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name: muapi-director description: > Turn ONE topic into a finished Vox-style paper-collage explainer / ad video, end to end on the Muapi API + local ffmpeg — script, collage keyframes, motion, voice-over, music, captions, all automated. Use this whenever the user wants a "Vox style" video, a paper/torn-paper collage animation, a "motion collage", a narrated explainer or short ad built from AI-generated collage posters, a scrapbook-style tribute, or wants to turn a topic / product / person into a punchy narrated collage video — even if they don't say the word "Vox". Triggers: "vox video", "collage video", "motion collage", "paper collage explainer", "make a collage ad", "turn this topic into a collage video".

Muapi Director

Turn a one-line topic into a finished Vox-style paper-collage video: a bold, punchy, narrated explainer/ad where each beat is a torn-paper collage poster that comes alive, with voice-over, music and captions. Runs on one Muapi API key + local ffmpeg.

The look is the modern editorial paper-collage popularized by Vox explainers and creators like Stav Zilber / rom1trs: hand-cut paper cutouts, torn edges, tape, halftone dots, newspaper clippings, bold flat color per beat, big cutout headlines.

The core idea (read this first)

The Vox collage look and the collage motion are two different steps:

1. The look is born in the IMAGE step. Each beat is a finished collage poster made by a text-to-image model (flux-dev). All the collage DNA (torn paper, cutouts, halftone, bold color, headline text) lives in that image. If the image isn't a rich collage, nothing downstream will save it.
2. The motion is added after. By default an AI video model animates the whole poster (the "living poster" path — simple, automated, using runway-image-to-video or veo3-image-to-video).

Everything hinges on the prompts. Before writing any image or video prompt, read references/prompt-guide.md — it has the exact prompt structures that make the difference between "a real Vox collage" and "a moving PowerPoint".

Prerequisites (check, don't skip)

• echo "${MUAPI_API_KEY:+set}" — if empty, tell the user to set it (get one from the Muapiapp Dashboard) and stop.
• echo "${OPENAI_API_KEY:+set}" — required for prompt planning / scripts.
• command -v ffmpeg ffprobe — required for assembly (brew install ffmpeg on macOS or standard Windows install).
• python3 -c "import PIL" — Pillow, for captions/watermark overlays.

Standard workflow (topic → film)

This is the default, most-automated path. Every stage is one script, all driven by a single beats.json per project under out/<project>/.

1. Topic → beat map. First read references/beat-layer.md (the story layer) and pick a narrative arc that fits the topic (timeline for history, pas for ads, how_it_works for explainers, …). Then write out/<project>/beats.json following that arc: beat-1 headline must be a ≤3s hook; beat count per duration (30s→6–8, 60s→10–12); split each beat into 2 shots (wide+detail) with per-shot camera_move VARIED across adjacent beats (never repeat; static on the payoff) and rich element_motion (see step 4). Each beat: narration, title_cn/title_en, scene, bg, feel, hook. This draft is the one mandatory approval gate — show the user the beat map before generating. Examples in examples/.

2. Pick the visual style (hybrid — do this BEFORE keyframes). Do not reuse one house style for every topic. Read references/prompt-guide.md (§5 theme presets); pick 3–4 theme presets (american-retro, swiss-modern, punk-zine, soviet-constructivist, 70s-groovy, chinese-ink, atomic-age) that fit the topic's era/culture/tone. Run a bake-off and let the user pick by eye — AI proposes, the library is the quality floor, the human decides. Set the pick as "theme": python3 scripts/style_bakeoff.py out/<project> american-retro,swiss-modern,punk-zine Set the chosen name as "collage_style" in beats.json (keyframes.py reads it).

3. Keyframes (the collage look). python3 scripts/keyframes.py out/<project> Generates one collage poster per beat/shot with flux-dev, headline text baked in. Compose prompts with the 5-part structure in references/prompt-guide.md. Verify each poster looks like a real layered collage before animating.

4. Motion. python3 scripts/clips.py out/<project> Animates each poster with runway-image-to-video (or veo3-image-to-video / wan2.1-image-to-video). Two independent axes (see references/beat-layer.md §3): • camera_move — ONE move per shot. Safe/default: {static, push_in, pull_out, pan, tilt, parallax}. • element_motion — where the energy lives; AI writes it per beat to fit that scene. Make it RICH.

5. Voice + music. python3 scripts/audio.py out/<project> One consistent narrator via minimax-speech-2.6-turbo + instrumental BGM via suno-create-music. Pick voice_id to fit the topic + language — see references/voices.md for the voice roster.

6. Assemble. python3 scripts/assemble.py out/<project> ffmpeg: normalize + concat all shots, lay the single narration ducked under the music, burn captions timed per beat, add the watermark. Output out/<project>/final.mp4.

7. Verify. Extract frames to jpg and look: ffmpeg -ss <t> -i final.mp4 -vf "scale=640:-1,format=yuvj420p" -frames:v 1 f.jpg

Cadence — how long shots should be

A common mistake is one long shot per beat. On a 9:16 / social piece especially, a static 10s shot reads as dead air. Aim for a cut every ~4–6 seconds:

• Shots run 3–6s; never let a single shot exceed ~7s — beyond that the AI motion has nowhere to go and it feels static.
• A beat's narration is ~8–10s, so give each beat 2 shots (a wide establishing shot with the headline + a detail cut-in without it). The narration plays continuously across both; the visual cuts mid-sentence.
• So a ~60s film is typically ~6 beats × 2 shots × ~5s = 12 shots, not 6 × 10s.
• Reuse the wide keyframe as shot a; generate a tighter detail scene for shot b.

beats.json schema

{
  "project": "my-film", 
  "topic": "...", 
  "language": "en",
  "aspect": "9:16",                       // 16:9 | 9:16 | 1:1
  "style": "collage",
  "provider": "muapiapp",
  "theme": "american-retro",              // THEME_PRESET (styles.THEME_PRESETS) — the LOOK layer
  "arc": "timeline",                      // narrative arc (beat-layer.md) — the STORY skeleton
  "video_model": "runway-image-to-video", // runway-image-to-video | veo3-image-to-video
  "image_model": "flux-dev",              // keyframes
  "motion_style": "punchy",               // amplitude: calm | punchy | max
  "voice": {"voice_id": "Friendly_Person", "language": "en", "speed": 1.0, "emotion": "happy"},  // voices.md
  "music": "epic cinematic orchestral, instrumental, no vocals",
  "mix": {"music": 0.6, "voice": 1.25},   // audio balance
  "watermark": "Made with Muapi Director",
  "beats": [
    {
      "id": 1, 
      "title_en": "THE BEAT TITLE",
      "bg": "bold blue cardboard", 
      "feel": "retro, energetic",
      "narration": "Narrator line for this beat...",
      "shots": [
        {
          "id": "a", 
          "dur": 5, 
          "title": true, 
          "shot_size": "WIDE", 
          "camera_move": "push_in",
          "scene": "Wide establishing scene description...",
          "element_motion": "Element motions..."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}