text-to-video-direct

name	text-to-video-direct
description	Single-step text-to-video generation (Sora, Veo, Kling text mode, Hailuo). Use for quick exploratory shots or when motion is more important than precise framing.

Direct Text-to-Video Pipeline

Single model call from a text prompt to a clip. No intermediate still.

When to use

• Exploratory or B-roll shots where you don't need to lock the opening frame.
• Motion-heavy shots where the model's interpretation of motion matters more than composition.
• Faster iteration when image-then-animate is overkill.

When NOT to use

• Character-specific shots needing visual consistency — direct text-to-video drifts heavily across takes. Use text-to-image-to-video instead.
• Talking heads — use voice-to-lip-sync over a generated character clip.

Inputs

• Shot brief from scripts/storyboards/NN-*.md.
• Text-to-video model from brief/tools-and-models.md.

Steps

1. Compose prompt. Combine visual seed + motion description + style/vibe. Show to user.
2. Generate. Call the configured text-to-video model. Save to generation/text-to-video/NN-shortname-vN.mp4. Save prompt + model + parameters to generation/prompts/NN-shortname-vN.md. Log it.
3. Surface. Show clip. Offer retry, accept, or switch to text-to-image-to-video for tighter control.
4. Accept. Copy to clips/raw/ and suggest /promote-take.

Common gotchas

• Cost per retry is high. Text-to-video models are typically the most expensive call in any pipeline. Iterate the prompt carefully before each call — don't just hit retry.
• Aspect / duration locked at gen time. Most models don't let you crop or extend after the fact cleanly. Set both correctly per the brief.