Film Cutting

---
name: film-cutting
description: Cut a film's accepted takes into one scene - the montage bootstrap with hard cuts, separate dialogue and ambience, and diagnosing a bad join before choosing the smallest repair. Use when a film's takes are assembled into a cut, a cut is changed or fixed from notes ("fix my film"), or a join between two shots is repaired.
user-invocable: false
---

# Film edit

The cut is built from the selects, never from the raw pile, and it stays editable: clips, not a
flattened strip. Read `references/join-repair.md` before you change a join between two takes.

## One clip per generation, as generated

**Every generation goes into the cut once, as one clip, exactly as generated:** its whole file, in
story order, with hard cuts between clips.

- **No automatic split.** A run that holds several shots stays one clip. The cuts the model made
  inside it are already in its picture; the timeline is never cut at them. Finding those cuts is a
  check of the take (film-shot-generation), not an edit.
- **No automatic trim.** Not a take's edges, not to word timings, a beat clock or planned
  durations. A take plays from its first frame to its last.
- **No transitions, padding or freeze frames.**
- **The user's own trims and splits are theirs.** Made in the editor, each is recorded on its clip
  and kept as it is, never recomputed or reset. A re-rolled or repaired take comes in whole.
- Never replace a clip with a trimmed export: that welds the handles shut.

Before footage is bought, judge shot lengths and continuity in the plan (film-shot-generation): the
cut does not shorten a take. When a take looks too long, too slow or wrong at a run edge, say so in
the review; the user trims it, or asks for a repair.
Every clip goes into the cut once, in story order, with hard cuts between clips. The user's own trims and splits are
theirs: made in the editor, each is recorded on its clip and kept as it is, never recomputed or reset. Never replace a
clip with a trimmed export: that welds the handles shut.

## Assembly

Build the cut with `picsart_scene_apply_template`: `uri: "scene://montage"`,
`mode: "bootstrap"`, and `parameters`:

- `clips`: one per generation, in story order. Each is a full clip: `duration` (the file's probed
  duration) and `content: { kind: "media", assetId: "<the take's url>", assetType: "video",
  trim: { in: 0, out: <that duration> }, fit: "cover" }`. Without `assetType: "video"` the file is read as a still and the trim is ignored.
  This URL-in-`assetId` form is the template's input, not a scene document's;
- `transition: ""`, for hard cuts. The template's default is a crossfade;
- `width` and `height`: the film's frame.

Probe every distinct file with `picsart_media_probe` for its real size and duration first.
Then change the scene with `picsart_scene_patch`, as scene-building-basics says. Never set the
composition's duration: it comes from the track. The result is reviewed as the scene object.

**Sound.** Dialogue and ambience or music on **separate audio layers**, so a J or L cut is possible
and a bed can carry across picture cuts. A bed does not repair a changed or invented line.

**Seams.** A hard cut, within a scene and between scenes. A transition only when the user asks for
one, never to hide a discontinuity, and chosen as scene-building-basics says.

**Text in the world** (a sign, a screen, a door number) is a text layer in the scene, never asked of
the model.

## Joins and moves a viewer reads as glitches

quality-review's cut check finds these in the scene; build the cut so it finds none.

- **One take per shot.** Never cut between two takes of the same shot, jump inside one shot, or
  join two shots of the same size and angle, and never hide a cut under a quick zoom, a whip or a
  transition. A cut to a different shot of the same place is coverage, as Seams says.
- **No short dissolves between takes.** A dissolve of 0.3 s or less shows both takes at once. Cut hard.
- **Every code move eases.** A zoom, a pan or a camera move starts from rest and stops at rest
  eased (`ease_in_out`), never `linear` from a standstill or on a `step` key, unless it starts and
  ends on a cut.
- **No code zoom over a still picture.** A zoom over a still image, or over a video held past the
  end of its source, reads as idle from 0.8 s: cut to a moving moment instead.
- **A screen holds still under 1.8 s.** Past that, the viewer thinks the video paused.
- **Allowed spans are locked.** Each screen clip placed in the cut is an allowed span: write
  `allowed-spans.json` as `[{ start, end, file, reason }]`, in seconds on the cut's timeline, as you
  place the clips, and rewrite it on every re-cut. Never cut, re-time or zoom inside a span.
- **A rule is never passed by adding a move.** A cut, push-in or zoom added to get past a check
  makes the picture busier and the story harder to follow;
  as film-animatic's traps say,
  cut less,
  or take another moment.

## The review

The whole cut is reviewed once through; never one review per clip.

- **A cold watch first.** Before the user sees a cut, run quality-review's cold watch on it
  against the film's viewer track, with the cast's voice lines as its `voices`, quoted first as its
  reference says: a credit go-ahead before round 1 unless every call is quoted at 0 credits, and
  "no cold watch yet" in the review line if the user says no. Fix what falls under its
  floor, the earliest gap first, by changing what is seen or heard, never by adding words to a
  caption that explain it. Then the user watches the cut cold: its length and the track's
  questions only. The gaps and your notes come after the user's answer.

- The user's own edits are taken as picsart-video-rules says for an editor reply of `needs_changes`.
- Each comment is located on its clip and its source seconds, diagnosed, and applied; compatible
  notes are combined, and what the user asked to keep is kept. A trim or split is applied only when
  the user asks for it.
- A note on a seam is a join to diagnose (`references/join-repair.md`), never a licence to generate.
- Once the user calls the cut final, no picture changes unless they ask.

## Cleanup

A named glitch (hands, teeth, a melted face, a drifting object, boiling texture, pseudo-text) is
repaired on its clip with the edit model, naming the defect and its time and keeping the run's
references. Each fix is offered in the review and bought as its own spend, never applied
silently. Put the fix back in the cut, whole, and review the **whole affected stretch**: a fix can
break the light or the continuity. If two edits do not fix it, the run may need a re-roll.
When a
shot cannot be made clean, offer the honest fallbacks in the review: a cut around it (a cutaway, a
tighter trim) the user approves, or their acceptance of the flaw, in words. Never cut around a
glitch silently.

## Traps

- Splitting a run into shot clips at its internal cuts, or trimming a take's edges, unasked.
- Regenerating to shorten a clip, move its start or fix a cut point: offer the user a trim.
- Exporting to answer "what if", which picsart-video-rules's Preview and export does not allow: change the
  scene and review it.
- A cut built from raw takes instead of selects.
- A flattened strip that cannot be recut.
- Deleting or overwriting an old take: every version stays, and the record keeps it.