Movie Factory: Teacher Runbook

City of Miramar AI Boot Camp 2026 · v2, four Saturdays (Nov 14 to Dec 12) + Dec 19 showcase

July 5-day version kept as README-v1-JULY.md.

This guide is written for you, the teacher. No coding experience needed. You will copy, paste, and press Enter. Claude does the thinking. You stay in charge.

1. What this is

The Movie Factory turns each student's creative work into a finished animated movie.

Each student made four things in ChatGPT and Suno:

1. A written story (with a scene table)
2. Character pictures
3. Scene pictures
4. One song (MP3)

The Movie Factory takes those four things and produces one short animated movie: 6 to 10 clips of 10 seconds each, so about 1:00 to 1:40 plus the title and end cards. It runs on the teacher laptop only. Students never log into the video tools. That is an age rule, and you can say so to the class (see Section 5).

The flow for ONE student looks like this:

Student's Drive folder
      |
      v
1. Copy folder to the laptop
2. Claude builds the shot list        (about 2 minutes)
3. Generate the video clips           (10 to 25 minutes, runs by itself)
4. Student reviews clips with you     (approve or redo, 5 minutes)
5. Redo any flagged clips             (only if needed)
6. Stitch into one movie with music   (about 5 minutes)
7. Upload the movie back to Drive

You will repeat this flow once per student. Clips generate in the background, so you can start the next student while the previous one renders.

When each step happens (the 4-Saturday camp)

The camp runs on four Saturdays, not five days in a row. The Factory work is spread across Sat 3, two teacher-only weeks, and Sat 4. Full timings are in CAMP-RUN-OF-SHOW.md (sections 4 to 7).

Render-week rule: you never approve a clip for a kid. The yes or no is the kid's, on Dec 12. You may stitch a draft cut from all clips so the premiere has something to play: name it approved-draft.txt with every shot number, copy it to approved.txt for the stitch, then delete approved.txt again so the kid's real review on Dec 12 starts clean.

Between Saturdays: keep each kid's folder in kids/ exactly as it is. Do not delete clips, shots.json, or approved.txt. The board photo plus the Drive folders are how you pick up where you left off.

2. One-time setup (already done for you)

MetAiBlock completes this on the teacher laptop before the first training evening, and proves it end to end with the demo project (execution plan GATE 2). It is listed here only so you know what exists. You should never need to redo any of it.

If any check fails on a Saturday or during render week, see Troubleshooting (Section 6) and call the MetAiBlock line.

3. The per-student flow (do this once per student)

Work from the Terminal, inside the movie-factory folder. To get there: open Terminal, type cd, press space, drag the movie-factory folder onto the Terminal window, press Enter.

THE ONE-BUTTON WAY (use this first)

After Step 1 (pull the folder from Drive) and Step 2 (make config.yaml), one command does Steps 3, 4, and 5's page for you:

python3 factory.py --config config.yaml

It checks the folder, has Claude build the shot list automatically, generates every clip, renders the title and end cards, and builds the review page. Then it stops and tells you exactly what to do next: watch the clips with the student, write approved.txt, and run the stitch.

If the shot list came out wrong, redo it with: python3 factory.py --config config.yaml --reshot

If the one-button way errors on the shot-list step, fall back to the manual Steps 3-5 below. Everything below still works exactly as written.

Step 1. Pull the student's folder from Drive

1. Open Google Drive in the browser. Open Miramar AI Camp 2026.
2. Right-click the student's folder (for example Jayden). Choose Download.
3. Unzip it. Move the folder into movie-factory/kids/.
4. Quick check: the folder must contain 01-story.txt, a characters folder, a scenes folder, and song.mp3. The full checklist is in INPUT-SPEC.md. If something is missing, the student fixes their upload first. Do not continue.

Step 2. Make the student's config file

1. Copy config.example.yaml and rename the copy to config.yaml.
2. Open it in TextEdit. Change kid_name and kid_folder to this student.
3. Leave everything else alone unless MetAiBlock told you otherwise.

Step 3. Build the shot list with Claude

1. Open the Claude app.
2. Open the file shotlist_prompt.md (in this folder). Copy ALL of it.
3. Paste it into Claude. Then also paste the full text of the student's 01-story.txt.
4. Tell Claude which scene images exist. Easy way: type ls kids/Jayden/scenes in Terminal and paste the file list to Claude.
5. Claude replies with a block of JSON. Save it as shots.json inside the student's folder (for example kids/Jayden/shots.json).

Step 4. Generate the clips

In Terminal, type:

python3 generate.py --config config.yaml

Clips appear one by one in the student's clips folder. This takes roughly 10 to 25 minutes for a full movie. It runs by itself. On Sat 3 this is a great time for the next student to present their story to the class. During render week, start the next student's Steps 1 to 3 while this one runs.

Step 5. Student reviews the clips

When generation finishes, type:

python3 make_review_page.py --config config.yaml

This creates review.html in the student's folder. Double-click it. This step happens on Sat 4 (Dec 12), when the student is in the room. Watch each clip WITH the student. For each one, tick APPROVE or REDO. Then write the approved shot numbers into a plain text file named approved.txt in the student's folder, one number per line.

Rule of thumb: approve anything that tells the story. Perfection is not the goal. A movie with 6 good clips beats a movie stuck waiting on 10 perfect ones.

Step 6. Regenerate flagged clips (only if needed)

For each REDO clip, ask the student what looked wrong. Then either:

• Small fix: edit that shot's motion_prompt in shots.json (or ask Claude to rewrite it), then rerun: python3 generate.py --config config.yaml --only 3 (replace 3 with the shot number). The old clip is replaced.
• Still wrong after one redo: drop that shot. Fewer clips is fine.
• Flagged 3 or more times: accept the best of the three, or swap the clip for a slow push-in on the storyboard frame. It looks intentional. The movie ships.
• Behind at lunch on Dec 12: stitch the current best take for any clip still re-rendering. The re-render goes into the final cut during straggler week.

Step 7. Stitch the movie

In Terminal, type:

python3 stitch.py --config config.yaml

This joins the approved clips, removes the clips' own random sound, lays the student's Suno song over the whole movie, and adds a title card and an end card. The finished file appears in the student's folder as <FirstName>-movie.mp4. Play it once to confirm sound and picture.

Step 8. Upload back to Drive

Drag <FirstName>-movie.mp4 into the student's Google Drive folder. Also keep a copy on the teacher laptop: the Dec 19 showcase plays from LOCAL files, never from Drive. Mark the student done on the board. Next student.

4. Running more than one student at a time

The generator already runs several clips at once for one student. Recommended rhythm: start Student A's generation, then prep Student B's folder and shot list while A renders. Review A, start B, stitch A. One pipeline in the oven, one on the counter.

5. What to say to the class while it runs

• "The video tools are 18 plus, like a movie rating. So I drive, you direct."
• "This is exactly how real studios work. Writers and artists hand off to a render team. You are the writers and artists."
• "While Jayden's movie renders, let's hear Amara present her story."
• End of Sat 3: "Your clips render this week. Next Saturday, every clip gets your yes or no, and we watch all fifteen movies together."
• When a clip comes out weird: "AI is a creative partner, not a vending machine. We tell it again, more clearly. Watch."
• When a clip comes out great: have the class clap for the author. Every time.

6. Troubleshooting

MetAiBlock support line: 305-851-1647. Call for anything not on this table. Nothing you can type in the Terminal can hurt the students' work in Drive. The Drive folders are the safe master copies.

7. Where everything lives

movie-factory/
  README.md              This guide
  INPUT-SPEC.md          What each student folder must contain
  factory.py             THE BUTTON: shot list + clips + cards + review page
  shotlist_prompt.md     The prompt (factory.py uses it automatically)
  generate.py            Makes the clips
  make_cards.py          Renders the title/end card images (via Chrome)
  make_review_page.py    Makes the review page
  stitch.py              Makes the final movie
  config.example.yaml    Template for the per-student config
  kids/                  Student folders you pull from Drive
    Jayden/
      01-story.txt
      characters/
      scenes/
      song.mp3
      shots.json         (created in Step 3)
      clips/             (created in Step 4)
      review.html        (created in Step 5)
      approved.txt       (created in Step 5)
      Jayden-movie.mp4   (created in Step 7)