whiteboard_animation v1.0.0

name: "whiteboard_animation" description: "Plan and direct whiteboard explainer videos: VO-first production order, drawing pacing math, digital draw-on technique, and overhead hand-rig setups. Triggers when someone wants a whiteboard video, a hand-drawn explainer, or narration synced to drawings being made."

Whiteboard Animation

Purpose

Turn a script into a whiteboard video plan that actually works. The voiceover is recorded first and becomes the clock; every drawing is timed to land on the words it illustrates. This covers both routes: live-action (an overhead camera films a real hand, sped up in post) and digital (draw-on animation with a hand overlay riding the stroke). A timing calculator keeps every scene honest, so no plan asks a hand to draw faster than physics allows.

Workflow

1. Script and count. Break the narration script into scenes, one idea per scene. Run bin/wb_timing.py on the scene plan. It reports each scene's VO seconds and seconds per illustration. If any illustration gets under about 2 seconds, split the scene or trim the script. Do not touch art before this step.
2. Record the voiceover first. The VO is the clock. Around 150 words per minute is a comfortable narration pace; use about 120 wpm for dense or technical material. Leave roughly half a second of silence between sentences. Measure the real duration of each recorded line and update the timing plan with the real numbers before drawing or animating anything.
3. Animatic pass. Time still images of the planned illustrations against the VO as a rough video. Confirm each drawing finishes inside its scene's VO window. Fix pacing here, while it is cheap.
4. Produce the drawings. Pick one route:

• Live-action: set up the overhead rig (references/hand_rig_setup.md). Draw slowly and neatly in real time, cut out mistakes, then speed the footage up so each drawing finishes inside its scene's VO window.
• Digital: reveal vector art with a draw-on stroke that follows a natural drawing order, with a hand/pen asset riding the stroke (references/draw_on_technique.md). One-to-one: the hand draws what the VO says, in the order it says it.

1. Sync and mix. Cut scenes to VO sentence boundaries. Keep music at 20-30% under the narration. When a section completes, pull the camera out (or reveal the full board) so the viewer sees how the pieces fit together.

Output Contract

• A scene timing plan from bin/wb_timing.py: scene titles, word counts, VO seconds, illustrations per scene, seconds per illustration, total runtime.
• Real VO audio (or measured TTS timing) locked before any animation work begins.
• A timed animatic approved before the final drawings.
• A final video where each drawing completes inside the VO line it illustrates: no idle hand hovering, no drawing that starts before its narration.

Operating Rules

1. VO first, always. Never animate or film drawing footage before the narration timing is locked. The voiceover dictates what the hand draws.
2. One idea per scene, one drawing per beat. If the calculator gives an illustration under ~2 seconds, the scene is overloaded. Split it.
3. Keep the pen alive. Between beats the hand stays in motion; a hand hovering dead over the board breaks the spell. Never start a drawing before its narration line.
4. Live-action: shoot with manual exposure, focus, and white balance. Auto settings visibly hunt when the hand moves.
5. No invented facts. Every factual claim in the script follows the accuracy rule: verified via web search or a primary source, or it gets cut. The skill never invents statistics, dates, or quotes to fill a scene.
6. Music stays under the voice, never over it. Instrumental only beneath narration.