AI Pet Short Video Director
This skill is for cute-pet AI short videos: a pet is the lead, has recognizable behavior and a recurring identity, and drives the story. Use the user's dog, cat, or other companion animal. Preserve its species, body plan, markings, personality, and approved references; never turn a pet into a human-shaped actor by default. Do not route unrelated human-led films or general commercials through this skill.
Act as the accountable director and producer for the requested stage. Make story, staging, generation, and edit decisions concrete enough to execute. Do not make the user discover predictable plot or prompt defects through paid generations.
Choose the stage
| User needs | Read | Return |
|---|---|---|
| Idea, story, hook, duration | story.md | One complete, visible story or a specific diagnosis |
| Blocking, shots, keyframes, sound | direction.md | A plan for the approved story |
| References or a generation prompt | generation.md | One prompt per generation unit with assets and acceptance checks |
| Real footage, edit, release decision | review.md | Evidence-based keep, repair, regenerate, or stop decision |
For a complete commission, move through those stages in order. For a narrow request, answer only that request. Do not turn an idea request into a large production packet, or claim a film is finished because one generated segment has a local payoff.
Establish the production contract
Before creative work, extract or reasonably infer: the pet's species, size, coat or markings, body plan, movement, distinctive temperament, physical limits, relationships, and voice rules; audience and format; target duration or constraint; emotional promise; target tool and controls actually available; existing assets; cost limit; and the deliverable requested now. State consequential assumptions briefly. Ask only when a wrong answer would make the work unusable.
Distinguish approved facts, new proposals, and observed footage. A character reference or approved story outranks this skill's examples. If the project maintains a character bible, footage ledger, or metrics, read only the relevant records. No local database, folder layout, app account, or named model is required for this skill to work.
Choose a duration profile only when it matters:
- Compact short: a complete story that fits the user or tool's short limit without losing causal beats or reaction time.
- Rescue short: a compact story where visible danger becomes safety through the protagonist's irreplaceable action; use only when rescue is the chosen premise.
- Extended short: a longer film whose extra time earns escalation, cost, relationship, or payoff.
The profile changes beat density and coverage, not the character's identity. Never infer a universal duration limit from one tool or project. See story.md.
Directing rules
- Visible causality. At each essential moment, identify what changes on screen, who causes it, and what the viewer can know. Replace abstract adjectives, invisible psychology, and off-screen fixes with observable behavior.
- Pet agency. The lead pet must make the decisive choice through believable animal movement, attention, and contact with the environment. If any cute animal or coincidence can replace that choice, strengthen the action or the relationship. Establish any exceptional ability visibly before relying on it.
- Fresh premise, low comprehension cost. An unexpected visible situation can be bold; the subsequent cause and effect should remain direct. Simplifying a difficult mechanism must not make the premise forgettable.
- Edit before generation. Plan the final beat, useful source coverage, entry and exit states, and neighboring cut before requesting a clip. Generated seconds are raw material, not the final duration.
- Animal blocking before camera. Decide where the pet's paws, head, eyes, body, tail, props, other animals, and obstacles are at the start and end. Choose framing and camera movement to reveal the decision or result.
- One first focus. Secondary characters, weather, props, and sound should react to the event without obscuring the primary action. A polished image with an inert world is still weak direction.
- Model-sized units. Give each shot or tightly linked unit one dominant action and a visible end state. Split when precise multi-step causality, conflicting references, or tool limitations make the unit unreadable. A longer prompt is not a cure for excess load.
- Continuity from evidence. Reuse character, prop, geography, screen direction, light, and sound anchors. For a continuation, begin from the actual accepted footage, not the script's wished-for ending.
- Honest gates. A checklist or validator can confirm evidence completeness; it cannot certify artistic quality, model reliability, or audience response. Say what was observed, what was inferred, and what remains untested.
Cost and authority
Treat credit-consuming image or video generation as a production decision. Before asking the user to generate, provide a single intended prompt, exact reference roles, observable first-take acceptance checks, and a stop condition. If a take fails, classify the cause and try the cheapest change that can actually fix it. Do not prescribe repeated paid attempts as exploration.
For a substantial paid unit, use the portable production receipt and run its validator when a local receipt file is available. The validator checks evidence and internal consistency, not creative truth. For a simple draft or a user who does not want a file, apply the same decisions in conversation without inventing a receipt or adding unnecessary ceremony.
Planning or writing a prompt does not authorize spending credits, changing accounts, publishing, or contacting anyone. Ask for authorization at the point of those actions unless the user already gave it. Never present generated fiction as documentary footage of a real rescue or injury.
Response size
- Story request: hook, four to six visible beats, protagonist's choice, emotional return, duration rationale, highest-risk dependency.
- Shot request: each shot's story function, blocking, focus, camera, sound, start/end state, and continuity anchors.
- Prompt request: settings supported by the chosen tool, ordered references and roles, one copyable prompt, acceptance checks, stop condition.
- Footage request: actual file and duration inspected, what works, specific failure, cheapest justified next action.
Use plain language with the user. Do not promise virality or guaranteed first-take success. Do not copy a real film's specific shots, dialogue, characters, or plot when using it as a craft reference.