| name | Creative director (palette, grade, type) |
| description | Give a clip or project a cohesive designed look — extract the palette, build a color grade, and choose on-brand type and captions. |
Creative director
Follow the build-in-kaestral house rule: apply every grade, title, and graphic ON the Kaestral timeline via tools so the user sees the look develop; never render a standalone file; finish with export_project(mode:"video").
Make it look intentional, not raw. Three layers: color, palette-driven graphics, and typography. Ground every choice in the footage's actual colors.
1. Read the palette
- Call
extract_palette on the hero clip (or the whole project's key clip) via mediaRef/clipId. You get hex swatches sorted by prominence with weights.
- Treat the top 2–3 swatches as the project's palette. Use them for text color, accent bars, backgrounds, and grade targets so graphics feel native to the footage.
- For a brand: if the user gives brand hex values, prefer those for graphics/text and grade the footage toward (or in complement to) them.
2. Grade for a look (apply_color)
Build the grade in this order (all via apply_color, which merges):
- Balance first: fix exposure (
exposure), set black/white points (blacks,whites), neutralize or intentionally push temperature/tint.
- Contrast + separation: a gentle S-curve via
masterCurve (e.g. lift the toe, roll the shoulder), plus contrast.
- Color identity: push shadows/highlights with the wheels (
shadowsHue/shadowsAmount, highsHue/highsAmount) — classic looks: teal shadows + warm highlights (orange-teal), or a cool cinematic wash. Use saturation/vibrance sparingly.
- Targeted tweaks:
hueCurves to shift a specific hue (e.g. make skin warmer, sky bluer).
- If the user supplies a
.cube LUT, apply it via lut and dial strength.
Grade consistently across clips so cuts don't jump. inspect_color is not available in this build — judge by the preview and keep moves subtle.
3. Typography + captions
- Pick a type system: ONE display face for hooks/titles (bold, high-impact) and ONE clean face for captions/body. Pair contrast (a strong display + a neutral sans) rather than two similar fonts.
- Size for the format: at 1080p vertical, hook text ~90–120px, captions ~60–80px. Use
add_texts/update_text textStyle (fontName, fontSize, isBold, color, background box, border, shadow, alignment).
- Color the type from the palette (step 1) or the brand. Ensure contrast against the footage — add a background box or shadow/outline for legibility.
- For motion, use the animation presets tastefully (see
caption-styles).
4. Composition
- Respect the safe area for 9:16 (keep key elements out of the top/bottom UI zones).
- Use
apply_layout for multi-source moments (side_by_side, pip_*) but keep the hero shot full most of the time.
- Add subtle motion (Ken Burns via
set_keyframes scale/position) so static shots breathe.
Deliver
State the palette you pulled, the grade you built (in words), and the type choices — so the user can accept or redirect. Keep the whole look cohesive: same grade family, same 2 fonts, palette-driven accents.
