The fields
Skip tension and you have a catalog. Skip “what it is not” and the model fills the vacuum with the cluster. Skip cut criteria and dailies become taste as weather.
- Audience — one person you can speak to.
- Feeling — left in the body, not “impact.”
- Tension — a human or cultural rub.
- What it is not — named enemies. This field kills the most slop.
- References — with a function (light, gesture, rhythm).
- World rules — hour, materials; or stack, tokens, routes.
- Cut criteria — how a take is allowed to live.
The stranger test
Hand the brief to someone who was not in the room. If they say “luxury hotel” or “modern app,” rewrite. They should say a person, an hour, and a prohibition.
Where it sits
Upstream of every order. The order is the brief made shootable. The bible is the world excerpted for paste. If you start in the generator, you are downstream on purpose.