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The Master Guide / 01 How a production runs · The quality bar

Per-stage gates and the four jury lenses

Each stage's gate asks its own questions. The award-level bar behind all of them is set by human craft juries, who judge execution first.

Each stage's gate asks its own questions. The award-level bar behind all of them is set by human craft juries, who judge execution first.

Stage

The gate checks

Hard stops

Stage 01 (Brief)

Every file and voice note is read. The analysis is marked from the brief, inferred or missing, and the locked core is exact. Strategy and insight are checked, claims are sourced, and frames are checked at full size

Faces, hands, labels in frames

Stage 02 (Concepts)

Each concept traces to the insight. The idea counts and filters are met, originality is labelled, and the mechanisms differ. Lines are timed, and accepted or marked draft. Frames are checked at full size

The same

Stage 03 (Treatment)

The core is intact, every department is written as exact values, and each thing has one name. The storyboard, sheets and paragraphs agree. Product counts and label moments are set. Camera moves are sized, or named locks, and only allowed joins are used. Lines are exact and accepted. You settle every clash

The same, on every storyboard frame and casting still

Stage 04 (Plan)

Durations add up in frames. Every shot has its purpose, look and product state, and a method with its reason. Joins have fallback cuts. Camera doses and text holds are set. The estimate gives the expected figure and the ceiling

—

Stage 05 (Anchors)

Every panel's face, wardrobe, hands, labels, places, light and counts match the locked values. There are no pixel edits. Voices are transcribed and judged

All

Stage 06 (Video, audio and cut)

Every take is checked against the treatment, anchors and plan, and its motion measured. Identity, hands, labels, effects and continuity hold across cuts. Speaking shots and the edit timeline are checked

All, in every frame that plays

Stage 07 (Finishing)

Every export is measured to its spec. On-screen text and captions are read letter for letter. The grade is checked against the brand and the product reference, with no unrequested effects. The delivery is logged

All, at the key moments of every version

Every client send

The pre-send check is run, and every frame has passed the reference bar

Faces, hands, labels on every page

The client standard. Each stage also has a client standard in three columns: fails, solid and award-level. Solid is your minimum. A decided rule sits in that column, so missing it fails the work however good the rest is. Each stage's table sits with that stage's work:

Before any video page goes to the client (decided), after your own review, on every rough cut, version and final film page:

  1. Facial expression and emotion read clearly.

  2. Lip sync and tone match, at full size.

  3. The film flows: no cut jars unless the treatment designed it.

  4. The key moments are clear: the product, the line, the turn.

  5. The style holds across shots: one grade, one light logic, one world [proven, colourists' practice]. What fails and what is award-level: The grade and texture → Grade standards.

  6. No uncanny faces.

The four jury lenses, on the rough cut [proven]:

  1. directing and storytelling;

  2. visual craft;

  3. sound and editing;

  4. originality and concept.

You judge them yourself, and they go in the gate report under "For you to judge".

Why: Cannes Lions' 2026 Film Craft jury gave its Grand Prix for "the depth and the originality of the craft". Before judging, its president, Pip Smart, said that work made by "an imperfect, funny, clever human" would be at a premium. Higgsfield's AI film festival judges with exactly these four; the Reply AI Film Festival with originality, production quality and the conscious use of AI.

Sources

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