Production Workflow

Stage Overview ​

Stage One Topic and Positioning ​

Write down the target audience, the content type, and the central conflict. A good topic can be expressed in one sentence: who has what problem, and why is it worth continuing to watch.

"A story about revenge" is a genre, not a positioning statement. The positioning sentence needs a person, a situation, and a reason to keep watching.

• Output: one positioning statement and an audience profile.
• Checkpoint: if you cannot say that sentence, the topic has not converged. Do not start production.
• Common failure: the topic sounds grand but has no specific person in it; retention will suffer.

Stage Two Script and Rhythm ​

Break the story into opening, development, turn, and resolution. Give each scene a single primary information point, and label the purpose of dialogue, narration, and visuals separately so that not all information depends on subtitles.

Pacing splits, scene structure, and the storyboard output format are the most reusable part of this stage. See Prompts and Asset Standards.

• Output: a scene-level script with information points annotated.
• Checkpoint: if any scene can be deleted without breaking the story, that scene is redundant.
• Common failure: three separate things crammed into one episode, and the audience remembers none of them.

Stage Three Characters and Visual Standards ​

Build character sheets recording hairstyle, clothing, body type, expression, personality, and habitual gestures. At the same time, fix the frame, colour, line, and lighting style. Complete a few test shots before extending to the full episode — this removes a large amount of rework.

Field lists for character sheets, the turnaround specification, and style families are on Prompts and Asset Standards.

• Output: character sheets and a visual standards page.
• Checkpoint: run three test shots against the standards before mass production.
• Common failure: writing only "the heroine, 20 years old" with no clothing, hairstyle, or body type guarantees drift across episodes.

Stage Four Storyboard and Visuals ​

For each shot, specify shot size, camera position, character action, background, and duration. After generating the frames, review character consistency, hand detail, text errors, spatial relationships, and shot continuity first.

When generating background-only shots, add strong constraints so characters do not wander in. The rules are on Prompts and Asset Standards.

• Output: a storyboard table and visual material.
• Checkpoint: consistency is spot-checked by a fixed reviewer, not self-assessed by the generator.
• Common failure: text inside the frame (signage, screens) is almost always wrong. Remove it or mask it in post.

Stage Five Voice and Sound ​

Unify timbre and speaking pace to match each character's personality, and leave pauses for key lines. Background music carries emotion, ambience carries space, and effects carry action feedback; none of them should drown out the dialogue.

Voice classification and cross-episode consistency live on Prompts and Asset Standards.

• Output: voice tracks and a three-layer sound mix.
• Checkpoint: listen on headphones and confirm the dialogue stays clear and forward.
• Common failure: one speaking pace for the whole episode, read flat from start to finish.

Stage Six Editing and Publishing ​

Finish the rough cut first, then add camera movement, transitions, subtitles, and sound detail. Before publishing, review the opening hook, information rhythm, subtitle readability, rights risk, and how it looks on different screens.

• Output: the finished cut and the publishing version.
• Checkpoint: watch it once each on a small phone screen, on speaker, and in vertical orientation.
• Common failure: finishing the edit on a large monitor and publishing with half the subtitles cropped out.

Pre-publish Checklist ​

After finishing one episode, add whatever you skipped to this checklist, then update Prompts and Asset Standards. It should become your own production asset, not a directory of somebody else's toolbox.