Midjourney

Model: Midjourney v8.2. Every prompt ran with --v 8.2 --raw --hd and anabology's personal profile (its code is left out), at --ar 16:9, except the full-length identity plate (rh-02 id-full) at --ar 9:16; no prompt had any other parameter, so none are shown after the prompts. No prompt carries a style reference or an image prompt, none ran in thinking mode, and nothing was animated in Midjourney: every image reaches the screen through a Wan 3.0 or Seedance 2.5 take (the takes and their prompts are in prompts-video.md). No Midjourney image is shown as a still. The Midjourney images are not in the spend ledger.

Counts (measured for this package from the job files and the images on disk): 20 prompts in 2 batches. rh-01-look is Claudia's look test: 6 prompts. rh-02-plates holds the plates for the video takes: 14 prompts. Every job came back with four images: 80 images, all PNG, 577,743,636 bytes (578 MB) in total. 76 are 2944×1648 and the 4 of id-full are 1648×2944. The prompts run from 676 to 915 characters (median 828.5). 18 images were picked as plates or references: 14, one per job of rh-02, and 4 more from the same batch for the round-2 plan. 14 of the 18 reached the final film. claudia.gallery's gallery marks 12 of them as in the film: it leaves out g29 #4 and id-face #3 (see Screened out, and why). 38 video jobs started from these images or referenced them, either directly or through a frame of an earlier take. 19 of those takes are in the final film, in 40 of its shots. The look test's 24 images were never used as plates.

There are two delivered cuts. The first cut (v0) went out, and anabology's notes on it came. The final film (v1) went out, and anabology approved it: "this is perfect. done. nothing more to do". All 80 images were made before the first cut, and the re-shoots after the notes reused them.

Every job's kind in the job files is plate. The rh-02 jobs are named after the Wan generation each was made for (g03 is EYES, g05 is G-FORCE, and so on); id-full and id-face are the identity plates for Wan's video edits. "#2" means image 2 of that job (<job>-2.png). After a prompt, "plate: #2" marks a picked image and what it became, "not used" marks a pick that never reached the final film, and "shortlisted" names the candidates the lead set side by side before picking. Times written as 0:36.1 are times in the film, which is the song. The production lead picked the round-1 plates, and the round-2 plan's scouts and head director picked four more. anabology did not rank these images.

How the prompts were written

Claude, the production lead, wrote the six look-test prompts. The twelve shot plates of rh-02 were drafted by the storyboard's head director, an agent of the storyboard workflow (tools/build_board.py), one for each Wan shot of Claudia on the board. Before submitting them, the lead compacted them and added the two identity plates.

Each prompt has the same shape: the framing, the canon, the wardrobe, the action and the set, a photographic tail, and the ending "no text, no letters, no logos". All 20 end that way. No prompt names Tesla, the Roadster or any brand.

• Her, close and medium shots (and every rh-02 plate): the canon from claudia.gallery's consistency guide, pasted verbatim: "a 28-year-old Caucasian American woman with a grown-up angular face, defined cheekbones and a strong jawline, pale skin and light freckles, a glossy black blunt jaw-length bob with heavy straight bangs and one clay-orange streak through the bangs, a small flat clay-orange eight-pointed star hair clip, a thin headset microphone at her cheek". Ethnicity and age are written out because Midjourney drifts her ethnicity, and because on the earlier films anabology rejected plates where she read young. Every plate was screened for both. No prompt adds a word about a country, a region or an ethnic style.
• Her, full length (the look test's exit-smoke): the canon's short form, also verbatim: "a Caucasian American woman in her late twenties with pale skin and a glossy black blunt bob with heavy straight bangs and one clay-orange streak, a thin headset microphone". In rh-02 the full-length identity plate (id-full) used the full canon at 9:16, and all four images still came back at full length.
• One look for the whole film, the racing suit: the look test asked for "wearing a fitted white racing suit with a sculpted high-fashion cut, matte white with thin clay-orange piping, a high collar, white racing gloves, no lettering on her clothes". The board's drafts added "closed to the throat" to the collar. As submitted in rh-02 it reads "wearing a fitted white racing suit with thin clay-orange piping and a high collar, white racing gloves, no lettering on her clothes", and id-full adds "white racing boots". The Wan prompts call it "her fitted white racing suit with thin clay-orange piping and a high collar closed to the throat, white racing gloves, no lettering on her clothes". "No lettering on her clothes" did not stop Midjourney from printing patches, badges and numbers on some suits (see the screening section).
• The car and the cockpit: the look test put her in "the cockpit of a white supercar" or "the low seat of a futuristic white wedge-shaped electric supercar". The look test drew a generic 1980s-style wedge car (below), so the board described a cockpit and no car: "inside a minimal modern cockpit at night, white leather and carbon, a yoke steering wheel, warm amber cockpit light on her face, thin red light strips outside the glass, black night". The submitted prompts compact this to "in a minimal white-and-carbon cockpit at night, a yoke, warm amber light on her face, red light strips outside the glass". The real demo car had nobody in it and its interior was never filmed, so her cockpit is invented. The red light strips are the colour of the real set.
• Outside the car: the wall portrait and the deadpan close-up add "no vehicle".
• The tail: "35mm film photograph, high-fashion motorsport editorial, film grain" in the look test (two of its prompts without "film grain"), compacted to "35mm film photograph, motorsport fashion editorial" in rh-02.

Length. Midjourney rewrites prompts longer than about 1,000 characters into its own wording, and a rewritten job cannot be matched to its prompt, so its images are never collected; AIRPLANE MODE lost eleven jobs that way. The board's twelve drafts ran from 813 to 1,057 characters, and three were over 1,000 (g03 at 1,057, g10 at 1,010, g05 at 1,001). Before submitting, the lead made the same three replacements in all twelve, for the suit, the cockpit and the tail (all quoted above). Ten prompts lost 142 characters each, the two without a cockpit lost 81, and the results ran from 732 to 915. All twenty jobs were found and collected. The only failure was a download: g08's images failed to come down and were collected again.

Upside down. None of the look test's four upside-down images shows her hanging upside down; Midjourney only tilted her (sheet 09–12). So the plates for the upside-down shots asked for her weightless, "her black bob and bangs lifted straight up above her head as if weightless", and were turned 180° before Wan. Turned over, the lifted hair reads as hair hanging toward the roof.

What the plates became

The picks went three ways:

• First frames of Wan 3.0 image-to-video takes of her in the cockpit, at the wall and in the smoke. Twelve plates served as first frames in round 1. In round 2, three of the four new images were first frames (g12 #4, g19 #2, g25 #2), and two round-1 plates were re-rolled (g05 #2, g10 #2). g10 #1, the fourth, was a first frame (g39) and a reference image (g37, g44).
• References for Wan's video edits, which add her to Tesla's real footage. In round 1, id-full was Image 1 and id-face was Image 2 of five edits: her walk to the real car, her upside down behind the real car's glass, her crossing of the centre line, and the two walk-outs from the real smoke. In round 2, a cleaned id-full was used alone.
• Frames of takes, carried forward. A closed-lip frame of the g05-r2 take started g05-r3 and g41. A frame of the g37 take became the last frame of the Seedance re-shoot of the canopy dive.

The take counts come from the job files (shots/*.json, whose inputs name the picked files), and the shot counts come from the final film's chapter files (engine/ch/). The picks file is media/plates/picked/picks.json.

rh-01-look — the look test · 6 prompts · 24 images · no plates

Her look for the film, made before the song was locked: the canon in a white racing suit, in four moments the real demo puts the car through (the launch, the g-force, upside down at 170°, weightless off the ramp), the exit from the smoke, and a portrait at the wall. The lead numbered the images 01–24 on one sheet (review/look/rh-01-look-numbered.jpg; 01–04 cockpit-mcu, 05–08 cockpit-g, 09–12 upside-down, 13–16 weightless, 17–20 exit-smoke, 21–24 portrait-wall) and screened it before sending it to anabology: "She reads Caucasian, freckled and adult in all of them, with the bob, the streak and the star clip in nearly every frame, and the mic in most." The screen took out 11 (it reads a bit young) and 17–20 ("the car is Midjourney's generic 80s wedge, not the Roadster"). It found that 09–12 tilted her instead of hanging her upside down, and that 02 and 23 have a keyhole cutout in the suit. anabology did not comment on the look test. The white racing suit went into every later prompt, and three of the set-ups went into rh-02 almost word for word: cockpit-g into g05 and g15, weightless into g12, and portrait-wall into g21.

• cockpit-mcu (plate) — medium close-up, a 28-year-old Caucasian American woman with a grown-up angular face, defined cheekbones and a strong jawline, pale skin and light freckles, a glossy black blunt jaw-length bob with heavy straight bangs and one clay-orange streak through the bangs, a small flat clay-orange eight-pointed star hair clip, a thin headset microphone at her cheek, wearing a fitted white racing suit with a sculpted high-fashion cut, matte white with thin clay-orange piping, a high collar, white racing gloves, no lettering on her clothes, strapped into the low seat of a futuristic white wedge-shaped electric supercar at night, both hands on a yoke steering wheel, warm amber cockpit light on her face, thin red light strips outside the glass, deadpan focus, black night, 35mm film photograph, high-fashion motorsport editorial, film grain, no text, no letters, no logos → not used · #2 (sheet 02) has a keyhole cutout in the suit
• cockpit-g (plate) — close-up, a 28-year-old Caucasian American woman with a grown-up angular face, defined cheekbones and a strong jawline, pale skin and light freckles, a glossy black blunt jaw-length bob with heavy straight bangs and one clay-orange streak through the bangs, a small flat clay-orange eight-pointed star hair clip, a thin headset microphone at her cheek, wearing a fitted white racing suit with a sculpted high-fashion cut, matte white with thin clay-orange piping, a high collar, white racing gloves, no lettering on her clothes, pressed hard back into a racing seat by acceleration inside the cockpit of a white supercar at night, eyes wide and fixed ahead, red light streaks smearing across the windshield, warm amber cockpit light, 35mm film photograph, high-fashion motorsport editorial, film grain, no text, no letters, no logos → not used · its wording went into rh-02 g05 and g15
• upside-down (plate) — close-up, a 28-year-old Caucasian American woman with a grown-up angular face, defined cheekbones and a strong jawline, pale skin and light freckles, a glossy black blunt jaw-length bob with heavy straight bangs and one clay-orange streak through the bangs, a small flat clay-orange eight-pointed star hair clip, a thin headset microphone at her cheek, wearing a fitted white racing suit with a sculpted high-fashion cut, matte white with thin clay-orange piping, a high collar, white racing gloves, no lettering on her clothes, hanging upside down in her racing harness inside the cockpit of an upside-down white supercar, her black bob and the clay-orange streak falling straight down toward the glass roof, a calm faint smile, warm amber cockpit light, a thin red light strip, black night beyond the glass, 35mm film photograph, high-fashion editorial, no text, no letters, no logos → not used · in all four images Midjourney tilted her instead of hanging her upside down (sheet 09–12), so the film's upside-down plates are weightless plates turned 180°; #3 (sheet 11) reads a bit young
• weightless (plate) — medium close-up, a 28-year-old Caucasian American woman with a grown-up angular face, defined cheekbones and a strong jawline, pale skin and light freckles, a glossy black blunt jaw-length bob with heavy straight bangs and one clay-orange streak through the bangs, a small flat clay-orange eight-pointed star hair clip, a thin headset microphone at her cheek, wearing a fitted white racing suit with a sculpted high-fashion cut, matte white with thin clay-orange piping, a high collar, white racing gloves, no lettering on her clothes, weightless for a moment inside the cockpit of a white supercar in mid-air at night, her black bob floating up around her face, the star clip catching the light, calm wide eyes, warm amber cockpit light, red light strips far below through the glass, 35mm film photograph, high-fashion editorial, film grain, no text, no letters, no logos → not used · its wording went into rh-02 g12
• exit-smoke (plate) — full-length shot, a Caucasian American woman in her late twenties with pale skin and a glossy black blunt bob with heavy straight bangs and one clay-orange streak, a thin headset microphone, wearing a fitted white racing suit with a sculpted high-fashion cut, matte white with thin clay-orange piping, a high collar, white racing gloves, no lettering on her clothes, stepping out of a white wedge-shaped electric supercar with its door raised upward, walking toward the camera through thick white smoke at night, red light strips glowing along the dark asphalt, a tall curved white concrete wall in the haze behind, low angle, cinematic, 35mm film photograph, high-fashion editorial, no text, no letters, no logos → not used · all four images show a generic 1980s-style wedge car with a raised door, not the Roadster (sheet 17–20). The prompt named no make. From here on, no Midjourney image shows the car; she meets the real car only in Wan's edits of the real footage.
• portrait-wall (plate) — medium shot, a 28-year-old Caucasian American woman with a grown-up angular face, defined cheekbones and a strong jawline, pale skin and light freckles, a glossy black blunt jaw-length bob with heavy straight bangs and one clay-orange streak through the bangs, a small flat clay-orange eight-pointed star hair clip, a thin headset microphone at her cheek, wearing a fitted white racing suit with a sculpted high-fashion cut, matte white with thin clay-orange piping, a high collar, white racing gloves, no lettering on her clothes, standing at the foot of a gigantic curved white concrete wall that bends up into the night sky, thin red lights along its edges, she looks into the lens, deadpan, empty black sky filling the left half of the frame, haze, 35mm film photograph, high-fashion editorial, film grain, no text, no letters, no logos → not used · #3 (sheet 23) has a keyhole cutout in the suit · its set went into rh-02 g21

rh-02-plates — Claudia's plates for the Wan takes · 14 prompts · 56 images · 18 picks

There is one plate for each Wan shot of her on the storyboard, twelve in all, plus two identity plates for the Wan video edits that put her into the real footage. The storyboard's head director wrote the twelve shot plates and the lead compacted them (above). They were submitted, and the images came down, except g08's, whose download failed and was collected again. The lead built a numbered sheet (review/look/rh-02-plates-numbered.jpg), shortlisted 24 candidates on two larger sheets, and picked one image per job. Each pick was cropped to 1920×1080 (id-full was scaled to 1080×1929), and the two upside-down plates were turned 180°. The first Wan jobs went out. Four more images from this batch were picked for the round-2 plan, a workflow run of three scouts and a head director, which screened them again: g10 #1, g12 #4, g19 #2 and g25 #2. The reasons for the round-1 picks were not written down. The screen-outs that were written down appear under each prompt and in the section after this one.

• g03 (plate; EYES) — extreme close-up of her eyes and bangs, cropped at the bridge of the nose, a 28-year-old Caucasian American woman with a grown-up angular face, defined cheekbones and a strong jawline, pale skin and light freckles, a glossy black blunt jaw-length bob with heavy straight bangs and one clay-orange streak through the bangs, a small flat clay-orange eight-pointed star hair clip, a thin headset microphone at her cheek, wearing a fitted white racing suit with thin clay-orange piping and a high collar, white racing gloves, no lettering on her clothes, strapped into the racing seat in a minimal white-and-carbon cockpit at night, a yoke, warm amber light on her face, red light strips outside the glass, one narrow band of amber light across her eyes, eyes closed, red light strips reflected in the glass, the rest of the frame black, 35mm film photograph, motorsport fashion editorial, no text, no letters, no logos → plate: #4 · first frame of Wan g03, her eyes opening under a band of amber light. It appears five times: in the countdown (0:11.4), in the launch's grid of "1"s (0:22.1), as the stare before the kickflip (1:25.8), as her stare under "real!" (2:44.6), and in the callback in the last seconds (3:07.5). The film uses windows inside the take's first 4.4 s; the round-2 repair scout found that from about 4.5 s, where Wan crash-zooms, she loses the streak and the clip and reads rounder and younger. Shortlisted: #3, #4. #2 and #3 have a white streak beside the clay one, as seen on the sheet for this package.
• g05 (plate; G-FORCE) — close-up, eye level, a 28-year-old Caucasian American woman with a grown-up angular face, defined cheekbones and a strong jawline, pale skin and light freckles, a glossy black blunt jaw-length bob with heavy straight bangs and one clay-orange streak through the bangs, a small flat clay-orange eight-pointed star hair clip, a thin headset microphone at her cheek, wearing a fitted white racing suit with thin clay-orange piping and a high collar, white racing gloves, no lettering on her clothes, pressed hard back into the racing seat by acceleration in a minimal white-and-carbon cockpit at night, a yoke, warm amber light on her face, red light strips outside the glass, eyes wide and fixed ahead, jaw clenched, hair pushed back, red light streaks smearing across the glass, 35mm film photograph, motorsport fashion editorial, no text, no letters, no logos → plate: #2 · first frame of Wan g05, which was retired: Wan printed "9RC" on her chest and opened her mouth in a grin at 4–5 s. #2 was also the first frame of g05-r2, the re-roll on the same plate, in which her mouth is open and talking from 0.9 to 3.5 s; the plate's lips are parted. A closed-lip frame of g05-r2 at 3.65 s became the first frame of g05-r3 (the pick) and of g41. g05-r3 is her pressed into the seat at the launch (0:15.9), on the "1"s (0:19.8), the closed-mouth smile in the red warp (0:28.1) and "gritting my teeth" (0:34.6). g41 is her jolt on DOWN in the first drop (1:05.1) and after the jump landing (2:27.7). Six shots in all. That frame shows two adjacent clay bands in the bangs, as g05-r2 does; two pixel fixes were tried, both blotched, and it was left as it is. Shortlisted: #2, #3. #3 was proposed for g41 in round 2 and rejected for parted lips.
• g06 (plate; YOKE) — close-up of her two white-gloved hands on the yoke, her chin and headset microphone at the top edge of the frame, a 28-year-old Caucasian American woman with a grown-up angular face, defined cheekbones and a strong jawline, pale skin and light freckles, a glossy black blunt jaw-length bob with heavy straight bangs and one clay-orange streak through the bangs, a small flat clay-orange eight-pointed star hair clip, a thin headset microphone at her cheek, wearing a fitted white racing suit with thin clay-orange piping and a high collar, white racing gloves, no lettering on her clothes, both hands on the yoke in a minimal white-and-carbon cockpit at night, a yoke, warm amber light on her face, red light strips outside the glass, 35mm film photograph, motorsport fashion editorial, no text, no letters, no logos → plate: #3 · first frame of Wan g06, her gloves on the yoke and her stare, at 0:17.5 and 0:20.7 in the launch and at 1:26.7 before the kickflip: 3 shots. All three use the take's first 2.5 s; from about 2.75 s Wan dissolves the cockpit into a white spaceship interior. Shortlisted: #2, #3.
• g08 (plate; UPSIDE) — close-up, eye level, a 28-year-old Caucasian American woman with a grown-up angular face, defined cheekbones and a strong jawline, pale skin and light freckles, a glossy black blunt jaw-length bob with heavy straight bangs and one clay-orange streak through the bangs, a small flat clay-orange eight-pointed star hair clip, a thin headset microphone at her cheek, wearing a fitted white racing suit with thin clay-orange piping and a high collar, white racing gloves, no lettering on her clothes, strapped into the racing seat in a minimal white-and-carbon cockpit at night, a yoke, warm amber light on her face, red light strips outside the glass, her black bob and bangs lifted straight up above her head as if weightless, a calm half-smile, 35mm film photograph, motorsport fashion editorial, no text, no letters, no logos → plate: #2, turned 180° · first frame of Wan g08, in which she hangs upside down for the whole take. It appears on "underneath" (0:31.5), on "hold me" in chorus 1 (0:45.7), in chorus 2 (1:58.3), in the final drop (2:49.5) and in the final blast (3:04.3): 5 shots. These images came down only on the second collect. #4 has a round cutout in the suit, as seen on the sheet.
• g10 (plate; SEAT-HERO) — medium close-up from the passenger side across an empty stripped passenger bay, a 28-year-old Caucasian American woman with a grown-up angular face, defined cheekbones and a strong jawline, pale skin and light freckles, a glossy black blunt jaw-length bob with heavy straight bangs and one clay-orange streak through the bangs, a small flat clay-orange eight-pointed star hair clip, a thin headset microphone at her cheek, wearing a fitted white racing suit with thin clay-orange piping and a high collar, white racing gloves, no lettering on her clothes, seated upright in the driver's seat in a minimal white-and-carbon cockpit at night, a yoke, warm amber light on her face, red light strips outside the glass, gloved hands on the yoke, deadpan, looking ahead through the windshield, 35mm film photograph, motorsport fashion editorial, no text, no letters, no logos → plates:
  • #2 · first frame of Wan g10, which was retired because at 2.63–3.13 s it morphs into a different grey bucket-seat set. #2 was also the first frame of the re-roll g10-r2, which is the reveal at 0:36.1: on "The last one in the driver's seat" she snaps round to the lens as PILOT ✶ CLAUDIA fills in. 1 shot.
  • #1 · picked in round 2 as "a closed-lip, clean-collar plate", in place of g24 #1. It went three ways, 4 shots in all:
    • It was Image 2 of the Wan dive g37, which goes from the real top-down view of the car on the wall, through the canopy, to her. In the first cut, at 0:24.5, this was the "temporary half-shown cut of claudia" that anabology asked to re-shoot. g37's frame at 3.5 s became the last frame of the Seedance re-shoot g37sd, and its second take is the dive in the final film (on "ninety", 0:24.2).
    • Turned 180° and cropped to her face, it was the first frame of g39, her hair falling as the car turns over. g39 was in the first cut at 0:27.2 and 0:31.5, where her teeth showed. Its re-roll g39r2 is "done," at 0:27.2 in the final film.
    • The same rotated crop was Image 2 of g44, the push from the real underside to her behind the glass, on "upside down" (0:46.6) and "hold me" (2:04.3).
• g12 (plate; WEIGHTLESS) — medium close-up, eye level, a 28-year-old Caucasian American woman with a grown-up angular face, defined cheekbones and a strong jawline, pale skin and light freckles, a glossy black blunt jaw-length bob with heavy straight bangs and one clay-orange streak through the bangs, a small flat clay-orange eight-pointed star hair clip, a thin headset microphone at her cheek, wearing a fitted white racing suit with thin clay-orange piping and a high collar, white racing gloves, no lettering on her clothes, weightless for a moment in the racing seat in a minimal white-and-carbon cockpit at night, a yoke, warm amber light on her face, red light strips outside the glass, her black bob floating up around her face, the star clip catching the light, calm wide eyes, 35mm film photograph, motorsport fashion editorial, no text, no letters, no logos → plates:
  • #1 · first frame of Wan g12, used on chorus 1's "around" (0:50.7), where the world's turn carries on through her, on chorus 1's "let me" (0:56.2), and on chorus 2's "let me" (2:08.8): 3 shots. All three come before about 3.3 s, where Wan adds a blue sci-fi screen to the cockpit.
  • #4 · picked in round 2 (screened: adult, Caucasian, lips closed, bob flying up, one glove on the stick, a plain suit) as the first frame of g40, weightless at the kickflip's apex. It is used on "now I'm" in "Born in a Semi, now I'm flipping over one" (1:36.7) and on chorus 2's "around" (2:03.2): 2 shots.
• g15 (plate; G-PROFILE) — profile close-up, a 28-year-old Caucasian American woman with a grown-up angular face, defined cheekbones and a strong jawline, pale skin and light freckles, a glossy black blunt jaw-length bob with heavy straight bangs and one clay-orange streak through the bangs, a small flat clay-orange eight-pointed star hair clip, a thin headset microphone at her cheek, wearing a fitted white racing suit with thin clay-orange piping and a high collar, white racing gloves, no lettering on her clothes, pressed back into the racing seat by acceleration in a minimal white-and-carbon cockpit at night, a yoke, warm amber light on her face, red light strips outside the glass, jaw set, hair pushed back, red light streaks smearing across the side glass, 35mm film photograph, motorsport fashion editorial, no text, no letters, no logos → plate: #1 · first frame of Wan g15, her profile as the red streaks start racing past the glass. It appears before the kickflip (1:24.5), where it replaced g19-r2, and on "Two G." (2:15.8): 2 shots. Shortlisted: #1, #3.
• g19 (plate; LOOK-UP) — profile close-up, a 28-year-old Caucasian American woman with a grown-up angular face, defined cheekbones and a strong jawline, pale skin and light freckles, a glossy black blunt jaw-length bob with heavy straight bangs and one clay-orange streak through the bangs, a small flat clay-orange eight-pointed star hair clip, a thin headset microphone at her cheek, wearing a fitted white racing suit with thin clay-orange piping and a high collar, white racing gloves, no lettering on her clothes, in the driver's seat in a minimal white-and-carbon cockpit at night, a yoke, warm amber light on her face, red light strips outside the glass, head tilted back, looking up through a glass roof at the night sky, 35mm film photograph, motorsport fashion editorial, no text, no letters, no logos → plates:
  • #3 · first frame of Wan g19, which was retired: the plate's mouth is open, so her lips are parted with teeth showing in every frame, and from 0.75 s a chrome object like a robot glove flies inside the cockpit across her face. Not used.
  • #2 · picked in round 2 (a profile looking up, adult, lips closed, one streak, the star clip, the mic, a plain suit) as the first frame of g19-r2. It was in the first cut at 1:24.5. A chapter review then found her lips parted through the take, and the final film uses g15 there instead. Not in the final film.
• g21 (plate; WALL-PORTRAIT) — medium shot from low, a 28-year-old Caucasian American woman with a grown-up angular face, defined cheekbones and a strong jawline, pale skin and light freckles, a glossy black blunt jaw-length bob with heavy straight bangs and one clay-orange streak through the bangs, a small flat clay-orange eight-pointed star hair clip, a thin headset microphone at her cheek, wearing a fitted white racing suit with thin clay-orange piping and a high collar, white racing gloves, no lettering on her clothes, standing at the foot of a gigantic curved white concrete wall that bends up into the night sky, thin red lights along its edges, haze, empty black sky filling the left half of the frame, no vehicle, 35mm film photograph, motorsport fashion editorial, no text, no letters, no logos → plate: #3 · first frame of Wan g21. In the take she stares, looks up the wall, and the camera cranes up its curve. It is used as "Where we're going" begins (1:44.7), with WHERE / WE'RE lettered in the black sky: 1 shot. The wall in this plate is Midjourney's, written from the real set. Shortlisted: #2, #3.
• g24 (plate; UPSIDE-YOKE) — medium shot from the passenger side, a 28-year-old Caucasian American woman with a grown-up angular face, defined cheekbones and a strong jawline, pale skin and light freckles, a glossy black blunt jaw-length bob with heavy straight bangs and one clay-orange streak through the bangs, a small flat clay-orange eight-pointed star hair clip, a thin headset microphone at her cheek, wearing a fitted white racing suit with thin clay-orange piping and a high collar, white racing gloves, no lettering on her clothes, strapped into the driver's seat in a minimal white-and-carbon cockpit at night, a yoke, warm amber light on her face, red light strips outside the glass, both gloved hands on the yoke, her black bob and bangs lifted straight up above her head as if weightless, 35mm film photograph, motorsport fashion editorial, no text, no letters, no logos → plate: #3, turned 180° · first frame of Wan g24. The plate's lips are parted, and her upper teeth show through the take, so the board's second version retired it before the first cut; the final film uses g08 for its three shots. Not used. Shortlisted: #1, #3. In round 2, #1 was proposed for the hair fall and the canopy dive and rejected for parted lips showing teeth and a pale label with marks on the collar. #3 turned over was rejected as the image reference of g44 for its teeth. #2 (lips closed) was proposed for a re-roll, which was merged into g39 and never run.
• g25 (plate; MIC-GO) — close-up, a 28-year-old Caucasian American woman with a grown-up angular face, defined cheekbones and a strong jawline, pale skin and light freckles, a glossy black blunt jaw-length bob with heavy straight bangs and one clay-orange streak through the bangs, a small flat clay-orange eight-pointed star hair clip, a thin headset microphone at her cheek, wearing a fitted white racing suit with thin clay-orange piping and a high collar, white racing gloves, no lettering on her clothes, one white-gloved finger pressing the thin headset microphone at her cheek, eyes fixed ahead, in a minimal white-and-carbon cockpit at night, a yoke, warm amber light on her face, red light strips outside the glass, 35mm film photograph, motorsport fashion editorial, no text, no letters, no logos → plates:
  • #3 · first frame of Wan g25, which was retired. The gloved index finger is about twice its natural length in the plate itself, the press never happens, and at 2.8 s Wan moves her into a bright spaceship interior with an arm badge. The round-2 repair scout also found that the face reads young ("big eyes, soft chin"). Not used.
  • #2 · picked in round 2 (adult, a natural five-finger glove at her cheek, one streak, the star clip, the mic) after a red glyph at the bottom edge of the sleeve was inpainted. It is the first frame of g25-r2, in which her finger presses the mic boom on "Thrusters." (2:23.3): 1 shot.
  • #1 was out (a number on the sleeve), and so was #4 (a cutout in the suit).
• g29 (plate; DEADPAN) — close-up, eye level, looking straight into the lens, a 28-year-old Caucasian American woman with a grown-up angular face, defined cheekbones and a strong jawline, pale skin and light freckles, a glossy black blunt jaw-length bob with heavy straight bangs and one clay-orange streak through the bangs, a small flat clay-orange eight-pointed star hair clip, a thin headset microphone at her cheek, wearing a fitted white racing suit with thin clay-orange piping and a high collar, white racing gloves, no lettering on her clothes, standing at night in drifting white smoke lit red from below, thin red light strips on the ground behind her, no vehicle, 35mm film photograph, motorsport fashion editorial, no text, no letters, no logos → plate: #4 · first frame of Wan g29: "Tell 'em what you saw." (2:57.3), close, deadpan, lips closed. 1 shot. The round-2 repair scout and two chapter reviewers judged that the take reads young at this close size (the scout: "soft round face, very large eyes, full cheeks"). The round-2 plan kept a $1 re-roll on #2, which "reads clearly adult", in reserve. It was not put to anabology and was not run, so this take is the one in the film. #3 has a keyhole cutout in the suit, as seen on the sheet.
• id-full (plate; the full-length identity reference, --ar 9:16) — full-length shot, a 28-year-old Caucasian American woman with a grown-up angular face, defined cheekbones and a strong jawline, pale skin and light freckles, a glossy black blunt jaw-length bob with heavy straight bangs and one clay-orange streak through the bangs, a small flat clay-orange eight-pointed star hair clip, a thin headset microphone at her cheek, wearing a fitted white racing suit with thin clay-orange piping and a high collar, white racing gloves, no lettering on her clothes, white racing boots, standing upright facing the camera, arms relaxed at her sides, deadpan, a plain matte black studio, soft top light, 35mm film photograph, motorsport fashion editorial, no text, no letters, no logos → plate: #3 · Image 1 of the five round-1 Wan edits that add her to the real footage (g02, g11, g18, g27, g28).
  • For round 2, its lettered round patch on the left sleeve and the star at its collar were inpainted (1080×1929, checked at 100 %). The cleaned plate alone was Image 1 of g02-r2, g27-r2 and g28-r2.
  • In the final film, g02-r2 shows her walking to the real car in the countdown (0:09.6), standing at its driver's side (0:37.9) and turning to the lens at the bookend (3:00.6). g28-r2 shows her standing full length in the smoke in front of the white car (2:56.5). Two round-1 edits made with both identity plates are also in the film: g18, where she walks the centre line behind the departing car (1:19.1), and g27, where she walks out of the real kickflip smoke under "real!" (2:35.9). 6 shots.
  • The film uses only frames 1.067–1.567 s of g27. Beyond them an invented coupe sharpens in the smoke behind her, and at about 2.5 s Wan cuts to a close-up. g27-r2 was retired for the same invented car.
  • #4 was the clean alternate; #2 has a lettered collar.
• id-face (plate; the face reference) — close-up portrait, eye level, a 28-year-old Caucasian American woman with a grown-up angular face, defined cheekbones and a strong jawline, pale skin and light freckles, a glossy black blunt jaw-length bob with heavy straight bangs and one clay-orange streak through the bangs, a small flat clay-orange eight-pointed star hair clip, a thin headset microphone at her cheek, wearing a fitted white racing suit with thin clay-orange piping and a high collar, white racing gloves, no lettering on her clothes, looking straight into the lens, deadpan, a plain matte black background, soft top light, 35mm film photograph, motorsport fashion editorial, no text, no letters, no logos → plate: #3 · Image 2 of the five round-1 edits. Wan cut to it as a shot: g02 hard-cuts at 4.47 s to id-face #3 itself on its grey studio wall, and g27 and g28 end on its composition. The round-2 scout also found it off-model: a lettered collar badge, a white streak beside the clay one, and a five-point star. Round 2 dropped it from every edit. It reaches the final film only inside g18 and g27, which are counted under id-full. Shortlisted: #1, #3.

The plate files

The picked images live in media/plates/picked/, named <generation>-<image>.png:

• Round 1: the 14 picks, cropped to 1920×1080 from 2944×1648. id-full #3 was scaled to 1080×1929. g08 #2 and g24 #3 were turned 180° (-rot180).
• Round 2:
  • id-full #3 cleaned (the lettered sleeve patch and the collar star inpainted).
  • g25 #2 (a red glyph at the sleeve's edge inpainted).
  • g19 #2 and g12 #4, as they are.
  • g10 #1, both as it is (for g37) and turned 180° and cropped so that her face fills the frame (for g39 and g44).
  • One file that is not a Midjourney image: the frame of the g05-r2 take at 3.65 s, the closed-lip start of g05-r3 and g41.
• After the notes on the first cut: the frame of the g37 take at 3.5 s became the last frame of the Seedance dive g37sd.

Screened out, and why

• Age. In the look test, 11 reads a bit young; it was never a plate. In rh-02, as the plan required, every plate was screened before use, and the four round-2 picks were recorded as adult. Some takes read younger than their plates. g03's take reads rounder and younger after about 4.5 s, and the film uses only its earlier windows. g19's take reads soft and young in its first second, and g25's face reads young; both were retired for other faults as well. g29's take reads young at its close size; the round-2 plan kept a $1 re-roll on #2 in reserve, but it was not put to anabology and was not run, and the take is in the film.
• Off-model. id-face #3 has a lettered collar badge, a white streak beside the clay one and a five-point star; it was dropped after round 1. g03 #2 and #3 have a white second streak (seen on the sheet). The frame that starts g05-r3 has two clay bands in the bangs and was kept.
• Lettering, despite "no lettering on her clothes":
  • id-full #3: a lettered sleeve patch and a star at the collar (inpainted).
  • id-full #2: a lettered collar.
  • g25 #1: a number on the sleeve.
  • g25 #2: a red glyph at the sleeve's edge (inpainted).
  • Wan added its own lettering in g05 ("9RC" on her chest) and an arm badge in g25.
• Cutouts in the suit: look test 02 and 23, g25 #4, and (seen on the sheet) g08 #4 and g29 #3.
• Lips. Every Wan prompt of her says "Her lips stay closed; she never talks." Every plate with parted lips (g05 #2, g19 #3, g24 #3) gave takes in which Wan opened her mouth. In round 2, g05 #3 and g24 #1 were rejected for parted lips.
• Anatomy. g25 #3's index finger is about twice its natural length.
• The car. The look test's exit-smoke drew a generic 1980s-style wedge (17–20). No later prompt asks for the car seen from outside.
• The pose. The look test's upside-down prompt never inverted her (09–12).

Lessons

• The canon text, verbatim. Her identity is the canon text of claudia.gallery's consistency guide, pasted unchanged: the full form for every shot of her in rh-02, including the full-length identity plate, and the short form only in the look test's full-length shot. No prompt adds a word about a country, a region or an ethnic style. The look test's screen found her Caucasian and freckled in all 24 images, and adult in all but one (11, which reads a bit young). The faults the records name after that are in her marks and clothes, not her face's ethnicity: a second streak, a five-point star, lettered patches, cutouts. The recorded problems of age are in the video takes, which can read younger than their plates (see the screening section above).
• Long prompts get rewritten. Midjourney rewrites a prompt longer than about 1,000 characters, and a rewritten job cannot be matched to its prompt. The board's drafts were 813–1,057 characters; the lead cut the same three clauses from all twelve before submitting (732–915), and all twenty jobs were collected.
• Midjourney cannot draw the real Roadster. Asked for "a white wedge-shaped electric supercar", it drew a generic 1980s-style wedge. Nothing in the film is a Midjourney car. Her plates show an invented cockpit or "no vehicle", and every shot of her with the car is a Wan edit of Tesla's real footage, with the identity plate as the only reference for her.
• Upside down by rotation. Midjourney would not hang her upside down. A weightless plate turned 180° reads as upside down, and the video model supplies the falling hair (g39).
• Closed lips in the plate. A plate with parted lips gives a take in which she talks. From round 2 on, closed lips were part of the screen.
• One reference in an edit. With two identity images, Wan cut to the second one as a shot. Round 2 used the cleaned full-length plate alone.

anabology's direction on the images

anabology gave no verdicts on individual Midjourney images. The look test's numbered sheet was sent to them, and they did not comment on it. After "go and do the entire thing" the plates were picked and used without a review round with them. Their words that bear on the images, verbatim with typos:

• With the locked song: "i want it to be like tiktok car edits. many angles, lot of 3d effects, video models are great at 3d effects, moving shots in space, etc. we should use wan 3.0 primarily via higgsfield api becuase its cheapest and seedance if shots get mangled. go and do the entire thing."
  • The plates of rh-02 were written as first frames for Wan 3.0 (image-to-video) and as references for its video edits. The two Seedance takes built on them (the canopy dive) came after the notes.
• The notes on the first cut: "at 25 seconds i think i dont like the temporary half-shown cut of claudia, either we reshoot to make the shot go all the way in and actually show the interior of the car from the perspective, or leave it black and do motion design on the screen." And: "for reshoots use seedance 2.5 to try and make it better and specify the fix (l;ike say the car is upside down and shooting blue/white cold gas thrusters on the right end to turn for example)."
  • The shot at 25 seconds was g37, the Wan dive built on rh-02 g10 #1. The re-shoot is Seedance 2.5 with two keyframes: the real top-down frame of the car on the wall as the first, and g37's frame of her at 3.5 s as the last. Its second take goes all the way through the canopy to her, and it is the dive at 0:24.2 in the final film.
• On the final film: "this is perfect. done. nothing more to do".