short_drama_production v1.0.0

name: "short_drama_production" description: "Produce a serialized short drama for vertical screens from a story of any origin: adapt the source into 1 to 3 minute episodes, build character and art bibles that hold continuity, write per-episode scripts with a cold-open hook and a cliffhanger cut, stage scenes for the 9:16 frame, and hand off storyboard packs a video model or a small crew can shoot from. Triggers on 'short drama', 'micro drama', 'vertical drama', 'make a ReelShort style series', 'serialized short episodes', 'cliffhanger episodes', or adapting a story into short vertical episodes."

Short Drama Production

Purpose

Turn a story into a short drama series: serialized fiction in vertical episodes of 1 to 3 minutes, each one ending on a cliffhanger. The format comes from Chinese short drama apps and spread through ReelShort, DramaBox, and social feeds, but this skill is format-general. The source can be a novel, a comic, a short story, an original outline, a podcast transcript, or a true story with the rights cleared. Production can be a small live crew, generated video, animation, or a mix. Nothing here depends on one app, one model, or one gate script.

The failure this skill prevents is drift: characters who change faces, questions planted and never paid off, episodes that are one scene stretched to fill the time, and scripts a crew or a model cannot shoot because the staging was never written down.

Workflow

1. Clear the source and map the adaptation

• Record the source and its rights status in the series bible before writing: original work, public domain, licensed or optioned, or a life story with releases from the people shown. No rights, no production. Stop and say so plainly if the status is unclear.
• Read or review the whole source before outlining. Note the protagonist, the central question, the ending, and the ten strongest conflict moments. Adaptation for this format is selection, not summary: a 90 second episode carries one conflict, so most source scenes will be cut, merged, or turned into a single line or prop.
• Write the adaptation map in one page: what carries over as written, what is merged, what is invented to connect gaps, and what is cut. Inventions get flagged as inventions, so a fact-based source does not quietly gain events it never had.
• Decide the season shape here: episode target length (60, 90, 120, or 180 seconds, one target for the season), planned episode count, and the season ending. Dedicated app series often run 50 to 100 episodes, but a smaller season that resolves is better than a long one that repeats beats. Write the ending before episode 1.

2. Build the series, character, and art bibles

• Start from assets/series-bible-template.md. Fill the series engine, then one character block per character, the art bible, one location block per location, and start the continuity and reveal ledgers. A worked example is in references/worked-series-bible.md.
• Give each character a description line: age range, face, hair, build, and one visual marker a viewer can spot in a thumbnail. That line is copied word for word into scripts, casting briefs, and generation prompts. Never paraphrase it between episodes.
• Lock one wardrobe outfit per character per story block, one prop that is theirs, and a voice note covering pace and speech pattern. Lock the art rules the same way: palette, light rule per location, and what never appears.
• Gate: do not script episode 1 until the bible names the ending, every lead has a description line and a wardrobe lock, and every main location has three fixed landmarks.

3. Map the season episode by episode

• Write one line per episode: the conflict, the turn, and the cliffhanger cut. Build it as assets/episode-pacing-worksheet.csv, one row per episode, with beat seconds for hook, conflict, turn, and cliffhanger.
• Run python3 bin/pacing_check.py assets/episode-pacing-worksheet.csv on the filled worksheet. It checks that beats sum to the target, hooks and cliffhangers sit inside their bands, dialogue fits the runtime at 135 words per minute, and every episode after the first names what it pays off.
• Track every planted question in the reveal ledger with its planned payoff episode. A question with no payoff episode does not get planted. Check the chain by reading only the cliffhanger column, then only the payoff column: each cliffhanger should be answered or sharpened by the next episode, not ignored.
• Cut any episode whose turn repeats the previous episode turn. Repetition reads as padding at this length faster than at any other.

4. Write each episode script

• Use assets/episode-script-template.md. Structure: cold open, one conflict, one turn, cliffhanger cut. Timing bands by length and the dialogue budget are in references/pacing-and-staging.md.
• Cold open, first 3 to 8 seconds: open mid-conflict. The first line or image raises the question this episode answers or sharpens. No greetings, no wide establishing shot, no title card before the hook.
• Conflict: one push forces the lead to act now, then the obstacle doubles and costs the lead something visible. One main conflict per episode. A second thread gets one beat at most, and only if it feeds the cliffhanger.
• Turn: new information in the middle flips the goal, the ally map, or what the lead believed. Say the two hard options out loud in dialogue at the crisis point when the story allows it.
• Cliffhanger, last 5 to 25 seconds: the choice or reveal lands, then cut on it. Write the exact cut point into the script, the line or frame the episode ends on. The reaction belongs to the next episode, where it becomes the cold open.
• Keep dialogue inside the budget for the target length, about 150 to 170 words for 90 seconds, and write lines short enough to caption in two lines. Do a timed read-aloud before the script locks. If the read runs over, cut exposition first and turn facts into props, tags, photos, or actions.

5. Stage every scene for the vertical frame

• Frame is 9:16, delivered at 1080 by 1920. Stage for depth, not width: foreground object or shoulder, subject in the middle, background that tells place. Side by side staging loses people to the crop.
• Write the opening staging of each scene into the script: shot size, who sits in each of the three layers, where the entry point is (top or bottom of frame reads best), and what the light is doing.
• Keep faces, key props, and on-screen text in the central band, clear of platform controls at the bottom, right side, and top. Keep one speaking face at a time in most shots, use over-the-shoulder singles for dialogue, and hold the 180 degree line inside a scene. Full detail is in references/pacing-and-staging.md.

6. Build the storyboard handoff pack

• Fill assets/storyboard-handoff.csv, one row per shot. Required columns: episode, shot, scene, shot size, angle, camera move, duration, subject and action, dialogue covered, characters, location, opening staging, continuity in, continuity out, character references, location reference, and production note.
• Continuity out of shot N must match continuity in of shot N plus 1: same wardrobe, same prop in the same hand, same light direction, same screen direction unless a neutral shot resets it.
• Make the pack shootable by either route with no rewrite: a crew reads it as a shot list with locations, cast, and props, a video model reads each row as one clip brief with the bible description lines and reference files named in the row. Check the current model card for whichever tool is used, because clip lengths and reference limits change.
• Mark the cliffhanger shot in the production note and protect it: that shot gets shot or generated first in its scene block, and gets the most takes or attempts.

7. Produce episode by episode, review as episodes

• Work in story order and finish one episode before producing the next. A bible fix discovered in episode 3 is cheap. The same fix found after episode 20 is a reshoot.
• Review each finished episode cold, phone in hand, no script in front of you: does the cold open raise its question in seconds, does the turn land, does the cut make you want the next episode, and does every character still look and sound like their bible block.
• Log every continuity break in the ledger with the episode and shot, fix the bible or the pack at the source, and note which already finished episodes the fix affects.

8. Edit, caption, and release

• Cut tight: remove any beat that neither raises the stakes nor pays off a planted question. At this length there is no room for a beat that only sets mood, unless mood is the turn.
• Caption the final vertical export. At most 2 lines per caption, about 42 characters per line, clear of faces and the bottom control zone. Proof names against the script. Decide burned-in captions, a caption track, or both per platform, and keep a clean master with no burned-in text for every episode.
• Release on the cadence written in the bible and keep it steady. Title each episode so the conflict reads from the title alone, and pick thumbnail frames where the lead and their visual marker read at small size.

Output Contract

A completed production delivers:

1. series-bible.md: locked series engine, character and art bibles, location blocks, continuity ledger, and reveal ledger, with the worked structure from assets/series-bible-template.md.
2. adaptation-map.md: one page covering what carried over, what merged, what was invented, and what was cut.
3. episode-pacing-worksheet.csv: one row per episode, passing bin/pacing_check.py with no errors, plus a timed read-aloud note per script.
4. scripts/ep-NN.md: one script per episode with cold open, opening staging per scene, exact cliffhanger cut point, and dialogue inside budget.
5. storyboard-handoff.csv: one row per shot with continuity in and out filled, ready for a crew or a video model with no rewrite.
6. Finished episodes at 9:16, 1080 by 1920, each with a captioned export and a clean master, plus a QA note per episode covering story, continuity, and captions.

Operating Rules

1. Accuracy: check every claim about a platform, app, or video tool against that provider's current official documentation before a plan depends on it. Specs, caption support, and model limits in this skill are working guidance from research on 2026-10-26, not guarantees.
2. Rights first: produce only from sources the production has the right to adapt, with releases for real people shown. Fictionalise or cut anything the rights do not cover.
3. Bible lines are copied, never rewritten from memory. One source of truth per character, per location, and per art rule.
4. Pay off before you plant. No new cliffhanger question goes in until the previous one is answered or sharpened on screen, and every planted question has a payoff episode in the ledger.
5. Model and crew neutral: never write a script or a pack that only one named video model or one named app can execute. Name the requirement (clip length, reference images, first frame control) and let the production pick the tool that meets it.
6. Disclosure: label generated or synthetic performances as generated, following the rules of the platform the episode ships on. Never present a generated person as a real recorded person.