Press Kit Generator

Press Kit Generator

What This Skill Does

Generates a complete documentary press kit from a synopsis and key production facts, including a long-form synopsis, short synopsis, production notes, subject profiles, and cast/crew credits block.

When To Use This Skill

• A documentary is approaching its premiere, festival submission, or broadcast launch and needs a press kit for media use
• A distributor or broadcaster has requested press materials and the production needs them quickly
• You are submitting to a film festival that requires a press kit alongside the film
• You need multiple synopsis lengths for different uses (festival submission, press release, website, broadcaster catalogue)

What You Need To Provide

Required: A description of the documentary (subject, approach, key subjects featured, what it reveals or argues); the film's runtime; director name; production company; year of production; any broadcast or streaming partners Optional: Director's statement or note; key subject names and their roles; cinematographer and editor credits; notable access or production details (what made this film possible or unusual); festival history or premiere information; any critical quotes if already received

How the Assistant Approaches This

1. Opens with a logline (1–2 sentences) and writes three synopsis lengths: 50-word (for festival catalogues and database entries), 150-word (for press releases and broadcaster listings), and 400-word (for full press kit and media use)
2. Writes a Production Notes section covering the genesis of the project, notable access, and what distinguishes this film — drawn from the information provided
3. Creates subject profiles for the key documentary subjects featured in the film
4. Assembles the full credits block from the information provided
5. Adds an About the Filmmaker section from the director information provided
6. After the kit, provides a "Next Step" note: identify which synopsis length to send to which outlets (50-word for festival databases, 150-word for press releases, 400-word for full media packs), attach high-resolution stills before distributing, and whether press-release-writer should be run to create the announcement press release

Output Format

Complete press kit document, 800–1,400 words. Sections: Film Details (formatted metadata block), Logline, Short Synopsis (50 words), Medium Synopsis (150 words), Long Synopsis (400 words), Production Notes (200 words), Key Subjects (75–100 words each), About the Director (100 words), Full Credits. Press/media register — written to be published without editing. Output ends with a "Next Step" note: which synopsis to send to each outlet type, what visual assets to attach before distributing, and whether press-release-writer is needed for the formal announcement.

Quality Criteria

• Three synopsis lengths are genuinely different in scope, not just truncated versions of each other
• Logline captures both the emotional and factual hook of the film
• Production Notes includes at least one specific detail about access, approach, or production context — not generic project description
• Subject profiles distinguish each person's specific role in the film, not just their biography
• All sections are publication-ready — no placeholders, no hedging, no internal-document language
• Output includes at least one concrete next action the user can take immediately (attach stills, select the right synopsis length for each outlet, or run press-release-writer for the announcement)

Example

Input

Documentary title: The Keepers of the Reef Runtime: 62 minutes Director: Ana Lima Production company: Shoreline Films Year: 2025 Broadcast partner: Public broadcaster in Australia; international streaming TBC Synopsis: A documentary following three generations of women from a Torres Strait Island community who have maintained and documented their coral reef knowledge for over sixty years — and who are now watching it die. Shot over two years, the film captures the first bleaching event the oldest generation has ever witnessed, a government science program that uses community knowledge, and a young woman's decision about whether to stay on the island or leave for the mainland. Key subjects: Ivy Mabo, 84 (elder, traditional reef knowledge); Doris Mabo, 58 (Ivy's daughter, community liaison with government scientists); Coral Mabo, 23 (Doris's daughter, studying marine biology on the mainland) Director note: "I wanted to make a film about knowledge — specifically about who gets to decide which knowledge counts. The government scientists flew in with equipment and data. Ivy had been watching this reef every day for sixty years. I wanted to show what each of them saw." Cinematographer: Jules Andersen Editor: Sam Okafor

Output

PRESS KIT

FILM DETAILS

LOGLINE

Three generations of women have watched the same reef for sixty years. In the summer of 2023, they watched it bleach white for the first time.

SHORT SYNOPSIS (50 words)

For sixty years, three generations of women from a Torres Strait Island community have maintained an unbroken record of their coral reef's life. The Keepers of the Reef follows them through the first bleaching event any of them has witnessed — and asks whose knowledge will survive what's coming.

MEDIUM SYNOPSIS (150 words)

Ivy Mabo, 84, has been watching the same reef since she was a young woman. Her daughter Doris works with government scientists, translating between two systems of knowledge. Ivy's granddaughter Coral, 23, is studying marine biology on the mainland — learning a formal language for things her grandmother already knows.

The Keepers of the Reef follows these three women over two years, through the first mass bleaching event the community has witnessed. Filmed with intimate access across two Australian summers, the documentary captures a moment when government science and indigenous ecological knowledge confront the same catastrophe from different starting points — and asks which framework is adequate to what is being lost.

Shot by cinematographer Jules Andersen and edited by Sam Okafor, the film is a story about inheritance, knowledge, and what it means to be the person who remembers.

LONG SYNOPSIS (400 words)

The Torres Strait Islands sit in the shallow waters between Australia and Papua New Guinea, at the northern edge of one of the world's most biodiverse coral ecosystems. Ivy Mabo has lived on one of these islands her entire life. She is 84. For sixty years, she has watched the reef — its seasons, its changes, the species that come and go, the patterns that govern what a healthy reef looks and feels like. She has taught this knowledge to her daughter. Her daughter has tried to teach it to scientists.

The Keepers of the Reef is a documentary about that transfer — and its limits.

Director Ana Lima spent two years filming Ivy, her daughter Doris, and Doris's daughter Coral across three distinct environments: Ivy on the island, anchored in sixty years of daily observation; Doris at the intersection of community and government, working as a liaison on a scientific program that formally incorporates indigenous ecological knowledge; and Coral, studying marine biology at a university on the mainland, trying to find a language for what she already knows in her body.

In the summer of 2023, the reef bleached.

The bleaching event — driven by water temperatures exceeding coral survival thresholds — had been predicted in general terms by climate models. What it looked like on the ground was something else: a landscape Ivy had never seen, in a place she had seen every day of her life. The film's central sequence follows the three women returning to the reef together after the bleaching, each observing the same transformed landscape through different frameworks of knowledge.

The Keepers of the Reef does not argue that indigenous knowledge replaces science. It argues that the question of whose knowledge counts — whose observations are treated as data, whose understanding is considered expertise — is not a neutral one, and that the answer has consequences that are now visible in the color of a dying reef.

The film is also a family portrait. Ivy, Doris, and Coral are navigating the same question that indigenous communities face across the world: what does the next generation inherit when the world those traditions were built to read is changing faster than any living memory can track?

Shot over two Australian summers, in close collaboration with the community, The Keepers of the Reef is a film about knowledge, loss, and the particular clarity of seeing something you love begin to disappear.

PRODUCTION NOTES

Ana Lima spent four months in the community before a camera was present. The decision to follow three generations of the same family was not planned from the outset — it emerged from two years of relationship-building and from the realization that the three women represented, in their different positions, the film's central argument made human and specific.

The bleaching event in the summer of 2023 was not anticipated in the production plan. Cinematographer Jules Andersen flew in within 48 hours. What the camera captured during that period — Ivy's first encounter with a bleached section of reef she has observed since childhood — became the film's emotional center.

The production worked under a formal community consultation agreement with the island's council. All participants reviewed their sections of the film before final cut.

KEY SUBJECTS

Ivy Mabo, 84 — Elder and traditional ecological knowledge holder. Ivy has observed the reef adjacent to her island continuously since the early 1960s, maintaining a body of knowledge that scientists working with the government program have described as the most detailed longitudinal account of reef change they have encountered. She speaks in Creole and her island's first language throughout the film.

Doris Mabo, 58 — Doris works as a community liaison on a federal government–funded program that formally incorporates traditional ecological knowledge into reef monitoring. She is the film's bridge figure: someone who moves between Ivy's world and the scientific program, negotiating what can be shared, translated, and credited in each direction.

Coral Mabo, 23 — Ivy's granddaughter, currently completing a Bachelor of Marine Science on the mainland. Her decision about whether to return to the island — which she is still making at the time of filming — gives the film its forward tension. She represents a generation inheriting a crisis they did not create.

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

Ana Lima is a documentary filmmaker whose work focuses on the intersection of environmental change and cultural knowledge. The Keepers of the Reef is her second feature documentary. Her first, Salt Water (2021), screened at international festivals and was broadcast in four territories. She is based in Brisbane, Australia.

CREDITS

For press inquiries, screening copies, and image requests, contact: [Shoreline Films press contact]

Known Limitations

• The press kit is only as strong as the information provided. Thin or vague input produces generic press kit language. The Production Notes and About the Director sections in particular depend on specific, concrete details — what made this film possible, what access was unusual, what the director actually intended.
• Subject profiles use the names and roles provided by the production. The skill cannot verify biographical details or credentials — provide accurate information before generating.
• This press kit does not include visual assets (stills, posters, production photographs) — the document assumes those will be attached separately. The text is designed to accompany visual materials, not substitute for them.
• International press kits may need adaptation for specific territories (different synopsis conventions, different broadcast partner formatting requirements). The format produced here follows standard English-language documentary press kit conventions.

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