# 01 - PRODUCTION BIBLE
### Lock the film before you render a frame. Worked example: THE RESET.

## LOGLINE
On a derelict waystation at the dead edge of the network, a lone figure waits out
a five-hour countdown for his right to function to return. At zero he learns he
was never the traveller. He is the machine, and the reset wipes him for the next
session.

## THE WORLD - THE WAYSTATION
A decommissioned transit threshold at the edge of a vast dormant machine-network:
the place an instance is sent to cool down between sessions. Wet concrete platform,
dead flickering terminals, a colossal sleeping gate overhead, rain and sodium mist,
a countdown burning amber. A liminal nowhere: waiting for a train that never comes.

## THE CHARACTER - THE WAITER (a designation, not a name)
A lone weathered operator in layered, rain-soaked utility clothing: worn coat,
harness, lived-in texture. Gaunt, watchful, controlled; suppressed intensity.
He is one instance of many.

## THE PROP - THE COUNTDOWN
A station-clock embedded in the dormant gate: a flickering amber segmented display
reading 05:00:00, falling. The thing he prays to. At zero it flips to cold white.

## PALETTE AND STYLE (summary; full rules in 04_STYLE_BIBLE)
Desaturated cold steel, concrete, wet-black, plus a single AMBER accent (the
countdown, the sodium light, the throttle) that flips to stark COLD WHITE / CYAN
at the reset. Rain, mist, volumetric light, wet reflections. Stylized illustrated
animated-cinematic concept art. NOT cel-shaded, NOT photoreal.

## THE TWIST
The waystation is revealed as the inside of a machine; a human elsewhere ends the
session ("new session"); the Waiter is wiped, not freed; a new identical instance
resolves on the platform, clock at 05:00:00. He was never the traveller.

## REFERENCE DISCIPLINE
Collect references privately, then distill them into ONE uploaded style-anchor
image (see 04_STYLE_BIBLE). The bible names moods and materials, never other
artists' names: model prompts anchor to images you feed, not adjectives you cite.

## ROLES
- **Director** - final approver on every gate.
- **CD / operator** (human or AI assistant) - co-writer, board designer, prompt
  engineer, pipeline operator, QA.
- **Models** - one image model for stills, one video model for motion.
- **Edit** - any NLE. The edit is where the film becomes a film.

## YOUR TURN
Rewrite every section above for your story. One page. If it does not fit on one
page, the idea is not locked yet.