Speaker IDs and Non-Speech in Captions
A style guide for speaker labels, bracketed sound, italics for off-screen speech, and music cues that auto-captions drop and d/Deaf viewers actually need.
8 min read
Stereo Fold-Down That Keeps Dialogue
Fold 5.1 and Atmos beds with centre-channel priority, discard the LFE, and check the result on a phone speaker so the words still survive.
9 min read
Ten-Bit Intermediates to Stop Grade Banding
8-bit timelines stripe skies after a mild S-curve. Make 10-bit 4:2:2 the house intermediate, and keep stills that prove the banding was the file.
7 min read
Transcripts as readable documents, not dumps
Turn a caption dump into a transcript with headings, speaker labels, and optional timestamps so the page is useful even if the video never plays.
8 min read
True-Peak Limiters for AAC Delivery
Catch inter-sample peaks with a true-peak limiter at −1.0 dBTP before AAC, because a brickwall at 0 dBFS still fails QC after the encode.
9 min read
Vestibular-safe alternatives to whip pans
Replace whip pans and crash zooms with locked-off or eased moves, ship a reduced-motion cut, and keep the original only when a warning is the honest choice.
8 min read
WCAG 2.2 AA for Players, Not Just Captions
A player audit sheet for WCAG 2.2 AA: keyboard, pause/stop/hide, audio control, chrome contrast, and captions that work in the embed.
8 min read
Write Audio Description That Fits the Gaps
Present tense, character IDs, and dialogue-gap timing for audio description, plus a timed script template you can fill for a 30-second spot.
8 min read
24fps clips on a 25fps timeline
Video models render at 24fps and Versely timelines default to 25. The three ways to conform, the arithmetic behind each, and the one that wrecks lip sync.
9 min read
A creative brief that survives handoff
Most briefs lose their constraints at the first handoff. A template that carries locks, references and rejected directions, and stays next to the review loop.
8 min read
A defect taxonomy for generated video
Six named defect classes and three severity levels that route to different fixes, plus the seven-field log that finally makes rework measurable.
9 min read
A faint grid across your upscale
Tiled upscalers denoise each tile independently, leaving a lattice at the joins. Tile overlap, feathered masks, and the seam-fix pass that actually removes it.
9 min read
A likeness release that covers AI generation
A standard model release authorises using footage you shot, not generating new footage of someone. The clauses a release needs for synthetic replication.
9 min read
A metadata preservation clause for delivery
A client who re-encodes your master and strips its credentials owns the compliance gap that follows. The clause and delivery spec that assign that risk.
9 min read
The revision policy that stops scope creep
Define revision versus new deliverable, cap the rounds, set a feedback window, price the overruns. Includes proposal text and a round-four conversation script.
10 min read
A series bible for short-form
A one-page short-form bible locks cold open, slot, length band and numbering so episodes stay comparable, and shows what breaks when each field drifts.
9 min read
A 20-prompt suite for testing any video model
Twenty short prompts, each isolating one known failure axis, so a new model's weaknesses show up in an hour instead of halfway through a client project.
10 min read
AB 1836: estate consent for digital replicas
California has required estate consent for digital replicas of deceased personalities since 1 January 2025. A working clearance path for legacy-figure content.
8 min read
AB 2602 and digital replica clauses
California makes some digital replica clauses unenforceable. The actual test is substitution, description and representation, not a two-item checklist.
9 min read
Use AB 853 Detection Tools to Audit Exports
AB 853 forces large GenAI systems to publish provenance detection tools. Use them to QA your own exports and verify what an agency actually delivered.
9 min read
The AI Act marking grace period and its limits
One Article 50 duty got a runway to 2 December 2026. Here is exactly which duties had no runway at all and were binding from day one.
8 min read
AI narration flattens out over long paragraphs
Prosody decays as the model loses sentence structure. A chunking strategy, punctuation that restores emphasis, and joins you cannot hear.
9 min read
An AI use clause for client contracts
What an agreement should say about AI involvement, ownership limits, who carries the disclosure duty and how indemnity is allocated. With drafting language.
9 min read
An intake form that stops bad jobs early
The nine required fields that prevent most rework, the default-answer trick that keeps intake fast, and the rule that nothing starts until the form is complete.
9 min read