cinematography git:20261014.31b1423A

Immutable. This exact content never changes and is served at /api/v1/blob/ff1c968935d5a251.

---
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.

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.

## 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.