Music video — the Small Room workflow

Follow the production sequence used to finish SMALL ROOM / The Projectionist on 2026-09-03. This is the combined workflow recorded in its bible, identity sheet, final shot table, generators and render, not a ten-step procedure from one Higgsfield skill. Read references/small-room-production.md for the evidence, final model settings and historical-versus-current execution differences before selecting generation routes.

Song → bible → scene audit → character and audition → props and plates → shot list → reviewed stills → revised clip table and end frames → motion → verified edit.

Start at the earliest unfinished step. Reuse approved artifacts and keep their approval state in the project; do not regenerate the song or reopen unchanged decisions on resume. Carry forward the user's visual direction. Reproduce the workflow, not Small Room's protagonist, photoreal style, palette, plot, duration or exact number of shots.

Supporting skills and precedence

Load the linked skill at its relevant step. The Higgsfield links are pinned to the reviewed community library; its character-design framework credits @vavavinca. The essential instructions used by Small Room are included below so no private project checkout is needed. If an external skill cannot be loaded, disclose that limitation and use the included method.

Small Room adapted these methods: its shot list was SCRIPT.md, its audition was silent, and its scene motion was H3 Max Turbo. Do not import the linked skills' Seedance multi-cut prompts, HTML shot-list deliverable, Soul training or dialogue audition as extra stages. The finished bible supplies the visual identity for HyperFrames; do not choose a new style while assembling the already approved film.

1. Approve the song and establish the actual timings

Use the exact approved recording and lyric sheet. If no song exists, follow recoup-song: approve idea, genre, exact lyrics/prompt, then the paid request. Its current default is maximum supported duration (300 seconds), allowing a natural ending. Do not copy Small Room's historical 120-second request or generate another song merely to enter this workflow.

Save the master, generation ID and approved inputs under audio/. Measure the actual file with ffprobe. Transcribe with ElevenLabs Scribe, retaining word timestamps in audio/scribe.json; compare them with the approved lyrics and flag changes, omissions, repeats and cutoff. Do not use Whisper for this workflow. Get the user's listening approval before developing the film. An existing approval satisfies this gate.

First verify that the available transcription operation actually supports Scribe and word timestamps. Recoup's generic transcription routes are not a Scribe substitute; see references/small-room-production.md for the inspected route boundaries. An arbitrary model override or a file renamed to scribe.json does not satisfy this requirement. If Scribe access is unavailable, reuse an approved matching Scribe transcript or report the missing capability before timing-dependent production. A separately connected Scribe service requires its own authorized access and audio submission; do not extract credentials from another connection or silently switch transcription providers.

The recording determines the film's musical runtime. A later end card has its own separately approved duration. Do not truncate the song to a generic social-video target.

2. Write the story bible

Use the character-design method to write one project-level BIBLE.md, in this order:

1. Premise: an arguable claim, the counter-argument it must respect, and emotional promise.
2. World: physical, social, economic, ideological, historical and sensory rules, limited to the detail this film needs.
3. Character: thematic role, external/internal goals, psychological/moral needs, wound, spark, silhouette, contradiction and relevant relationships. World before casting.
4. Story spine: causal beats connected by consequences, with a turning point and ending.
5. Style: palette, lighting, materials, proportions, camera language, wardrobe, props, continuity and forbidden elements. Derive it from the approved song and user direction.

Record the audio source and measured length. Propose missing creative choices explicitly. The bible is a reviewable file, not only prose scattered through the conversation.

3. Audit the story, then approve the bible

Run the scene-engine audit inside BIBLE.md before any character or scene generation:

• Goal: the lead's fixed objective; each scene must contribute to it.
• Obstacle: what threatens that goal or its current stage, and at what scale.
• Tactic: the action taken with available knowledge; a failed attempt must teach something.
• Reversal: at least one turn against expectation in each resolved sequence.
• Value shift: how that reversal changes the audience's judgment of the character.

Name the weakest point and offer a minimal fix and a fuller alternative. Apply the user's choice, present the revised bible, and obtain approval. A plot turn without an audience reassessment is not enough. Preserve approval for unchanged decisions; approve affected revisions before they propagate into paid assets.

4. Design, audition and lock the character

Use Muse Image for the candidate stills and reference edits. Build character sheets on plain grey, then separate face and body references: front/back wardrobe, face close-up and needed angles; include mouth-open/closed variants when relevant. Present the candidates and let the user select the character before motion testing.

Decide the medium here, because it decides the motion model. A photoreal cast animates with H3 Max i2v from Muse start stills (the Small Room pipeline). A stylized or animated cast can instead go to Seedance 2.5 with the sheets as references, one take per song section: Seedance's input filter (through fal) rejects every photoreal face of any origin but accepts a stylized one and holds it across shots. Cast photoreal from the user's references first, approve, then re-render every asset in one style string. Recipe, prompt architecture and costs live in references/stylized-motion.md.

Stage a silent five-second screen test of an actual demanding beat from the film, using H3 Max Turbo at the settings in the production reference. It must prove the character can act with gaze, posture and hands. Small Room tested looking from a failing lamp to the projector, deciding, and beginning a hand movement; derive this film's test from its own bible. Use the agreed audition take count, review the motion, and obtain the user's choice before locking a winner.

Save the selected take and reference roster in cast/, with cast/IDENTITY.md containing:

• one appearance paragraph reused verbatim in every applicable still prompt;
• one movement sentence reused in applicable motion prompts;
• each reference's role and the state it preserves.

Appearance belongs in still prompts; motion prompts describe action and the movement lock. Use the face plus at most two other relevant references per scene still, as Small Room did. When identity drifts, inspect the reference selection before rewriting the character.

5. Build props, then empty location plates

Create prop sheets on grey before the scene stills. Lock relevant dimensions, construction, orientation and state changes; derive variants as edits of the approved prop.

Then make empty location masters in plates/. Derive dark/lit/transformed versions as edits of the same room, preserving geometry. Review and approve props and plates before combining them with the character. State each reference's role; character, prop and location must agree on the film's material and visual style. Do not automatically make extra camera-angle plates for every location.

6. Write the song map and connected shot list

Use the shotlist-director method in SCRIPT.md. Include:

• the first-frame visual hook and the film's premise as readable action;
• song sections anchored to the measured word timings;
• one global style prefix from the bible and the locked identity paragraph;
• an @-glossary mapping character, prop, plate and state references to real files;
• per-row ID, song window, duration, story beat, framing, camera move, references, start state, intended end state, still prompt, motion and caption.

Start with the picture: no opening logo, title card or fade. The song supplies the voice; do not introduce a separate narrator or an on-camera singing requirement.

Check that the windows cover the complete recording with no gaps or overlaps. Read the framing and camera columns together: avoid three consecutive shots with the same size and move. Vary scale and purpose, not merely duration. Show the table for approval before scene still generation.

7. Generate and review scene stills

Use Muse edits of the approved references, with this prompt assembly:

global style + identity (when present) + location lock + framing + scene state + continuity

Attach face first when present, then the relevant plate and prop, with at most three references. An approved earlier shot may supply a more precise location/state reference. Keep reference roles explicit. Save the exact prompts, reference assignments and results.

Review a contact sheet and individual detail crops with the user before scene motion. Check identity, hands, prop count/scale/orientation, lighting, background figures, stray text and the physical cause of every effect. Fix the still first when the flaw is already visible there. Feed corrections back into the bible's continuity rules and affected rows.

8. Revise the clip table and approve end frames

After still review, combine adjacent beats when one camera setup can cover a continuous unit of action within the model's duration limit. Preserve the lyric windows. Split when framing, location or action cannot be staged coherently together. Small Room changed from 26 planned shots to 17 final clips; that count is evidence, not a target for every film.

For each clip, assign its approved start still. When a planned change needs an end frame, make it as an edit of that start still with the same camera position and framing. Only change the intended state. Show start and end side by side before motion spend. For a held state, Small Room sometimes reused the start as its end anchor; some rows used no end frame. Do not require a newly generated end frame for every clip.

Mark the revised table as current and archive superseded rows/stills. The active table, render timeline and generation manifest must agree. Do not let an old build checklist silently restore the superseded shot count.

9. Test the interpolation, then generate and review motion

Generate one representative start/end clip first. Small Room used the opening M01, 13 seconds, to test the interpolation. Review it before the scene batch.

Use MiniMax H3 Max Turbo, 768P, integer durations 5–15 seconds and prompt_expansion_mode: disabled, subject to the verified route and approved spend scope in references/small-room-production.md. Request enough clip duration for the assigned window, then trim in the edit.

Motion prompt = row action + applicable movement lock + locked camera or named camera move

• project-specific continuity exclusions. Do not re-describe appearance. Omit character movement/face clauses from shots with no visible character. Preserve prop geometry and light states explicitly where those are at risk.

Inspect motion and extracted frames for face drift, extra limbs, invented light/objects, unintended camera moves and continuity errors. Keep useful takes; correct only failed rows within the approved retry budget. If a shot keeps failing, revise or remove it and update the table rather than repeatedly spending on the same broken action. Small Room removed C14 and extended M12 while preserving the song timeline. Save kept and rejected takes separately, along with model, prompt, start/end refs and requested/measured durations.

10. Assemble, inspect, render and deliver

Use HyperFrames 0.7.5, the version used by Small Room. If a tested local video harness is available, reuse its structure and fonts; Small Room used the LETAL XLUG harness. Clear its old media, captions, copy and timing. Otherwise scaffold the same pinned version; no private reference project is required to run this skill. Read the bundled references/composition-and-verification.md for that setup and the required host capabilities. Keep automatic Whisper transcription and extra skill installation disabled when scaffolding; preserve the approved Scribe timings and existing host setup.

Place the selected clips at the approved song windows, mute clip audio, and add captions from the timestamped transcript. Use unique media IDs and explicit start/duration values. Flag transcription-versus-lyric differences for the user; Small Room's written-word caption override was explicit, not permission to silently alter captions in future films.

Run lint, validate and inspect, then snapshot important moments and caption transitions:

npx hyperframes@0.7.5 lint .
npx hyperframes@0.7.5 validate .
npx hyperframes@0.7.5 inspect .
npx hyperframes@0.7.5 snapshot --at <review-times> --describe false .

Review those images before rendering. Render the film, mux the approved master with FFmpeg using measured linear gain, and measure the finished audio again. Small Room used −1 dB; calculate this film's gain from its own measured levels. Keep the master unchanged; do not apply loudnorm. If an end card is approved, append its duration explicitly and pad only the card's audio tail with silence.

Read frames back from the finished MP4 at cuts, captions and previously troublesome shots; check the actual movement as well as frame appearance. Confirm full song coverage, continuous video, caption timing and the ending. A render completing is not a visual pass. Record what was inspected and any unresolved defects. Return the playable film, measured duration, source artifacts and actual cost when reported; label estimates as estimates. Obtain the user's final viewing approval.

Finish at the approved asset. Publishing requires a separate user request naming the destination and account, an authorized publishing connection, and verification of the resulting post. Video approval alone does not authorize publication.