Locate What Feels Slow
| Observation | First question |
|---|---|
| No action at the start | Is the character listening, waiting or concealing something? Cut only unused delay |
| Reaching takes too long | Are distance, target and stopping point clear, and is the duration suitable? |
| A long hold follows completion | Do viewers need it to read the result or reaction? |
| Neither speech nor action finishes | This may be overload, rather than a need for speed |
Pauses are creative choices, not automatically defects. Drama Skills budgets readable action, complete dialogue, reaction and the end state. This guide concerns motion inside the shot; in/out selection concerns extracting existing footage.
Choose Relative Beats or Explicit Segments
Write start, contact, result and necessary hold in order. Add second-by-second segments when production needs them; otherwise use cues such as “after hearing” or “after closure,” with a few start or end anchors.
For an accepted 8-second shot, explicit segments ending at 5 seconds leave 3 seconds unassigned. Allocate them to existing phases or request a duration change without adding busywork. Full coverage still does not guarantee precise generated timing; inspect the footage for editing.
“Natural motion, faster” is insufficient. Specify contact, stopping point and the existing wait that can shorten. Changes to shot duration or boundaries require an accepted upstream revision rather than a silent motion-prompt change.
Original Example: Return a Folder to a Shelf
Accepted shot: Lu Qiao stands beside a shelf holding a folder in her right hand. She inserts it into the empty slot in front of her, releases it and leaves it on the shelf. There is no dialogue, only established room ambience. The purpose is return, with no swap or hesitation to reveal.
Relative-beat proposal
Start with the folder in her right hand at the empty slot. Briefly preserve the start, then insert it. Only after it is supported does her right hand release and withdraw. End long enough to read the folder on the shelf. Keep a fixed medium shot with motion and contact visible; room ambience continues.
If production needs an 8-second explicit plan, allocate 0–1 to the start, 1–5 to insertion and support, 5–6 to release and withdrawal, and 6–8 to the readable end. The total is 8 seconds, but support-before-release takes precedence over rushing to meet a timestamp.
Suppose actual footage waits for 2 seconds, performs insertion and withdrawal from 2–6, and stays stable from 6–8. Assess cuts just before action and after its result is readable. Do not cut to planned 1-second and 5-second cues as if measured. All example times are hypothetical, not generation-performance data.
Check Picture, Sound and Motion Before Retiming
Inspect at normal speed and distinguish disposable waiting from necessary pauses. Trimming or acceleration cannot create missing dialogue, contact or reaction; request material or revise the shot instead.
If you choose an external editor for speed changes, recheck movement, words, pitch, ambience and adjacent shots separately. In/out points in the built-in edit list do not prove a speed change was executed. Record the treatment and inspect the result rather than treating retiming as a lossless universal repair.
Locate slow motion in [actual footage]. Separate intentional pauses, initial waiting and stretched action. Preserve [contact, complete speech, reaction and end state]. Propose the smallest motion, duration or editing change. Record planned and observed times separately; acceleration cannot replace a missing process.
Compare the same region after regeneration and check completion and next-shot boundaries. A shorter result that cannot be understood is not a successful repair.
FAQ
How many seconds should each action take?
There is no universal duration. Distance, contact, speech, reaction and chosen pacing determine it. Explicit plans must be complete; actual footage determines precise cuts.
Do it with the skill
Use /short-drama-video-prompts or $short-drama-video-prompts in Codex to revise beats under accepted duration and boundaries. Route boundary changes to storyboard revision. short-drama-edit selects cuts in existing footage; inspect externally executed speed changes.
Read the method: Motion order, contact and completion · Action realization and story preservation · Performance and duration budgeting · Observed usable footage bands · Cuts and readable completion
About Drama SkillsThe short-drama-video-prompts skill on GitHub