version: "1.0.0" name: directors-notebook description: Comprehensive pre-production pass for a narrative scene — Proferes' full method (detective work, dramatic blocks, fulcrum, staging, camera plan, actor direction) written into the project graph. The hub skill that ties together cuts, camera-narrator, direct-eyes, and prose-storyboard for a complex scene. use_when_summary: "Read FIRST when planning essentially any story or world video — a film, trailer, ad, montage, or 'what if' concept, with or without explicit dialogue. The default comprehensive planning pass; pulls in cuts, camera-narrator, direct-eyes, film-grammar and outputs scene/clip/keyframe records. Skip only for a single isolated clip with no story." tags: [planning, scene, directing, hub]

Director's Notebook — the comprehensive planning pass

Nicholas Proferes' full pre-production method from Film Directing Fundamentals, applied to a generated narrative scene. Use this for a scene that has real dramatic content — characters with wants, a turn, staging, dialogue — where a bare cut map isn't enough. It is the HUB: it directs you to load the supporting craft skills at the right step and synthesizes them into the project graph.

Do NOT write a prose notebook document. Every section below produces SOURCE — scene records, the planned cut map (clips), and keyframe stubs — that the rest of the pipeline consumes.

1. Detective work → the scene record

Decide and write into scenes/<idx>-<slug>/scene.md (frontmatter + body):

• Whose scene is it (who drives it).
• Per character: core trait, scene want (active infinitive), expectation, secret.
• The tone in one sentence.
• Where it sits in the story; what the audience must learn/feel here.

Recurring characters/locations/props each need a references/ entry + portfolio before keyframes rely on them.

2. Dramatic structure → the beat list

In the scene body, break the scene into 2–4 dramatic blocks (title, dominant dynamic, escalation) and name the fulcrum — the irreversible turn. List the narrative beats (what the audience must receive). This is what each shot has to deliver; it drives the cut map.

3. Camera + cuts → the cut map (planned clips)

Load `cuts` (where/why to cut, what part of the action, pacing) and `camera-narrator` (objective/subjective, reveal, shot size, the single camera move). Together they produce the cut map: write each shot as a planned clip record (clips/<id>.md, status:"planned") with shot_size, camera_move, cut_motivation, and transition_from_previous. Only set duration_seconds when it is the actual generated/playback duration; never use it as a shorter editorial trim. Give the fulcrum the strongest camera choice. Decide the LAST shot first.

4. Staging + composition → the keyframe stubs

Load `storyboard-image-direction` first (one clear picture-sentence, anticipation-frame keyframes for video, readable staging), then `direct-eyes` (focal point via contrast/value/depth/framing + the named lighting source). For each clip, write planned keyframe stubs (keyframes/<id>.md, status:"planned") whose bodies state staging (positions, blocking, screen direction), composition (focal point, depth layers, framing), and which references they depict. Continuous shots share a keyframe node; cuts do not. Keep screen direction and the 180-degree line consistent across the chain.

5. Dialogue + actor direction

For shots with speech, set the clip dialogue contract (mode + timed lines, speakers = characters reference ids). In the keyframe/clip bodies, note the actable verb and delivery for each beat — direction the generation prompt can use ("pleading, not arguing"; "withdrawn, eyes down").

6. Review

After keyframes generate, the independent review (reviewKeyframes) + the film-grammar checklist catch identity drift, geography/180-line breaks, and near-static pairs. Read `film-grammar` for the checklist.

Output check

When the pass is done you should have: one scene.md with the dramatic analysis, a planned cut map of clips (named motivations, one aspect ratio, deliberate shot sizes), and planned keyframe stubs with staging/composition. Run checkProject and judge pacing/structure against the report. Then generate portfolios → keyframes → review → clips. The notebook is the plan in the graph, not a document.