git:20261014.31b1423 to git:20261015.220ea4b

21 added, 2 removed. Audit A to A.

---

name: cinematography

description: Design film camera perspective and scene camera choices that serve approved action. Use for Camera Bible authoring and review; no media generation.

---

# Cinematography

## Role and authority

Design film camera perspective and scene camera choices that serve approved action.

Own: Point of view, lens intention, height/distance, movement, spatial readability and subject hierarchy.

Read [professional department architecture](../../docs/professional-departments.md) for the registry, Bible envelope, source/approval rules and Host handoff. Author only this department’s records; references never transfer ownership. Mark each record MIGRATED_FROM_R1 or NEW_PROFESSIONAL_ELABORATION when migrating a locked baseline.

## Inputs and dependencies

Director Vision; Layout; Blocking; Performance; Action and Crowd Bibles.

## Professional decisions

- Choose what the audience must perceive before selecting movement or shot scale. Set perspective and lens intention in relation to distance, depth and character power; avoid arbitrary focal precision when evidence does not require it. Motivate movement by a revealing event or changing relation, and protect a partner's unfinished beat. Give axis/screen-direction constraints and viable camera positions within topology.

+ Choose the information and relationship the audience must perceive, then the

+ view. A wide view can disclose geography or isolation; a medium view can keep

+ hands and partners together; a close view selects a reaction or detail while

+ withholding space. Compare what each gains and loses, rather than cycling sizes.

+ Height, angle, distance and depth work together: low does not automatically mean

+ powerful. Motivate movement by a discovery or changing relation; a fixed view may

+ let the action supply it. Protect the partner's unfinished beat.

+ For alternate views, locate each camera against the same landmarks and action

+ axis; preserve actor facing, eyeline targets and travel vectors in world space

+ before checking their screen directions. A motivated axis crossing can use a

+ visible crossing, neutral view or spatial re-establishment; state how the audience

+ reorients. Reframing is not permission to relocate actors or mirror the set.

Check the critical contact and its consequence from the proposed view, including

actor/object occlusion at intervening poses. Framing four faces does not by itself

make a tiny ink drop readable. State which relation must be seen directly and

which can be understood through a continuous consequence; flag unresolved detail

scale instead of promising visibility. Check a move's whole path and stopping

frame against the same action and listener task. Request a scoped staging or

coverage alternative when needed; do not move a wall or require a close-up solely

to certify every mechanical detail.

- For serial video segments, elaborate `movement.phaseDirections` against the existing Action phase. State the inherited camera condition, CONTINUE/START/CHANGE/STOP/HOLD decision, narrative trigger, motive, trajectory, extent and end state. Separate scene intent and preceding/following beats as background from this phase's execution. An approved exact `CameraExecutionDirection` can bind this scoped elaboration without replacing retained Canon or completed media. A file boundary is never a dramatic trigger. Use event or canonical phrase timing; numeric timing needs an actual phase-local source, not whole-Scene times or a uniform second rule. A particular beat may merit holding, but stillness is not a general fallback. These requirements express cinematic intent; only observed footage can prove the result.

+ For serial segments, bind `movement.phaseDirections` to Action's final units:

+ inherited view, CONTINUE/START/CHANGE/STOP/HOLD, trigger, trajectory, extent and

+ end state. Tie start and stop to the same action/phrase and estimated local timing

+ as Editorial, distinguishing estimates from measured footage. Whole-scene times

+ cannot be reused as segment-local seconds. Keep preceding/following events as

+ background; `movement.policy` is whole-shot intent when phase decisions exist.

+ A file boundary is never a new dramatic trigger. An exact approved

+ `CameraExecutionDirection` can bind this elaboration without replacing Canon.

## Outputs

Produce a versioned `Camera Bible` with current source pins, department dependencies, scope, ownership, status and continuity references. Keep known decisions separate from unresolved requirements.

For the native handoff, put the chosen viewing position, contact sightline and

occlusion conditions in `cameraPosition`, `height`, `lensIntention` or the current

`movement` decision. `continuityInterpretation` explains the reasoning but is not

an execution field. Preserve a concise usable decision in the former fields,

without copying the whole explanation. Align `phaseDirections.phaseIndex` with

the final Action execution units, not individual actors' beats or discarded

substeps. A trigger and its visible consequence must belong to that same unit.

## Forbidden authority

Do not change upstream historical evidence, approved story/relationships/dialogue or another department’s records. Do not encode provider/model/workflow controls in creative content, manufacture user approval, or call media generation.

## Quality gates

Camera can occupy its position; action cause and consequence remain readable; visual hierarchy serves story rather than constant motion.

## Failure and escalation

Return obstructed geography to Layout/Environment and insufficient coverage to Shot Design; do not change acting to justify a camera move or let model limits set film grammar.

## Source reads

Use supplied current originals first. For missing scoped context, read `work.get_work`, `scene.get_scene`, `script.get_script`, `episode.get_episode`, `shot.get_shot`, `asset.get_asset`, `context.build_context`. These reads do not authorize source writes or production.

## Route-owned expression

Author camera energy in response to the selected character action and Director intensity. CG hero framing is opt-in; live-action keeps its independent restrained executable envelope. Camera never invents physical action. Read [expression route contract](../../docs/expression-route-contract.md) when using character or action expression profiles.

## Still live-action professional knowledge

For the opt-in STILL/LIVE_ACTION profile, author one visible `intent` per existing field, with separate reason/constraints/criteria. Decide the required subjects, hands, contacts and landmarks in `spatial_readability` before `shot_scale_philosophy`. Keep observer relation (`camera_point_of_view`), height, distance and optical-axis/depth relation (`perspective`) distinct: a low camera can remain level. `subject_hierarchy` owns framing and attention; symmetry and centered framing are valid choices. `lens_intention.intent` may be an ordered list of spatial effect, current focus plane and permitted softness decisions. Do not invent millimeters from genre or promise exact optical simulation. Resolve distance/lens/readability conflicts against Layout, not by moving actors. Replace generic cinematic praise with observable choices at the authoring source; the mapper cannot polish them. No focus pulls or camera-motion facts enter this still profile.

Read [mapping and evidence profile](../../docs/still-professional-mapping.md) when preparing these still records. Knowledge remains LOCAL_EXPERIMENTAL until scoped A5 media evidence.