3. Footage / Gallery — Dark-background image grid
4. Prizes — Festival awards and selections
5. Investors / Partners — Logo grid or text list
6. Next Project — Navigation to adjacent case study

Each section separated by a pel-section-divider with label text.

Full page architecture: references/page-architecture.md.

Implementation Rules

1. Vanilla only. No React, Vue, Svelte, Angular. Plain HTML + CSS + JS.
2. Single-file output. Everything in one HTML file. CDN imports for Google Fonts and optional Phosphor Icons only.
3. Warm-first. Body background is --pel-cream, not white, not dark. The dark gallery is one section, not the whole page.
4. --pel-* tokens everywhere. Never hardcode colors — always reference custom properties.
5. prefers-reduced-motion required. Every data-pel animation must have a reduced-motion fallback.
6. requestAnimationFrame only for parallax scroll. Never setInterval.
7. Semantic HTML. <article> for case study, <section> for each content block, <figure> for images, <dl> for credits.
8. Skip link required. <a href="#main" class="pel-skip-link"> as first body child.
9. Credits are grids, not cards. Role/name pairs in a CSS grid with border separators — not card containers with shadows.
10. One accent, one purpose. --pel-red is for the play button only.

Anti-Patterns

• Never use white (#FFFFFF) backgrounds — always --pel-cream
• Never use card containers with shadows for credits — use bordered grid cells
• Never use avatar circles for the director portrait — cropped photographic portrait with dark overlay
• Never use Inter, Roboto, or system-ui — follow font reflex-reject
• Never animate on page load without IntersectionObserver — all reveals are scroll-triggered (hero title is the sole exception)
• Never use --pel-red for anything except the play button
• Never omit prefers-reduced-motion — all data-pel animations must respect it
• Never use height transitions for panels — use grid-template-rows: 0fr → 1fr
• Never use a dark background for the whole page — dark gallery is one section within cream
• Never generate a case study without the canonical section sequence — order is hero → credits → footage → prizes → investors → next-project

Expanded explanations: references/anti-patterns.md.

Post-Build QA

After building, run these passes in order:

1. /design-audit — Technical checks (a11y, performance, responsive, theming, anti-patterns). Target: 16+/20
2. /design-critique — UX review (Nielsen's heuristics, cognitive load, persona testing). Target: 28+/40
3. /design-polish — Final pass (alignment, spacing, interaction states, transitions)

Cross-Skill References

Skill	Cross-ref for	How
grainient	Lenis smooth scroll, hover-zoom	See grainient/references/smooth-scroll.md for setup
rocaille-shader	Hero parallax depth effect	Optional enhancement, not required
pretext	Split-text line-by-line reveal	Cross-ref for advanced text animation
minoan-frontend-design	Creative direction, OKLCH color, font reflex-reject	Read for broader aesthetic principles
component-gallery	Pattern research for credit grids, sticky nav	Pre-build research, not runtime dependency

Generator Script

python3 scripts/pellicola_generator.py \
  --mode case-study|hero|credits|gallery \
  --title "Film Title" \
  --director "Director Name" \
  --year 2024 \
  --runtime "93 min" \
  --genre "Documentary" \
  --output output.html

Validation

python3 scripts/validate_pellicola.py output.html

Checks: viewport meta, --pel-* properties, no framework imports, cream background, prefers-reduced-motion, Google Fonts loaded, data-pel attributes, semantic HTML, skip link, no Inter/Roboto/system-ui.

References

Reference	When to consult
references/design-tokens.md	Building new components or customizing the palette
references/color-system.md	Understanding OKLCH palette, dark gallery treatment
references/typography-pairing.md	Choosing fonts, pairing alternatives
references/component-catalog.md	Need HTML snippets for any component
references/page-architecture.md	Setting up page structure, section sequence
references/animation-system.md	Implementing data-pel scroll reveals
references/anti-patterns.md	Checking for common mistakes

Attribution

Design patterns deconstructed from siena.film (Webflow, Apr 2026). Technologies: Lenis (smooth scroll), IntersectionObserver (scroll reveals), CSS Grid (credit layouts), grid-template-rows (panel animations).