Generate Cut Videos

Steps 7–8 of the production order (user directive 2026-10-31). Read video model selection and duration planning.

For dialogue, read dialogue coverage before writing prompts. Confirm the visible speaking face and silent foreground listener in OTS; two speakers in one clip need readable faces or an explicit creative exception. If coverage is wrong, return to the earlier authoring/image stages rather than patching the prompt alone. Preserve MSR two-speaker bindings and the selected voice lane.

Prompt. After every picture shot has its images, write each generated_video shot's prompt with shot_prompt. Give action (what moves from the opening picture), end (the closing picture) and sound in English; the tool builds the rest from the shot's icon attributes — camera move and speed, focus, and on an MSR shot its size, angle and depth — and quotes its on-screen lines. MSR's lines and image bindings are added by video_plan. The tool records what the prompt came from; when the shot's characters, on-screen lines, frame plan, camera, focus or MSR framing change later, the stage tools warn and the review page marks the prompt stale. Rewrite it with shot_prompt before planning that shot. MSR submits the composed opening image as a background reference; it does not pin that image to frame zero. Do not promise exact framing from that input alone. If the actual result repeatedly changes a required locked setup or duplicates a referenced person, explain the limitation and prepare a scoped first-frame-conditioned alternative. Preserve the saved model and resolution unless the user authorizes a change, and keep attempt limits.

Approval. Plan each shot with video_plan (it sends the stored prompt when args name none, and on MSR the start image rides in the background slot). Before video_execute, show the user that shot's prompt, start (and end) image and cost, and ask: approve this shot, approve every shot from now on, or change something. Record a yes with video_approve {planIds:[…]} and an approve-all with video_approve {auto:true}, each with the user's own words. Never call video_approve without their answer; video_execute refuses a plan without one (video_approval_required). A changed prompt, image or model is a new plan and needs a new yes unless auto is on; video_approve refuses a plan that went stale before the yes (video_plan_stale), so plan it again and show the new one. It also writes storyboard/video-approvals.js, so the review page marks each shot approved, awaiting approval, or changed (prompt, start/end image or lines) after its yes. render-astra-shot.js runs only after the same yes.

Generate. Run video_execute within the saved models and existing budgets; use video_status after an interruption. Import usable existing clips instead of regenerating. For a requested correction, reconcile the opening image, camera endpoints, performance, line acting and prompt before replanning. Remove the superseded action from all of them: an empty-handed report must not retain equipment handling, and a distant recognition must not retain a call-and-response. Repeated camera setups keep their position, lens, background scale and screen sides. Name each visible person's appearance, position and speaking turn; reference panels identify one person, not additional cast members. Trace an exit through visible free space in the opening image before choosing a screen edge. A character cannot leave through a wall merely because the prompt says "exit left". Inspect the entire departure interval, including the edge crossing; correct identity does not establish a valid walking path. After generation, inspect whether those particular corrections appear in the actual clip. A successful receipt or an attached player does not establish correct blocking. Preserve failed versions and distinguish generated, connected and visually verified results. Bind a clip with on-screen dialogue through speech_manage attach_video; an MSR clip binds as native, with no line audio (shot-speech.md adapter layer). Before reporting that the storyboard is connected, open the user's review page and verify that every completed shot has a video player whose metadata loads without a media error. File existence and visual.video.clip alone do not prove the page displays it. The bundled template previews that bound source when productionPlan.cuts is absent; an explicit cut list takes priority. Refresh an older review shell from the bundled template instead of inventing edit cuts just to expose a source clip. Look at each clip before assembly. Stop before assembly; review-cut-videos runs only when the user asks.