# Look and light

One grade over every shot is what makes four separate generations feel like one shoot. Choose it from the season and time of day before writing prompts; it sets `locks.look`, the line appended to every keyframe prompt, and `look.grade`, applied by `scripts/assemble-teaser.mjs`.

## Grades

| Grade | Looks like | Use for |
|---|---|---|
| `blue-hour` | Blue ambient light, warm amber practicals (windows, lanterns, fire) kept rich, gentle film curve | Winter, dusk and night, cities after sunset, anything with glowing windows |
| `teal-amber` | Teal shadows and water, amber skin and highlights, slightly muted | Beaches, lakes, summer, golden hour, desert |
| `warm-kodak` | Warm, creamy, soft contrast | Autumn, countryside, vineyards, food-led places, cosy interiors |
| `cool-fuji` | Cool, soft, muted greens and blues | Nordic, rain, spa and wellness, minimalist architecture, misty mornings |
| `natural` | True colour with a soft curve | When the brand colours or a real property's materials must stay exact |

Assembly defaults (these made the preview): grain 6, bloom 0.12 for night scenes with lamps (0.08 for daylight), vignette 0.3, dissolve 0.5 s, fade-out 0.5 s.

## Light words that read as real

- Blue hour: "deep blue ambient light after sunset, warm amber light glowing from the windows and lanterns, the last pink light on the peaks".
- Golden hour: "low warm sun from the side, long soft shadows, warm rim light".
- Morning: "soft early sun through mist, cool shadows, dew".
- Night interior: "lit only by the fire and a few candles, warm light falling off into soft shadow, the window showing blue night outside".
- Overcast: "soft even light, no hard shadows, muted colour".

Film stocks: "Kodak Vision3 500T" for blue hour and night (tungsten-balanced), "Kodak Vision3 250D" or "Portra 400" for daylight, "Fujifilm Eterna" for cool muted looks. Always add "gentle film grain, soft halation around lights, no HDR, no digital over-sharpening". Avoid "8k", "hyperrealistic", "ultra detailed": they produce glossy, over-sharpened frames.

## Lenses

- Aerial: "drone, about 80 metres up, 40 degree downward angle".
- Detail: 85 mm or 100 mm macro, shallow depth of field.
- Amenity: 35 mm at eye level.
- People: 35–50 mm, from behind or three-quarter back.
- Hero: 24 mm, camera low to the ground, symmetrical or rule of thirds.

## Vertical composition (9:16)

- Compose natively vertical; never crop a 16:9 shot into 9:16 (you lose half the picture and the resolution).
- Keep the subject in the middle third. Leave the top 12% (status bar, account name) and bottom 20% (caption, buttons) free of anything essential; skies and snow make good caption space.
- Strong vertical lines help: chimney smoke, a path leading up to the building, trees, steam columns.
- The aerial reads best with the property in the lower third and mountains or sea filling the top.
- For a 4:5 feed post from a 9:16 teaser: `assemble-teaser.mjs --crop 4:5` (centre crop at native size, 720 × 900 from 720p).

## Text-free by design

The teaser has no text, logos or watermarks so the user can add their own captions, location tag and logo in the app they post from. Keyframe prompts end with "No text, no signage, no logos" because generated signs come out misspelled. If the user wants a burned-in title, point them to the cinematic-brand-film Skill (title and end cards rendered from a font).