frankxai film-release-gate
The entry point for narrative film work. It does two jobs: it sequences the
other artifacts in the film-excellence pack, and it defines done.
It is the film equivalent of web-release-gate, and it works the same way:
you don't get to self-certify.
Read order (do not skip)
- The repo's own
film-design.mdandfilm-taste.mdif they exist — they outrank everything below. DOCTRINE.md— the five laws and the refusal listLANGUAGE.md— before any dialogue is writtenfilm-design.md(pack template) — the token contractCREW.md— which chair, which modelPIPELINE.md— the eight stages
Sequence
Refuse to jump stages. The most common and most expensive error in generative film production is starting at stage 7.
1 BIBLE → turn stated in one line, formal rule declared
2 CHARACTERS → Word Ledger + locked visual string per principal
3 BEATS → timecoded, turn located between 2:30 and 3:10
4 SCRIPT → LANGUAGE.md checklist passes
5 LOOK+SOUND → sound map written BEFORE any frame is generated
6 SHOTLIST → rule_check = yes on every row
7 GENERATE → character IDs reused, every generation logged
8 CUT → assembled to the sound map, then this gate
If a user asks to "just generate some shots" before stage 5 exists, say what is missing and what it will cost — a bin of unusable clips and a face that drifts — then offer the shortest real path: bible and beats first, one hour.
The gate
Certification requires all of the following as artifacts, not assertions:
- The turn, in one line, in the form they think X; actually Y
- The formal rule, declared, plus the two places it hurt (shot ids)
- Sound map: bed per location · foley on three actions · music in/out · the planned silence with its function and duration
- Three hand shots, timecoded
- Three deliberate imperfections, timecoded
- Language pass logged — the eleven-item checklist from
LANGUAGE.md - Speech-free ≥ 20% of runtime, measured not estimated. Speech-free means nobody is talking; room tone and foley continue. Do not accept a signal-free track as evidence — that is a dropout. A deliberate total silence is a separate, timecoded entry in the sound map
- Generation ledger complete — every shot reconstructible from seed
- Cold watch: one person who did not make it watched at 1× with no scrubbing and can answer what did she want and what changed
- Runtime inside the target window
- Submission copy passes the language refusals in
film-taste.md
Missing any item → not certified. Report which, and the shortest path to each. Do not soften this and do not average the criteria into a score.
Never assign a numeric quality score to your own work. The gate is pass/fail on evidence. A score is a way of feeling finished without being finished.
Adversarial pass
Before certifying, run one deliberate hostile read. The prompt to yourself is not "is this good" — it is:
"A jury has watched four hundred of these this week. Give me the three sentences they will use to dismiss this one."
If those three sentences are true, the film is not ready. If you cannot produce three, you are not looking hard enough — produce them anyway, then check.
Anti-patterns this gate exists to catch
| Pattern | What it actually is |
|---|---|
| "The visuals are stunning" | No turn |
| "It's more of a mood piece" | No want |
| "The music really carries it" | The performances don't |
| "We'll fix it in the edit" | Stage 3 was skipped |
| "Every shot took forty retries" | Character IDs weren't used |
| "I'd give this a 9" | Self-certification |
Built on SIP.