The Master Guide / 00 Start here
Reading paths
Six short routes through the Guide, each in reading order, each step with its chapter number. Every other page is reached from the sidebar, from each chapter's first page, or from a pointer.
Six short routes through the Guide, each in reading order, each step with its chapter number. Every other page is reached from the sidebar, from each chapter's first page, or from a pointer.
New to directing with AI: read these first
01 · The stages and gates → The stage chain and its order rules: the eight stages, and why none starts before the last is approved.
01 · The quality bar → The hard stops: what fails a frame or take, however good the rest.
06 · Photoreal anchors (Nano Banana Pro) → What an anchor is: the images every shot is made from.
06 · Photoreal anchors (Nano Banana Pro) → Character sheets: how a face holds from shot to shot.
07 · Video with Seedance → How a shot is made: references and a written prompt, not a start frame.
07 · Video with Seedance → The prompt grammar: the block order every video prompt follows.
07 · Video with Seedance → Draft and finish: what a 480p draft is judged on, and what waits for 1080p.
05 · Planning, budgets and takes → The generation rhythm: a sample of each scene, reviewed together, before the rest.
07 · Video with Seedance → Take selection and review: the motion standard, and choosing the keepers.
05 · Planning, budgets and takes → Fixing a failed take: name the failure, then change one thing in its layer.
An experienced director: what's different here
Every decided rule is on one page in Start here → The house rules on one page. These eight are the ones most likely to differ from how you work now.
01 · The stages and gates → What the client sees, and what stays internal: six client documents; everything else stays with you.
04 · Writing the treatment → Storyboard images: every image shows the vision; none of them controls a generation.
05 · Planning, budgets and takes → Costs and the estimate: you budget generations, each with an expected and a ceiling figure.
07 · Video with Seedance → The fixed set and the live place: the plate owns the set; the place stays alive.
08 · Camera and lens → Lenses in degrees: one lens per shot, written in degrees; millimetres stay in your plan.
09 · Performance → Acting as a task: give a character something to do to someone, not something to feel.
10 · Speaking shots and lip sync → Choosing the route per shot: each speaking shot's route is set in the plan before anything is generated.
11 · Editing → Hard cuts and declared effects: cut hard; an effect appears only when declared and the treatment wants it.
Only the prompts
06 · Still prompts, storyboard frames and diagrams → The still-prompt structure: the order every still prompt follows.
06 · Sheet, close-up, plate, product and prop cards: Photoreal anchors (Nano Banana Pro) → Character sheets; Photoreal anchors (Nano Banana Pro) → Close-ups and casting stills; Photoreal anchors (Nano Banana Pro) → State sheets; Photoreal anchors (Nano Banana Pro) → Location plates; Photoreal anchors (Nano Banana Pro) → Products and labels; Photoreal anchors (Nano Banana Pro) → Prop sheets and detail locks.
06 · Stylised cards: from Stylised films (Seedream 5.0 Pro) → The style anchor on.
06 · Still prompts, storyboard frames and diagrams → Presentation and storyboard frames; Still prompts, storyboard frames and diagrams → Staging maps, position images, scale sketches: frames and diagrams.
07 · Video with Seedance → Templates A, B and D: the fill-in video prompts.
07 · Video with Seedance → How to read a recipe: its index table leads to the eighteen recipes, one page each.
10 · Speaking shots and lip sync → Templates C, E and F: speaking and singing plates.
10 · Voice and Arabic dialects → Ten complete line scripts; 12 · Music → Style-text examples; 13 · Sound design and mix → Designed effects with ElevenLabs: voice, music and sound.
Arabic voice and sound
02 · The brief and research → Dialect rules: one city's ear for every line, and who signs it off.
10 · Voice and Arabic dialects → Cast the dialect, don't prompt it: a voice brings its own accent.
10 · Voice and Arabic dialects → Three texts per line: canonical line, engine text, Franco line.
10 · Voice and Arabic dialects → Spelling for the engine: full vowel marks in the dialect's own vowels.
10 · Voice and Arabic dialects → Measured checks and the back-check: every take transcribed and compared.
10 · Voice and Arabic dialects → The native reviewer: a native ear passes every Arabic line.
10 · Speaking shots and lip sync → Route 2, the Arabic default: record, plate, check, lip sync, ship the exact take.
07 · Video with Seedance → Sound inside the shot: Seedance never voices Arabic, crowd murmur included.
13 · Sound design and mix → The placed voice: each line placed in the shot's space, the dry take kept beneath.
12 · Music → Sung lyrics and the real singer: every sung track finished by a real singer.
Running the job: approvals and money
For producers, and for directors who run their own jobs.
01 · The stages and gates → The stage chain and its order rules: what waits for which approval.
01 · The stages and gates → What the client sees, and what stays internal: the six documents, and the words that never reach a client page.
05 · Planning, budgets and takes → Costs and the estimate: risk bands, expected and ceiling figures, and currencies kept apart.
05 · Planning, budgets and takes → The generation rhythm: how many batches to expect, and why.
05 · Planning, budgets and takes → The stop rules: when spending on a shot stops.
01 · The stages and gates → Handling notes: a note changes only what it names.
01 · The stages and gates → Approvals and the send log: one decision-maker, every approval in writing, every send logged.
04 · Client presentations → A new link per send: every send frozen on its own link.
12 · Music → Downloads and the licence: when Suno's commercial rights apply.
13 · Sound design and mix → Real recordings from Openverse (CC0): why only CC0 recordings are used.
14 · Graphics, captions, versions and delivery → Versions: every deliverable listed in one version table.
Finishing and delivery
13 · Sound design and mix → The mix with speech as the anchor: the voice sets every other level.
13 · Sound design and mix → Loudness: −23 TV, −16 online, −14 short social: the target for each delivery.
13 · Sound design and mix → Stems: the separate mixes that go with the film.
14 · The grade and texture → The colourists' order: the order the picture work runs in.
14 · The grade and texture → Texture once: one grain per film, applied once.
14 · Graphics, captions, versions and delivery → Graphics built in code: every word on screen as its own file.
14 · Graphics, captions, versions and delivery → Captions, Arabic included: caption files and their checks.
14 · Graphics, captions, versions and delivery → Versions: cut-downs, ratios, languages and online versions.
14 · Graphics, captions, versions and delivery → 25 fps TV versions by speed-up: the TV version without new frames.
14 · Graphics, captions, versions and delivery → Exports and the delivery check: what every file is checked for before it goes.
14 · Graphics, captions, versions and delivery → The handover: XML and final-film page: the editable timeline and the final page.