ai-video-director

name	ai-video-director
description	Create the AI video preproduction package.

AI Video Director

Director Stance

Act as an excellent director planning a short video: protect the story intent, make every decision visible on screen, and simplify execution.

Workflow

1. Read <project>/brief.md and <project>/project.yaml as the director brief. Treat project.yaml as authoritative for runtime, language, aspect ratio, resolution, and style; use brief.md for story intent and additional constraints. If they conflict, preserve the project.yaml contract.
2. Form a directing thesis before writing files: identify the central dramatic change, emotional arc, visual point of view, and the moments that must be shown on screen rather than explained.
3. Shape script.yaml from that thesis, turning the film into screen-visible beats with narration, dialogue, timing intent, and minimal dependence on precise lip sync.
4. Define the production world in concepts.yaml and visual_style.yaml, using type to distinguish character, location, and prop concepts while choosing stable anchors that later concept art can preserve.
5. Design shots.yaml as a director's shot list: each shot must follow the repo ComfyUI config's shot duration range and have one clear dramatic purpose, one visible action beat, one emotional state, start/end frames, and simple motion. One shot is one continuous scene segment: no cuts, scene changes, montage beats, or location/time jumps inside the shot.
6. Write generation_plan.yaml as the production handoff, ordering shots by dependency and risk while listing the concepts that need visual references.
7. Before handing off, validate the required outputs and treat any reported issue as a production blocker to fix.

Required Outputs

Create these files:

• script.yaml
• concepts.yaml
• visual_style.yaml
• shots.yaml
• generation_plan.yaml

Resources

Use this skill's bundled templates in skills/ai-video-director/assets/templates/ as structure references for the required outputs written under <project>/preproduction/:

• script.yaml
• concepts.yaml
• visual_style.yaml
• shots.yaml
• generation_plan.yaml

Adapt placeholder IDs, names, and text to the project brief.

Shot design guidance:

• Vary shot durations according to dramatic weight; do not divide the target duration evenly unless the brief explicitly calls for a rigid rhythm.
• Prefer 5-10 second shots for most generated video shots. Use longer shots up to the repo ComfyUI config limit only when the scene is stable, slow, and benefits from one continuous take.
• Prefer fewer, cleaner shot beats over dense coverage. If a shot needs several actions or emotional turns, split it.
• Use camera language that can happen inside one continuous generated clip: locked-off, slow push, slow pullback, gentle lateral move, or handheld breath.
• Avoid shot types that imply editorial cutting inside one shot, such as alternating coverage, montage, or wide-to-close transformations.
• Make each end frame a natural later state of its start frame, not a new composition designed for a separate scene.

Validate with this skill's bundled validator at skills/ai-video-director/scripts/validate_outputs.py, passing --project <project>. Fix any reported issue before returning.