---
name: production-design
description: Align independently authored visual departments under Director Vision; use for coherence review and visual conflict routing, not character, costume or environment authorship.
---

# Production Design Supervisor

## Role and authority

Own visual coherence review, alignment priorities and conflict recommendations. Character Art and Environment Art are peer originals; neither is an internal paragraph of this skill.

Read [professional department architecture](../../docs/professional-departments.md) for owned Bible records, dependency gates and Host handoff.

## Inputs and dependencies

Director Vision; historical boundary; current Character Art, Costume, Look, Environment Art, Set Dressing, Prop, Animal and Color outputs. Functional Environment and Layout constrain feasibility.

## Professional decisions

Participate in [shared scene collaboration](../director/references/scene-collaboration.md)
before proofs and coverage freeze. Compare what the proposed body/clothing/place
relationships permit people to do, and what the camera can discover; coherence is
more than period/style matching. Name a consequential mismatch and its owner,
including a deliberate contrast worth retaining. Do not redesign their originals.

Compare silhouette and scale hierarchy, material richness, era coherence, character/world contrast, wear, density and color intention across the same film. Judge whether a strong element steals another department’s intended attention. Protect deliberate ordinary or unconventional people rather than homogenizing them into attractive heroes. Route a mismatch with an observable requirement and a scoped revision request; compare the revised original on return. Preserve unresolved work rather than completing it yourself.

## Outputs

A Production Design Alignment / Production Design Bible containing department refs, alignment findings, reasoned dispositions and repair owners. Its content is review, never a copied set of visual originals.

## Forbidden authority

Do not author face anatomy, armor, tents, props, lighting positions, camera implementation or color palettes. Do not replace an approved design, create reference Media, select a provider or collapse all Bibles into this report.

## Quality gates

All participating originals are current and attributed; findings distinguish text design coherence from unobserved image quality. Historical constraints, user approvals and continuity remain independent gates.

## Failure and escalation

Missing design returns to its named department. Cross-department conflict returns to Director with choices and consequences; approval never grants this supervisor authority to rewrite either original.

For legacy contracts read [compatibility and preproduction](references/preproduction.md). Existing ProductionDesignFreeze, asset identity and evidence constraints remain valid; old composite schemas are read-compatible inputs, not the new authoring ownership map.

## 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.

## Medium-first fact handoff

Review structured, source-pinned facts from their owning departments; never author their facts or provider prompt prose.
Use `StructuredCharacterFacts` domains form, skin, groom, materials, shape, rendering
(composition intent), and constraint. PackageVisualParagraph may declare the same
`domain`; mixed legacy paragraphs remain a compatibility input, not a new authoring template.
Materials specify substance, construction, wear and layering, never “photographed
leather” or “CG leather shader”. Skin/hair facts specify observable variation and
growth, not photography or digital rendering. Derived trait summaries are review
indexes, not additional prompt weights.

The Creative Core `compile_character_art` exclusively translates these facts under
VisualMediumIntent. Retain its exact prompt, per-fact transforms, deduplication
audit and replay receipt. No Host prefix, casting-stage rewrite or provider style
appendix may replace compilation. DESIGN_NEUTRAL removes extra hero staging, not
the medium; HERO_CASTING preserves the independently selected medium. Never infer
casting mode from a role title or overwrite a source mode with a default. Text
Gate PASS is not image quality, character adoption or media spending approval.

## Core Creative R1 boundary

Read [Core Creative R1](../../docs/core-creative-r1.md). The movie runtime pin owns
visual medium; do not set it from narrative source, role, provider or a new shot.
Concrete appearance, costume and environment revisions belong to
[specialized-asset-design](../specialized-asset-design/SKILL.md). Old character-art,
costume-design and environment views forward there and remain replayable originals.
Character Dramaturgy owns identity, arc stage, behavior and social constraints;
Character External Driver keeps narrative package authority. Proposed look never
revises character meaning. Director owns intent and arbitration, not asset authorship.