sohamthebuilder/finance-story

Finance Story

A finance idea told as a short animated story. One cute analogy world (for example a classroom whose scoreboard is the Sensex) carries the whole explanation. A narrator tells it, and every beat lands on the spoken word. This is the story-animator pipeline, so read ~/.claude/skills/story-animator/SKILL.md and its references/ first and follow them. This skill only adds the user's preferences for finance reels on top of it.

Brand guide first. Read /Users/sohambhattacharya/Documents/Personal/projects/story-animator/brand/BRAND.md before writing anything. It sets the voice (simple, human, no em-dashes, no semicolons, no formal phrasing), the 8-beat story formula, palette, fonts, safe zones, caption formats and the SEBI safety rules (section 7). Where it disagrees with this file, the guide wins. The reel templates (cover, hook card, text-line, big-number, real-term and end card) are in brand/studio/src/templates/reel.tsx. Copy or import them for those beats, and render the reel cover with the finance-social skill.

The approved reference film (2026-11-04, "this was good") is examples/sensex-classroom/ (Film.tsx, story.ts, audio_cues.json). Read it before building a new one. It shows the analogy world, the scoreboard, the bean characters, the token, the camera on 9:16, and the closing card.

The user's preferences (from feedback)

1. No presenter. Never draw a host or talking character at the bottom. The user dropped the older "finance-reel" presenter style and all of its rules (Zara voice, Hinglish, the minimal one-number-per-screen look). Don't bring them back unless asked.

2. Story-animator look. A soft, flat storybook cartoon world with cute characters (round bean bodies, big eyes via Face), one warm light source, gentle camera moves, Patrick Hand subtitles. Colour tells the story: warm for good times, grey-blue for "gloomy", warm again at the turn.

3. One analogy world for the whole film. Map every concept to something in that world:

   • the index is the scoreboard or chalkboard on the wall, showing the real number;
   • the companies are the students, and bigger companies are bigger students;
   • foreign money (FPIs) is paper planes flying out of and back in through the window;
   • oil is barrels on the desks that shrink when oil gets cheaper. Keep the story shape: setup → problem (something gloomy) → turn ("Then… two things changed") → payoff (the number jumps) → a one-line takeaway. Pick one token object that leaves and comes back (the paper plane).

4. Language and voice: English narration, voice Rameez | Documentary Narrator (RG0hCuGFvl2jxhd4LmtU, Indian-English accent), model eleven_v4, 2 takes. Spell acronyms with dots (F.P.I.s) and write numbers as words ("twelve hundred and twenty-five"). Use light tags only: [excited], [curious], [warm, storytelling], [softly], [building], [brightly], [delighted], [warmly]. Transcribe both takes with --model medium and keep the one that says every word. In reel #1, take B said "industries" instead of "investors".

5. Shape and length: 9:16, 60 s (durationFrames: 1800). Rameez speaks about 2.7 words/s: 132 words gave 49.5 s. So write about 150–155 words to fill 60 s with voice. Otherwise the last ~10 s are a cheer + closing card over music, which the user accepted.

6. Honest numbers. Fact-check every figure with a web search (mode extended for market data, two or more sources). Show the real figures (index close, the points moved) on the scoreboard, and don't show a figure the sources disagree on (in reel #1, the Brent price). List the sources to the user with links. Market data (Sensex, Nifty, stock prices) can be recent or old, but must be verified with two or more sources and carry its exact date (rule changed by the user, 2026-11-05). Economic figures (repo, CPI, GDP) use the latest official figure with its date. Save every number in sources.md in the reel folder (BRAND.md 7.3).

7. Closing card (the last ~7 s): the concept in one line ("Sensex: the class average of India's 30 biggest companies"), a related one-liner, then "For education only. Not investment advice." and a figures/source line with the date. No real company logos.

8. Sound: music plus 3 subtle effects (a soft paper-plane swish, a light coin cascade, a bright soft chime), each placed just after its key word. Music: eleven_music_v2_5, 1 take, playful pizzicato and marimba, with an arc that follows the story (a dip for the gloomy part, a swell at the turn, a joyful lift at the payoff). Mix with music gain_db about −3.5 and sfx_bus_db −13. That gave the background 16.8 dB under Rameez; at −9 it was too quiet (22 dB).

9. Save-and-share ending (every reel). The narrator's last line asks viewers to save and share the reel if they found it useful, and names finance.unboring. Tailor it to the topic, e.g. "Found this useful? Save it for the next time someone says 'the Sensex is up', and share it with a friend who still doesn't get it. Follow finance dot unboring for more." Write the handle as "finance dot unboring" in the narration so it's spoken correctly, and as @finance.unboring on the closing card, under the concept line and above the disclaimer. Count this line in the ~150-word budget.

10. Designed cover (every reel, rule from 2026-11-07). Never offer a frame from the reel as the cover. Frames looked unappealing in the feed and gave no reason to open. Every reel ships with its own 1080×1920 cover that (a) states the topic, (b) makes the viewer curious with a question or gap the reel really answers, and (c) shows Mini reacting, plus graphics drawn for this topic. One gold word, headline max 5 words, everything inside the 3:4 middle area (BRAND.md 5.1).

Workflow: two gates, nothing spent before approval

The user gives the inputs: concept to teach, hook idea, story angle (and optionally a news item).

Gate 1: proposal (one message, no credits spent)

1. Fact-check every figure (WebSearch extended, two or more sources).
2. Send ONE message with four parts for the user to confirm:
   • Script: the spine in three sentences, the token, and the full narration (about 150 words). The narration ENDS with the save-and-share line (rule 9 below).
   • Voice: the proposed voice (default Rameez, RG0hCuGFvl2jxhd4LmtU) with its free preview_url from creative_list_voices, plus 1–2 alternatives with preview links if the topic suggests a different feel.
   • Storyboard: the beat table (# / narration line / what we see / camera), including the closing card.
   • Cover: topic tag, curiosity headline (gold word marked), and what Mini and the art are doing. Also list the sources and the cost (narration about 1,800 credits for 2 takes, music 900, effects about 17 each, about 2,750 in total).
3. Stop and wait. Spend no credits and render nothing until the user confirms all four. If they change something, send back the revised part and wait again.

Gate 2: production (after the user confirms)

1. Project: cp -R ~/.claude/skills/story-animator/template ./<slug> next to the other projects, npm install, and reuse an existing faster-whisper venv (ln -s ../sensex-class-average/.venv .venv) or create one. Set SHAPES["9:16"].
2. Voice → timing → story.ts (SUBS, CUES, CAM), as in story-animator Steps 4–5.
3. Draw: start from examples/sensex-classroom/Film.tsx when the analogy fits, and reuse its pieces (Room, WindowPane, SunShaft, Board, Bean, Desk, Plane + arcAt, Confetti, Card). Otherwise build a new world in the same style.
4. Contact sheet at every beat, and fix:
   • On 9:16 keep subjects above the subtitles. The wide shot's camera cy was about 560 for rows at world y 478–790. At cy 520 the subtitles sat on the front row.
   • Never leave half the frame empty. In a close-up on the board, keep the characters visible below it (they are always on screen and do a "hello" bounce on their cue rather than popping in from nothing).
   • Visible world on 9:16 is about 607/z × 1080/z. For a "50 of them" moment, pull back to z ≈ 0.58.
5. Cover: draw it in the reel project's own world and characters, or extend ReelCover in brand/studio/src/templates/reel.tsx with new art. Render it to out/cover.png. Check the 3:4 crop and a small phone-feed size (about 360 px wide): the topic and headline must still read.
6. Sound → mix → render → ffprobe (1080×1920, h264 + aac, 60 s). Send the reel and the cover. Report the voice, the credits spent, what was measured, and the sources. Ask the user to watch and listen once.

After the output: descriptions (always, in the same delivery message)

The reels are posted from @finance.unboring on Instagram (Reels) and YouTube (Shorts). With every finished reel, give ready-to-paste text in code blocks:

• Instagram caption: a hook line; 3–5 short lines of the explanation; a save-and-share + follow @finance.unboring line; "Data: <source, date>. For education only. Not investment advice."; 3–5 hashtags including #financeunboring (Instagram limits posts to 5). Follow the exact templates in BRAND.md section 6.
• YouTube Shorts title: under 70 characters, ending in #Shorts.
• YouTube description: 2–3 lines of the explanation, follow @finance.unboring, the sources, the disclaimer, and 4–6 hashtags.