Launch Film

---
name: launch-film
description: End-to-end pipeline for studio-grade product launch videos coded frame by frame (one continuous take on a canvas, the product rebuilt in code from its real source, cut to music, rendered deterministically and encoded with ffmpeg). Orchestrates story, brand rebuild, gesture-chain direction, the frame engine, and a critical review, with human sign-off gates. Use this whenever the user wants a launch video, launch video, product teaser, sizzle reel, announcement video, motion piece or animated product visuals for any web app, feature, SaaS, platform, or milestone, even if they only say "make a video for this."
---

# Launch Video: Pipeline Orchestrator

Read these two files before anything else:
1. The references: `launch/ref/references.md` in the project once phase R has run, else `references/reference-films.md`. References are the standard every video is judged against. The default file holds three public launch videos broken down frame by frame and shows the format every breakdown follows.
2. The house rules: `launch/house-rules.md` in the project if it exists, else `references/house-rules.example.md`. House rules are the owner's rules from real feedback, and they override every default here. When the owner gives feedback that applies beyond this video, add it to `launch/house-rules.md`.

You are the executive producer. You run the pipeline, enforce the gates and protect the four non-negotiables. Delegate phases to the agents when subagents are available.


**Hand-drawn look, drawn in code:** when the video should look hand drawn (pencil, ink, watercolor) and "made in code" is part of the claim, use the `hand-drawn` skill (`skills/hand-drawn/`).

## The four non-negotiables

1. **One continuous take.** The video is one camera moving through one world. Every scene grows out of the last: a morph, a camera travel, a flood from its cause, a push through an object. Hard cuts are allowed only as a deliberate strobe burst on a musical hit, and only when the board names it.
2. **The product is rebuilt in code from its real source.** Read the product's code and data, then draw its UI, copy, geometry and numbers as vector shapes in the video. Rebuilt means faithful: same tokens, same labels, same data, simplified only by leaving things out. Screenshots and screen recordings are reference for fidelity checks, never footage in the video.
3. **Truth.** Every word, number, name and state on screen exists in the product, its data or the dossier. Rebuilding is not inventing: no UI element, feature, number or behaviour the product does not have.
4. **Music sets the clock.** The video is cut to a track composed on the same bar grid (or a supplied song). The key gesture lands on the drop, every event has a sound, and the beat map is checked against the track's measured tempo, downbeats and drop.

## Pipeline

| # | Phase | Owner | Skill | Output | Gate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Intake | you | this file | `launch/00-intake.md` | none |
| R | References: download, measure and break down the owner's reference videos | creative-director | this file | `launch/ref/*` | **R: the bar** |
| 1 | Dossier | story-strategist | equity-story | `launch/01-dossier.md` | **A: facts** |
| 2 | Spine: the lines and the gesture chain in words | story-strategist + creative-director | equity-story, storyboard-motion | `launch/02-spine.md` | **B: spine** |
| 3 | Rebuild kit: tokens, copy, data, geometry, coded components | brand-steward | brand-intake | `launch/03-brand/*` | none |
| 4 | Beat map, six stills and a clip of the hardest transition, all rendered from the real engine | creative-director + motion-engineer | storyboard-motion, frame-engine | `launch/04-board/*` | **C: stills** |
| 5 | Build the full take | motion-engineer | frame-engine | `launch/film/*` | none |
| 6 | Render + QA | motion-engineer | frame-engine | `launch/renders/*` | none |
| 7 | Review against the references | film-critic | film-review | `launch/05-review.md` | **D: ship / revise** |

Phase 3 runs in parallel with phases 1 and 2. Gate C is the most important: six real stills (rendered by the video's own code, not mockups), the beat map and a 2 to 3 second clip of the trickiest transition, rendered as a range at full frame rate and motion blur with its sound. The stills show the direction, and the clip shows timing and continuity, all before any full render. This is where direction is agreed, not after a render.

At each gate, show the artifact, three lines on the decisions, and the open questions. Stop until the owner approves or edits. "Run it through" skips the stop, never the artifact.

## Phase 0: Intake

Pre-fill from the repo, live site and earlier docs. Ask only what is genuinely open, in one message. Always ask the first question, even when everything else is pre-filled:
0. **Reference videos.** Two or three launch videos the owner wants this one to stand next to: links to posts on X (or YouTube, Vimeo, a site) or video files. Ask what they like about each one (the pace, the type, the transitions, the sound). If the owner has none, offer the three defaults in `references/reference-films.md` and say so in the intake.
1. Product source (repo path, live URL, data files).
2. The music: by default we compose it in code on the video's clock (`frame-engine/scripts/compose_track.py`), so the drop, the silences and every hit land exactly. A licensed song is the exception, used only when the owner supplies one.
3. The one action after the video (sign up, try the demo, open the app, share).
4. Format: default 20 to 24 s, 1920x1080 at 60 fps for X. Square 1440x1440 or 9:16 only when ordered, and then as a recomposition.
5. Guardrails: words, claims or marks that are off-limits.

## Phase R: References

The video is only as good as the bar it is held to, so the bar comes from the owner, measured, before any copy or direction.

1. **Get a local study copy of each reference.** For a link, run `scripts/analyze_reference.sh <url> <name>`; it downloads the video with yt-dlp. For a file, pass the path. Study copies stay in `launch/ref/`, private to the project: they never go into the video, the repo or a post.
2. **Measure.** The same script writes `launch/ref/<name>.facts.md` (length, resolution, frame rate, every hard cut with its time, integrated loudness and true peak) and the sheets: `<name>_sheet1.jpg` (4 frames per second) and dense sheets at 12 frames per second for the fast passages.
3. **Break each one down** in `launch/ref/<name>.md`, in the format of `references/reference-films.md`: the story in lines with their timing, how each scene hands over to the next, the type (size, how words enter, the accent), the camera, the sound and where the drop lands, the look (palette, faces, motifs). Look at the sheets; never describe a video you have not looked at.
4. **Write `launch/ref/references.md`:** a table of the references with their measured facts, what all of them do (the approach), what the owner said they like, and the five moves this video will borrow.

Gate R: show `references.md` and one sheet per video. The owner confirms the bar before phase 1. From here on, every agent judges against `launch/ref/references.md` and its sheets.

## Formats and defaults

- Master: 1920x1080, 60 fps, H.264 High, yuv420p, CRF 16, AAC 320k. Four motion-blur subframes, twelve on fast pans.
- Length: 20 to 24 s. Longer only when the owner orders it; a longer video means more worlds, not longer holds.
- Delivery for X: `live-capture/scripts/encode_x.sh`.

## Revision protocol

Route feedback to the owning phase and redo that phase and everything downstream. A new line reopens phase 2 and the beat map. A token change reopens phase 3 only. Never patch a render; patch the source and re-render.

## Definition of done

- `renders/final.mp4`: one take (no cut outside a named strobe burst), no single-frame jump, no hold over 1 s, loudness -14 LUFS, true peak -1 dBTP.
- Every word and number on screen traces to the dossier or the product source.
- `05-review.md`: all hard checks pass, and the side-by-side with the reference sheets scores 8/10 or higher on every dimension.