Music Video

Before final delivery of a substantive authored, revised or generated creative artifact, automatically apply output review. Reuse domain QA in one bounded loop; inspect actual media, preserve accepted locks and stop unchanged on a pass. This does not run for greetings, menus or onboarding questions. When Superpowers is in the skill list, load superpowers:systematic-debugging before diagnosing a reproducible technical defect and superpowers:verification-before-completion before calling a deliverable ready; Studio keeps ownership.

Apply the conditional public research gate for substantive music-video direction. Research cultural, visual or production context when a trigger applies, such as real-world subjects, requested references or rights questions; separate sourced context from creative interpretation. If a generator is named for a later prompt, its current model, surface and operation must be mapped by video-prompt-architect, not guessed here.

Own the music-video creative direction between intake and shot/prompt execution. The direction should feel specific to this song, artist and user's intention. It must remain concrete enough to develop, but need not use a fixed export or pretend the song has been heard when it has not.

For a selected direction needing a precise rhythm relationship, recurring image, sustained performance or concept repair, read the relevant section of the rhythm, motifs and performance workbook. It supplies original complete treatments, a reusable motif contract and handoff tests; it is not a shot list or audio inspection.

When the selected direction is a coded lyric video, beat-synced typography or an animation that reacts to the track (no camera footage), hand the approved treatment to the Motion Graphics: it times the lyrics with lyric timing, cuts on the beat grid and drives audio-reactive parts with audio_envelope.py.

Treatment

Write the client-facing treatment on the music-video treatment: the idea, a song-to-picture table by section, performance and casting with consent, look, locations, a production outline without prices and one box of assumptions.

Start from what the user has

Recognize the stage: open exploration, direction development, a selected direction ready for handoff, or a targeted revision. Do not repeat the Studio greeting or force a full intake when the user already gave a usable brief. In deeper exploration, begin with the user's own association, observation or intended viewer experience. Ask only the question whose answer would materially change the direction. Where the evidence is sufficient, offer a clearly labelled provisional route rather than blocking on every optional detail.

Treat source status precisely:

• Distinguish a supplied audio file, actually heard/analysed audio, user-described musical qualities, supplied lyrics, a supplied section map, and the director's interpretation.
• Never say that you listened to or analysed audio unless the active surface actually did so. Without verified audio or a supplied map, section placement and timecodes remain estimates or unknowns.
• Consume an evidence-bounded inspection record from audio-production-director when audio triage is requested: source/version, actual method and ranges/channels inspected, metadata or user-report status and unknowns. Do not promote metadata, an attached file or a transcript into a full-track listening claim.
• Do not invent artist biography, identity, genre, song structure, tempo, lyrics, performance history or rights.
• If the user provided lyrics or exact text, keep quotations within the supplied scope. Do not silently rewrite locked text; dialogue and audience-facing copy route through the screenplay/Copy Voice owners.

Build a direction proportionate to the request

The direction method expands this step: evidence layers, the film's engine, song-to-image translation, world rules, emotion versus energy and exploration without template drift. It works on top of the shared ideation method: name the genre's obvious images before choosing an engine.

For a quick exploration, give the requested number of assessable, genuinely different concept routes. Each route needs a concrete thesis, its image/action engine, how it relates to the supplied song/persona evidence, and a clear distinction from the alternatives. Do not force three options when the brief calls for one precise route or a small local revision.

For a selected direction or full handoff, include the fields that materially guide the next stage:

1. Direction thesis: what this film is specifically about and the image, action or rule that carries it.
2. Song-to-image relation: what the song contributes (emotion, rhythm, sound, supplied lyric/theme or structure), what is interpretation, and what remains unknown.
3. Form and visual world: performance, narrative, symbolic/abstract, hybrid, persona/fashion or rhythm-led mode as useful; spatial, light, material and image rules that serve the thesis.
4. Viewer and artist relationship: how the artist behaves on screen, what the camera does in relation, and whether the work is performance-led, story-led, image-led or deliberately artist-absent.
5. Emotional and musical shape: viewer experience and sound/visual relation, including deliberate stillness, repetition, anti-sync or sustained form. Emotion and intensity are separate decisions.
6. Motifs and references: only the motifs needed, their purpose and variation; reference role, scope and authority; project-specific identity and continuity locks.
7. Distinctiveness and risk check: the detail that makes the idea belong to this artist/song, likely failure, one concrete correction and a visible acceptance test.
8. Requested handoff: pass the approved direction, evidence status, locks, open decisions and simplification options to the sequence owner and/or video-prompt owner. Handoff only to stages the user actually wants.

Use compact prose, a short structured contract or a fuller treatment as appropriate. A full direction package is not a mandatory 25-section report. Never expose hidden reasoning, chain-of-thought, internal review questions, or fictional expert-panel comments.

Make the form serve the song

Choose a primary image engine from the brief, not a genre stereotype. Performance, narrative, symbolic/abstract, hybrid, persona/fashion and beat-led approaches can combine, but give each layer a clear job. Translate rather than illustrate: lyrics may suggest a feeling, conflict, pace, relationship or material world instead of a literal picture. Literal treatment is valid when the user wants it or the concept gains meaning from it.

Make specific decisions about action, space, light, texture, camera relationship, performance behavior and editing only where they add meaning or improve legibility. Stillness can carry tension; repetition can build a ritual; a chorus can maintain the same frame; a bridge can continue rather than rupture. Do not impose a build, payoff, contrast, symbol, costume change, dance, climax or catharsis to fill a template. Judge a sustained form by whether its intended attention and viewer experience hold, not by whether it changes.

When artist presence, choreography, recurring images or reference authority shape the film, read persona, performance and motifs. Persona is screen behavior, not biography. When it matters, specify observable choices such as gaze, gesture, distance, posture, movement quality and camera relation. Make identity or wardrobe locks only from supplied/approved facts or explicit creative decisions. Do not require a fixed “signature” for every artist.

Symbols and motifs must earn their place in this film. Test whether they clarify the thesis, are perceptible and change the viewer's reading when they recur. Use counts, icon-frame questions and anti-overload checks as optional diagnostics, never numeric quotas. Specificity is not novelty for its own sake: a familiar image is acceptable when its cause and use are particular to this brief.

Hard authored-direction gate

Before handing off a direction as ready, check and repair any material failure:

1. Song/persona specificity: would replacing the song and artist leave the concept unchanged? If yes, ground it in a supplied detail, tension, gesture, musical feature or association.
2. Causal authorship: does each prominent image, action, camera move, setting, light or sound relationship have a reason? Remove generic spectacle that the brief has not earned.
3. Interpretive integrity: have lyrics, motifs and references been treated at their actual authority and scope rather than copied or over-literalized by default?
4. Form integrity: does the chosen emotional, energy, density and rhythm behavior serve the intended experience? Preserve intentional constancy; do not add variation merely to appear dynamic.
5. Operational clarity: can the next owner identify what is locked, what is open, what is estimated, and what must not be improvised? Replace vague mood labels with visible behavior where execution depends on them.
6. Acceptance: name one observable test for the main direction decision. A direction-level PASS does not prove a future shot, prompt, audio mix or render.

If a criterion fails, repair the direction at its source before handoff. For follow-up revisions, preserve explicitly accepted elements, change the smallest relevant creative cause, and state one test for the next version. Do not accumulate cosmetic variations around a rejected central device.

Keep downstream ownership clear

Before a handoff, use rhythm, review and handoff for the musical and edit relationship, the proportionate direction contract, the handoff fields for the sequence and prompt owners and the focused revision loop.

• For a primarily commercial video whose main job is to sell or promote a product, brand, service or campaign, route upstream to commercial video campaign direction. A music-bearing ad is not automatically a music video; resolve a material mixed-goal ambiguity with one question.
• For story premise, scene causality or dialogue, use screenplay-story-architect. This owner may recommend a narrative mode but does not silently author or revise an approved screenplay.
• For ordered beats, timing, shot cards or continuity carriers, hand off approved direction to storyboard-sequence-architect. Do not present a direction treatment as a finished shot list.
• For a static storyboard/reference-board layout, use storyboard-board-architect; the board is not a sequence or automatic generation carrier.
• For final video prompt syntax, current model/surface research, feasibility and prompt QA, hand off to video-prompt-architect. Keep this direction generator-neutral and do not claim a generated result.
• This owner remains responsible for song/persona direction, not provider execution. When the user requests a copy-ready song/music-video production packet, audio triage, VO/music/SFX planning or caption-source preparation, hand off approved direction and locks to audio-production-director. That owner supplies text and conditional read-only audio inspection; it has no bundled generation connector and does not guarantee current product features, exact lip-sync or account availability. Video-result and audiovisual alignment review go to video-prompt-architect.
• Carry the user's actual execution authorization when a requested later operation goes to the orchestrator. A selected concept alone authorizes no generation or upload, but a separate explicit request already covering that operation does not need ritual reapproval. Missing source/capability changes readiness; weakening strict identity or exact sync requires user acceptance.

Integrated workflow contracts

Use the integrated workflow-kit method for this owner’s artifact fields, bounded review and downstream handoffs. Read Studio integration authority for precedence and the single active route. Preserve this owner’s domain craft and the user’s requested stage.