<aside> ❌
Every rule in the workflow came from a frame like these. Each pair is the rejected attempt and the approved frame, with the cause and the fix.
</aside>
Rejected · S13 v1
Approved · S13
Cause. Every other Chaleo prompt said "Bangkok, 1975". This one said only "a quayside, 1978". The frozen world block is European storybook vocabulary, so with no city named it became the place, and it dragged the character with it: a white European man on a Mediterranean harbour.
Fix. Name the city and the country in every single prompt. The approved version also deleted every piece of architecture from the brief: "NOTHING ELSE IS DRAWN. Behind him there is only bright haze and loose abstract paint."
Rejected · S11 v5
Approved · S11
Cause. Fixing an over rendered background, we also added "never a smooth airbrushed gradient" to the face. The background got fixed; the face went semi photoreal. Two changes at once, and one of them pushed away from stylisation. The only pole on the other side is photography.
Fix. Never write a negative that names a style. Change one variable at a time. The approved S11 also came from subtraction: one character alone, no second figure, no bottle.
Rejected · S14 v1 · ink outlines, a drawn room
Rejected · S14 v2 · "no comic book look" made it photoreal
Approved · S14 · wider, softer light on the face
The same law from the opposite direction. v1 was outlined because the prompt named a doorway, a frame and an office. v2 added "no ink outlines, no comic book look" and the face went photoreal. The approved frame deleted the room and changed the light on the face to two or three broad soft areas. No style words at all.
Rejected · S7 v2 · "not cosy"
Approved · S7a
Cause. Rim lit from behind with no fill. The whole frame was only 5 points darker than an approved night shot; the face was 35 percent darker. And "a cool grey accent in the shadowed side of his face" painted a grey patch on his cheek.
Fix. A second soft warm light bounced up onto the face (target 85 to 95 face brightness at night), the accent moved off the skin, and the driver's approved S11 frame attached to hold his face.
Rejected · S7b v1
Approved · S7b
Cause. The bottle label had drifted into a blob, a light fixture sat in frame, and at 47 it was the darkest frame in the film. Underneath all three: the line is "factory workers drank it on long shifts" and there was no worker in it.
Fix. An approved bottle frame as a reference; light described by direction only, never naming a lamp; "warm bounce into the shadow side" instead of "brighter" (47 to 71); and a faceless worker far behind, with an instruction that he never turns.