# Idea

> Writing the topic, what a length band means, and the kind of prompt Kutly refuses.

Source: https://docs.kutly.io/writing/idea/

Type a topic. Kutly writes the script, narrates it, and cuts the visuals to the
narration.

## What to type

In **Idea** the box asks **What should this video be about?** It takes plain
English, up to 2,000 characters, counted underneath.

Ten characters is the floor, and the spaces at either end do not count. Under
it the arrow button at the end of the settings row — **Generate** — is
disabled, and the slot beside it reads **Add a topic** over an empty box and
**A bit more** once something is in it. The floor itself is never printed, and
the count under the box is always against the 2,000.

What matters is that the topic has an angle: a claim, a question, or a number.

**Do not type this — Too broad:**

```text title="Do not type this — Too broad"
The Roman Empire
```

```text title="Enough to write from"
Why the Roman army stopped expanding after 117 AD, told through the three
frontiers it could not hold.
```

The topic is the whole brief: it is the only free text that reaches a render,
and the script writer sees it and the length you picked.

A bare subject leaves the angle to the writer. The second prompt gives the
writer the claim, the scope and the structure to write from. **Length**,
**Voice**, **Style pack** and **Music** are settings of their own, in the row
under the box. Naming them in the topic spends characters and sets nothing.

## Length is a band

**Length** offers four bands, each printed as its two ends: **8 – 10 min**,
**14 – 16 min**, **20 – 22 min** and **29 – 32 min**. Kutly aims at a target
inside the range you pick. The bottom is what that preset is expected to
produce, not a length you are promised.

Credits are held against the top of the band rather than that target. The
receipt **Generate** opens prints that top: on the **14 – 16 min** band its
video line reads **Video, up to 16:00** under a total labelled **Held now**.

A completed render is priced again, and that second pricing only moves down —
what was held is the most it can cost, whether or not any of it comes back.

**Voiceover** offers no band to pick: your file is the narration, so it has
already fixed the length.

## What not to type

Name the film's subject in the box; the direction you want travels with it.

**Do not type this — Instructions, no subject:**

```text title="Do not type this — Instructions, no subject"
You are a professional documentary script writer. Write in a serious tone,
open with a strong hook, and structure the script in three acts.
```

Direction like that is fine beside a subject. That topic names no subject at
all: take the instructions out and there is no film left. Every topic is
classified before any of the paid work starts, and a topic with no video subject
in it is what that check looks for.

```text title="Subject and tone"
The Chernobyl control room in 1986, told as the three warnings that were
overruled. Serious tone, no dramatisation.
```

```text title="Subject and a full brief"
Why the Sahara's last crocodiles survive in mountain pools. Three acts: the find, the science, what it means for the next drought. Calm voice, first person plural. Hold the payoff until the last third. No listicles, no clickbait questions. End by asking viewers what to investigate next.
```

Direction means an angle, a tone, what to open on, what to leave out, how to
end.

A refused topic costs the attempt and nothing else: the render is titled
**Render failed**, and the credits go back. Where the player would be, the
screen prints the reason: "We couldn't use this topic — it reads as instructions
for the writer rather than the subject of a video. Describe what the video
should be about; style, length and pacing come from the options you pick, not
from the topic."

## Controls and direction

Every control travels with the render as its own value. Everything else — where
the script opens, what order it moves in, what it drops to fit the length —
comes from what you typed.