Production pipeline (Steps 1–15)

Every production runs through a fixed sequence of pipeline steps, each fulfilled by an AI model. You don’t run these by hand — they execute automatically once you start a production — but knowing what each does helps you read progress and troubleshoot.

🎬 How the pipeline works

Prefer to read? Open the step-by-step transcript

The pipeline turns your brief into a finished deliverable in five phases:

1. Write (Steps 1–4) — brief → narrative → beats → per-scene script.
2. Visuals (Steps 5–7) — source/generate images, safety-check them, pick the best.
3. Audio (Steps 8–9) — voiceover + soundtrack.
4. Video & variants (Steps 10–12) — compose video, make per-platform variants, write SEO.
5. Package (Steps 13–15) — attribution, final deliverables + captions, gate checks.

Watch each step’s status badge advance on the production detail page.

The five phases

Phase	Steps	What happens
Write	1–4	The brief, narrative, beat outlines, and per-scene script (voiceover + image prompts + cues) are written.
Visuals	5–7	Images are sourced (stock), generated (AI), or operator-supplied; each is safety/rights-checked; the best per scene is chosen.
Audio	8–9	Voiceover is produced per scene (TTS), and a soundtrack/ambience is added.
Video & variants	10–12	Scenes are composed into video, per-platform aspect-ratio/duration variants are made, and SEO metadata is written.
Package	13–15	Attribution (licences/credits) is aggregated, final per-platform deliverables + captions are packaged, and a final gate runs before distribution.

Step reference

Step	Name	What it does
1	ProductionBriefGenerator	Picks subject + duration + structure
2	NarrativeGenerator	Generates per-Act narrative
3	SequenceBeatGenerator	Per-beat outlines
4	SceneScriptGenerator	Per-scene VO + image-prompt + FX cues
5 / 5b / 5c	Image acquisition (stock + AI + operator-supplied)	Sources images per scene
6	ImageAnalyser	Safety + copyright + commercial-use evaluation
7	ImageProducer	Picks the winning image per scene
8	VoiceoverProducer	Per-scene TTS (ElevenLabs / OpenAI / Polly / Azure / …)
9	SoundtrackProducer	Background music + ambience
10 / 10b–d	Video composition (Shotstack / Creatomate / Cloudinary / Mux / Talks / Avatar)	Per-scene videos
11	PlatformVariantProducer	Per-platform aspect-ratio + duration variants
12	SEOGenerator	Per-platform titles / descriptions / hashtags
13	AttributionPackager	Licence + credits + rights aggregation
14	DeliverablePackager	Final per-platform deliverables
14a	TranscriptGenerator	Captions / subtitles
15	GateEvaluator	Gate checks before distribution dispatch

Note

The exact steps that run depend on the project type — a podcast skips video composition; an article skips voiceover. The pipeline activates only the steps that project needs.

Reading step status

On the production detail page each step shows a badge:

• Pending — waiting for an upstream step.
• InProgress — running now (pulsing).
• Complete ✅ — done.
• Failed ❌ — permanent failure, with a retry option (see Troubleshooting).
• PendingReview — gated on an operator decision.

Rough timing: Write ~1–2 min, Visuals ~3–5 min, Audio/Video ~5–10 min depending on length, Package ~1–2 min.

Quality & gates

Each AI-generating step records a quality score; a background check compares it against your account’s quality floor and flags regressions. The final GateEvaluator (Step 15) runs the checks that must pass before a production can be approved and sent to distribution.

Tip

If a production stops at PendingReview or Failed, it’s waiting on you — open its detail page, read the step, and either retry (after fixing the cause) or take the gated decision.