AI Video Director: Production Guide

It solves a production problem

The director workflow coordinates character assets, environment assets, storyboards, shot logic, and pickups. It is designed for short drama, anime drama, trailers, product stories, and other sequences where the final result matters more than one attractive frame.

Two production tracks

Narrative track
- Short drama, anime drama, trailer, short film
- Focus: story, characters, world, and pacing

Production track
- Continuity, storyboard, shot breakdown, complex action
- Focus: camera control, spatial continuity, and stable characters

Standard workflow

1. Read cheatsheet.md
2. Read confirmation-gates.md
3. Choose the Narrative or Production track
4. Draft the storyboard before final prompts
5. Wait for shot-number approval
6. Open only the references needed for the project
7. Return to prompt-director for prompt-level technique

First decide whether the request is narrative or production work. Confirm source material, aspect ratio, tool, and the main failure mode before selecting references. Prompt-director then supplies the lower-level prompt method.

Content routing

Narrative
  short drama / anime drama / film style / scene consistency

Production
  storyboard / shot breakdown / character consistency / scene continuity

Narrative references focus on story and style. Production references focus on camera engineering, spatial logic, and continuity. Keeping the two tracks separate prevents a prompt from carrying too much unrelated instruction.

Build assets before performance

Do not define a recurring character with one portrait and a sentence. Build a small reference pack with face, hair, clothing, accessories, and full-body views. For 3D or anime work, anchor the character with a strong 2D reference before asking the model to place the character in scenes.

• Keep face, hairstyle, clothing folds, and accessories stable across views.
• Create a location master before splitting the story into camera positions.
• Treat important props as reference assets when they drive the plot.

Spatial and character continuity

Build a spatial master with a grid, top-down view, orbit screenshots, or a panorama. Then place characters into that same space. Submit character and environment references separately when possible: the character reference controls appearance, while the environment reference controls geometry, scale, and lighting.

Exterior-to-interior transitions, entrances, corridors, and other location changes need bridge shots. A missing connection shot often looks like a continuity error even when both individual frames are good.

Storyboard and complex action

A storyboard should answer why the subject moves, where it goes, what blocks the action, and why the result follows. For complex movement, use a multi-panel storyboard or a reference video to lock timing before generating motion.

• Keep one dominant action per clip.
• Prefer short clips with clear starts and ends.
• When a shot fails, add a close-up, insert, or empty establishing shot before extending a long take.

Production rules

1. A finished film comes from a coherent system, not isolated beautiful shots
2. Storyboard first
3. Give each shot one control point
4. Manage continuity as a separate production task
5. Recovery and pickups are part of the workflow, not a failure

Continue with scene consistency for spatial locking, complex action and storyboards for shot engineering, and prompt-director for prompt construction.