Film Director Skill

Make a cinematic video through conversation. The Film Director is a Claude Skill that drives a 10-stage director workflow — script, shot list, characters, locations, storyboard, animation, audio, final cut — and assembles a fully editable Nodaro workflow on your canvas as you talk.

You watch the workflow fill up stage-by-stage. The result is both a finished video AND a 50-150 node Nodaro graph you can keep refining forever.

What you’ll need

A Nodaro account with enough credits for the film you have in mind (typical 30-second short: 200-500 credits)
Claude (Claude.ai or Claude Code) connected to Nodaro per Connecting Claude.ai
The skill installed in your Claude environment (see Installing the skill below)
A browser tab open to your Nodaro editor — keep it visible

Quick start

Open your Claude client with the skill installed
Open https://app.nodaro.ai in another browser tab
In Claude, describe your film:

“Make a 30-second action trailer about a fighter pilot’s last mission over the Pacific.”
Claude creates a workflow on your canvas (Stage 0), then walks you through Stages 1-9, pausing at each for your approval
At every stage you can: approve, ask Claude to refine, or describe specific changes

The 10 stages

Stage	What happens	Typical time
0 — Initialize	Workflow created on your canvas	<5 sec
1 — Script	Claude drafts a screenplay	1-2 min
2 — Shot list	Per-shot table with duration, camera, continuity	1-2 min
3 — Characters	Main image + angle variants + emotion variants + voice	2-5 min per character
4 — Locations	Main image + time-of-day / weather variants	1-3 min per location
5 — Storyboard	One scene image per shot, using character + location refs	~30 sec per shot
6 — Animation	Sequential video per shot with engineered continuity	1-3 min per shot
7 — Audio	Narration, dialogue, lip-sync, music, SFX, cut plan	2-5 min
8 — Final cut	Trims, transitions, audio merge	1-2 min
9 — Wrap-up	Verify graph, deliver final video	<30 sec

A 30-second short film typically takes 20-40 minutes from prompt to delivery.

What makes this different

Built live on your canvas. Nodes appear as Claude works. The final state is an editable Nodaro graph — every step preserved.
Approval gates everywhere. You’re the director; Claude is the assistant. Nothing renders to “final” without your sign-off.
Multi-shot continuity engineering. Where the shot list calls for it, Claude extracts the last frame of shot N and uses it as the start frame for shot N+1, so action chains plausibly across cuts. Otherwise it anchors continuity via the motion script.
You keep the workflow. Regenerate any scene, swap any model, branch from any stage. The graph is yours — Claude doesn’t need to be re-summoned to edit it.

Installing the skill

The skill ships in the source-available repo at .claude/skills/nodaro-film-director/SKILL.md in the Nodaro repo.

For local use:

Clone or fetch the SKILL.md file
Drop it into your Claude Code skills directory (.claude/skills/nodaro-film-director/SKILL.md)
The skill auto-activates when you describe a video, short film, trailer, music video, reel, or commercial idea

For Claude.ai (web) users: skill distribution via a public skills registry is on the roadmap. Until then, the skill is most useful in Claude Code.

After your film is finished

Edit any node on the canvas — click a scene image, animation, or audio node to swap models, change prompts, or regenerate
Publish as a Nodaro app — turn the finished workflow into a parameterized app others can run with different inputs
Export the workflow — export_workflow returns a portable JSON bundle (Tool reference)
Re-summon Claude — start a new chat, point at the workflow URL, and ask for changes (“add a scene”, “swap the music”, “regenerate shot 3”)

Client support

The skill works in any MCP-enabled Claude client. Tested support:

Client	Status	Notes
Claude Code	Tested	Best local skill loading; full canvas integration
Claude.ai (web)	Tested	Image and video previews render inline
Other MCP clients (Cursor, Cline, Continue, Goose)	Untested with this skill	The underlying MCP tools work; the skill itself targets Claude

Connection guides: Claude.ai, Cursor, Cline, Continue.dev, Goose.

Troubleshooting

See the general MCP troubleshooting guide. Skill-specific issues:

Canvas stays empty after I approve a stage — The skill batches nodes per stage and writes them in one update_workflow_json call after your approval. Wait for Claude to say “added to your canvas” before refreshing.
The editor URL Claude shared doesn’t open — Confirm it matches your Nodaro instance. The skill constructs <base_url>/editor/<workflowId>; if you’re on a non-default deployment, tell Claude the correct base URL up front.
Out of credits mid-session — Top up via the pricing page. The skill notes the credit cost before each generation, but won’t pre-check the full session budget.
Claude offers external identity training but I don’t see it — that integration is instance-dependent and not enabled by default. If unavailable, the skill falls back to Nodaro’s built-in identity-lock prompts (still good quality, just not LoRA-level fidelity).
A shot’s animation is rejected 3 times — The skill caps retries at 3 per shot. After that it pauses for your choice: continue and revisit later via the canvas, or stop here. The unapproved shot is left as an editable node so you can iterate manually.

Under the hood

The skill is a single markdown file (SKILL.md) that orchestrates calls to the Nodaro MCP tools listed in the Tool reference. It uses no private APIs — every action Claude takes is something you can do yourself via MCP, the dashboard, or the SDK.

Architecture details — Pattern A-prime workflow JSON composition, the 4-layer construction model, the 8 quality patterns it implements — live in the design note at docs/design/film-director-skill.md.