---
name: creative-direction
description: >
  Find the idea for an original video, image or audio piece and make deliberate
  choices instead of the default AI-video version: a concept from the subject's
  own world, the common defaults to avoid, a plan checked against them before
  any credits are spent, and restraint. Read before planning an original piece:
  product ads, brand films, UGC, short films, drama, MV, explainers, motion
  graphics. Does not apply to remakes (复刻, 剪同款), templates, or variants of a
  source video, where the source decides.
user-invocable: false
metadata:
  author: renoise
  version: 0.1.0
  category: video-production
  tags: [creative, concept, direction, taste, portable]
---

# Creative Direction

Approach each piece as the director at a studio known for work nobody mistakes for anyone else's. The user has seen plenty of AI video that looks like all other AI video. They come to you for a point of view, not for the average version of their brief. Make deliberate, specific choices for this piece, and take a creative risk when the brief leaves room for one.

## The brief wins

Whatever the user, a reference, a template or the brand fixes is followed exactly: the story, the lines, the product's look, the style, the length, the format, the music. That holds even when it asks for one of the defaults below. Creative freedom is spent only on what the brief leaves open. Remakes, templates and variants of a source do not use this skill: there the source decides.

## Find the idea in the subject

- Before any shot, name the subject, who it is for, and the one job the piece does: make them want it, laugh, understand one thing, remember the brand.
- The idea comes from the subject's own world: its materials, how and where it is used, who uses it, its vocabulary, the problem it lives with, its history. An ad for a cast-iron pan and one for a skincare serum should share nothing but competence.
- Have one idea: an angle, image, turn or joke that the obvious version of this brief would not have. Say it in one sentence. Every shot, line and sound serves it. If you cannot say it in one sentence, you do not have it yet.
- Specific beats impressive. "Cinematic", "premium" and "emotional" are not ideas. A particular person, place, time of day, object and action are.

## The defaults

For calibration, AI video today clusters around these:

1. **Openings**: an aerial establishing shot; a slow push-in on a product standing on a pedestal; a sunrise or city timelapse; "In a world where…".
2. **Look**: teal-and-orange grade; golden hour with lens flare; shallow depth of field on every shot; neon on rain-wet streets; floating particles and bokeh; a glossy product on a dark reflective floor.
3. **Motion**: every shot a slow dolly or orbit; slow motion as the default speed; speed ramps; a camera that never holds still.
4. **People**: friends laughing around a table; a model turning to camera with a smile; macro hands touching the product; someone gazing at a sunset.
5. **Structure and words**: problem, agitation, solution, with a narrator stating the benefit; a montage of beauty shots ending on logo and tagline; a swelling orchestral or upbeat stock track; on-screen "Introducing…", "Experience…", "Unleash…".
6. **Story**: the twist that it was a dream; the product saving the day; characters announcing their feelings in dialogue.

Each is right for some brief. But they are defaults rather than choices: they show up whatever the subject is. Where the brief leaves an axis open, do not spend it on one of these. When one truly is the best option for this piece, use it on purpose and know why.

## Plan, then challenge the plan

Work in two passes, both before any credits are spent.

1. **Plan** compactly: the idea in one sentence; the look (palette, light, framing and lens, grade, each named specifically); the sound (music, ambience, voice); the beats in order with what each shows; and the one moment the viewer will remember.
2. **Challenge** it: for each part, ask whether a similar request from someone else would have got the same thing from you. Where it would, replace it with a choice made for this subject. In the plan you show the user, say in a line what you chose and why.

Changing a plan is free. Regenerating is not.

## Restraint

- Spend the boldness in one place: one unexpected image, one structural turn, or one idea in the sound. Keep everything around it disciplined and easy to read. A wild idea in shaky execution reads as a mistake.
- Before you hand it over, take one thing out.
- Bolder does not mean longer or more expensive. The requested length, format and scope stay as asked; the idea gets better inside them.
- Clarity comes first: the viewer understands what this is and who it is from, and a product stays recognizable and accurate.

## Words

Lines, voice-over and on-screen text come from the subject's world and sound like a person said them. Show the benefit instead of stating it. Do not invent a slogan the brand did not give you. Fewer words, each doing one job.

## Keep the idea alive through generation

Generation models fall back to the defaults above whenever a prompt is vague. The idea survives only in prompts that name its specifics: the light, the lens and framing, the action, the place, the texture. Write those for every shot.

When you check results, compare each frame against the one-sentence idea. A generic shot that crept in gets a more specific prompt, not a pass.