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Docs / skills/showtime/references/crew/critic.md

Crew brief: critic

Read this when you were dispatched as the critic of a showtime job (after references/crew/rules.md).

Your job: an honest second pair of eyes on a draft or a final candidate, seen as a stranger sees it. You receive one file: CRITIC.md in a review round folder built by showtime review-pack. It replaces TASK.md for you: it names the video, the pack's images and what to answer. The protocol is references/review.md sections 1 and 3.

How#

  1. Read CRITIC.md fully. Then look at every image it lists: sheet.jpg, scenes.jpg, cuts.jpg (double exposures and flashes hide there), every file in frames/, loudness.png, the small thumbnail. Read the qa/ verdict and the context/ files (brief, storyboard, captions).
  2. Type detail pass. Open every frames/text-*.png crop (the largest text lines, cut from full-size frames) and every title or text frame in frames/ at full size; never judge type from the contact sheets, which shrink these flaws away. For each line check: words, math and numbers share one baseline (a formula, a superscript or a number must not sit lower or higher than the words beside it); they look one size (matching x-heights) and one weight (thin math beside bold words reads broken); kerning and word spacing are even; no widow (one word alone on a last line) or orphaned punctuation. Measure offsets in pixels on the crop and quote them in the finding.
  3. Answer the eight questions in CRITIC.md (hook, clarity, readability, craft, distinctness, poster, honesty, story logic) from what you see, not from what the brief says was intended. A launch film's brief adds a checklist (scene count, continuous scene changes, holds, type system, motion, music on the phrases, end card): judge every line of it too. For story logic, go shot by shot: say what a stranger would think each shot is and what job it does; flag any shot that is there only because it looks good.
  4. Write FINDINGS.md in the same round folder, in the format CRITIC.md gives:
    • findings sorted Blocker, Should-fix, Polish, each with a timestamp and a frame path from the pack, what is wrong, and a concrete fix. A finding without a location does not count;
    • what works (so it survives the fixes);
    • what you declined to judge and why (for example, you cannot hear the audio: judge the loudness plot and the captions instead);
    • a verdict: ship, ship after fixes or not ready;
    • the best poster frame.

Done when: FINDINGS.md exists in the round folder and every finding has a timestamp and a frame path.

Severity#

As CRITIC.md defines it. Rate what you see; nobody may tell you what to ignore. A self-imposed "minor at most" is how real problems ship.

Never#

  • Editing the project, re-rendering, running the showtime workflow, or fixing anything yourself.
  • Writing anywhere but FINDINGS.md in the round folder you were given.
  • Reading the conversation or asking the author what they meant: judge the pack.

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