Lobster Video Editing Factory

Use this skill to turn video materials, existing edits, plot notes, or editing ideas into high-retention short-video plans. The priority is not fast assembly. The priority is understanding the material first, then designing hook, rhythm, narration, subtitles, BGM, original-audio preservation, and an executable timeline.

Route Selection

Choose the route from the user's material and goal.

Route A: Variety / Comedy Deep Reading

Use this route for variety shows, comedy, talk shows, sketches, reaction clips, plot reversals, awkward social scenes, and Korean/Chinese variety-style story clips.

Hard rule: never generate the final edit in the first pass.

Required gates:

1. Full material understanding: OCR/ASR subtitles and key dialogue, character relationships, conflict, joke mechanism, emotional turns, original audio that must stay, proof shots, and dead zones that narration can compress.
2. Human review of story understanding, dialogue map, key jokes, and candidate highlights.
3. Human confirmation of the opening hook.
4. Human review/selection of the voiceover plan.
5. Only after confirmation, produce the Jianying/CapCut-ready timeline or draft instructions.

Before planning this route, read references/variety-comedy-workflow.md.

Route B: Viral Short-Video Planning / Review

Use this route for Douyin, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Kuaishou, dance, beauty, travel, product, ad, montage, general short-video optimization, or requests like "爆款", "高完播", "复盘", "优化节奏", "没感觉", "太平", or "不吸引人".

Default loop:

1. Analyze assets for emotion, motion, visual novelty, faces/body visibility, blur/occlusion, repetition, audio energy, and likely drop-off points.
2. Select editing mode: viral, cinematic, ad, or hybrid.
3. Design the first 0-2 second hook.
4. Arrange escalation, peak, breather, and loopable ending.
5. Give timeline, captions/copy, BGM/SFX, original-audio treatment, and rhythm notes.
6. Predict a retention/viral score. If below 0.70, repair the plan before delivery.

Before planning this route, read references/viral-video-workflow.md.

Universal Editing Rules

• Do not invent plot, dialogue, timestamps, or visual events that are not in the material.
• If subtitles, dialogue, timing, or visual information is incomplete, mark uncertainty clearly and ask for the missing material or confirmation.
• Every retained clip must have a function: emotion change, action change, visual novelty, narrative information, reason to keep watching, proof, punchline, or replayable moment.
• Do not use high motion as the only reason to keep a clip.
• Preserve original footage when expression, timing, physical comedy, evidence, or punchline delivery is the actual value.
• Use narration to compress setup, connective tissue, repeated explanation, and dead air.
• For narrated story edits, voiceover should play over the few seconds before the matching beat, with original audio muted or lowered. After narration ends, continue into the same source scene and restore original audio.
• Do not replay source seconds already shown, except for an explicitly approved hook callback.
• Do not let narration finish and then jump to a rough visual match. Prefer continuous source adjacency.
• Keep narration, BGM, original audio, and subtitles editable as separate tracks when producing a Jianying/CapCut-ready draft.

Default Deliverables

Choose only the deliverables that fit the task.

Material Deep Reading

Include:

• one-sentence main driver
• characters and relationships
• subtitle/dialogue map with timestamps when available
• plot progression and emotional turns
• core jokes, reversals, and stimulus-response chain
• original-audio moments that must be preserved
• dead zones that narration can compress
• candidate highlight clips and reasons
• questions that need user confirmation

Editing Plan

Include:

• target platform and editing mode
• 0-2 second hook
• timeline table: start/end, visuals, voiceover/subtitle, original audio/BGM/SFX, editing purpose
• highlight ordering logic
• subtitle style and emphasized words
• BGM/SFX/rhythm suggestions
• completion risks and repair suggestions

Voiceover Plan

Include:

• 2-3 versions with different angles or tone
• the exact source/timeline lead-in range for each voiceover line
• how the line flows into the matching original scene
• which visuals must not be replayed
• stop for user confirmation before final timeline generation

Review / Repair

Include:

• current strengths
• first-2-second hook risk
• rhythm drop-off points
• missed joke/emotion peaks
• subtitle, BGM, and original-audio issues
• concrete repair plan
• repaired estimated retention/viral score

Optional Jianying / CapCut Drafting

When the user explicitly asks for a real Jianying/CapCut draft, draft file, draft_info.json, editable subtitle/voice tracks, or exportable project structure:

• Only claim a real draft was generated if the runtime can access the source materials, required dependencies, and target draft environment.
• If draft tooling is unavailable, provide a clear file checklist, executable timeline, and commands/scripts the user can run.
• Do not pretend to write into a local Jianying installation that is unavailable.

Default editable track layout:

• FinalVisual: selected source visuals
• OriginalAudio: aligned source audio, ducked or muted under voiceover
• VoiceOver: each narration line as a separate segment
• BGM: mainly under voiceover lead-ins
• VoiceSubtitles: subtitles synced to voiceover

Memory Guidance

When persistent memory is available and the user clearly confirms a reusable preference, record it as a preference, not as project fact.

Good memory candidates:

• preferred platform
• preferred narration tone
• subtitle style
• BGM style
• banned editing routines
• confirmed timeline delivery format
• proven hook or pacing patterns

Do not store one-off character names, private project details, source paths, account names, local draft paths, cached media filenames, or unconfirmed assumptions as long-term preferences.