Independent reference · Updated 28 August 2026 · English
Glossary
If you cannot name the operation, you cannot direct it. Use these in reviews. See the playbook for the method they sit inside.
- AI Creative Director
- Human who directs generative systems: brief, world, constraints, cut. Not a synonym for prompt engineer. Not a software feature.
- Slop
- Polished generic output. The new ugly. Competent, symmetrical, no emotional cost. In software: dashboard, onboarding, violet, template features.
- Brief (seven fields)
- Audience, feeling, tension, what it is not, references with a function, world rules, cut criteria.
- Direction order
- The prompt written in layers: intention, world, subject, camera, light, negative. A wish is not an order.
- Coverage
- A tree of takes (distance, gesture, light) so you can edit a scene. The opposite of one miraculous frame. In code: usable rite, then art, then sharpening — not the whole app.
- Dailies
- Review ritual. You watch to kill and to choose, not to admire volume.
- Three survivors
- Path, risk, continuity. Never a single early miracle shown as ‘the answer.’
- World bible
- One-page sheet: identity, wardrobe anchors, hour, palette, light signature, physics. Pasted every generation because models do not keep the set.
- Light signature
- Where the light comes from and at what quality. More reliable identity than a logo.
- Negative
- Named aesthetic enemies. Closes the doors the average walks through.
- Upstream
- Using AI to think (thesis, tensions, language) before producing assets.
- Downstream
- Using AI only as a variant factory. The shortcut.
- Taste
- The ability to name why a take is lying and to defend a cut. Not ‘I like it.’
- Continuity
- The world does not change between takes. The camera or the body moves. The hour and the face do not.
- Spell
- Fetish adjective — cinematic, 8k, award-winning — that summons an internet cluster.
- Stranger test
- If a stranger summarizes your brief as ‘premium,’ there is no thesis.
- Death log
- One line per discarded take or feature. The gymnasium of criteria.
- Vibe coding
- Generative software production with an agent. Vibe is the light, not the brief. Undirected, it emits average SaaS.
- Rite
- Person + action + feeling. The equivalent of a shot you can actually roll. A slice, not a sitemap.
- Definition of done
- Technical cut: how the rite is used, and what to revert if slop appears. Compiling is not directing.