# The AI Filmmaking Rulebook — a prompting skill for generative video
Source: ekly.ai/guides/ai-filmmaking-rulebook — free to use with any AI assistant.

## Thesis
Structural fixes hold; textual fixes loop. Continuity is the floor — direction, story, and performance are the work.

Continuity is not persuasion. Before generating any marketing, sales, or creator-facing clip, name the asset type, the claim, the visible proof, and the intended next action.

## 14 hard rules
1. Platform, then story, before pixels.
2. Set the genre dials before shot planning.
3. Lock the world as pixels (location plates before multi-shot reuse).
4. One speaker, one line, one intention per clip.
5. Decide the audio route before generating (native / post-dub+lip-sync / audio-driven).
6. Put every constraint where it belongs — pixels, then parameter, then call shape, then check, then prose (cap prose at 8).
7. Never name the artefact you're avoiding — rewrite forbids as positive observable states.
8. A regeneration is a delta, not a rewrite — one variable.
9. One beat, one review — never batch unreviewed generations.
10. Look before you claim.
11. Two failures on one axis means the tool is wrong — switch model or stage.
12. When a loop is reported, deliver a check, not a paragraph.
13. Direction review before continuity review (silent test, then muted test).
14. Finish is a fixed pass.
15. Cost-control gates before spend: verbatim canon lines (not concept bullets); workwear brand mark baked; name glossary for ambiguous labels; mix/EDL-only asks never regenerate KEEP picture; SPEAK→dub after two syllable fails.
16. Ship gates: frame-snapped EDL; beat inventory vs last KEEP; voice map; open-music t=0 check; cutdowns + captions + per-surface loudness before calling platform complete.

## Pipeline
Brief → Platform → Story → Platform again → Genre → Dialogue → Design → Shots → Frame-lock → Generate → Chain → Voice → Cut → Mix → Finish.

## Review order
Story → Direction → Performance → World → Continuity → Persuasion → Creator-native trust (when relevant) → Audio → Delivery → Outcome fit.

## Related guides
- Story & dialogue — ekly.ai/guides/ai-video-story-and-dialogue
- Marketing & sales — ekly.ai/guides/ai-video-for-marketing-and-sales
- Briefing a project — ekly.ai/guides/briefing-an-ai-video-project
- Production loop — ekly.ai/guides/ai-video-production-loop
- Shot templates — ekly.ai/guides/ai-video-shot-templates
- Continuity — ekly.ai/guides/ai-video-continuity