Quickstart
Install, write the starter page, and render a draft.
Setup
Run npm install, then bin/vawe doctor. It checks Node, ffmpeg, Chrome and the other tools. For each tool that is missing, it prints the install line.
Start a film
bin/vawe new helloThis writes films/hello/page.html (a valid starter) and brief.md. Flags such as --length, --aspect and --title set the starter values. Run bin/vawe new --help for the list.
The starter page has this shape:
<!doctype html>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta name="duration" content="5">
<meta name="message" content="hello, film">
<style>
body { margin: 0; background: #f4f6fb; color: #0b0d12; font: 700 calc(var(--vh) * 0.1) system-ui; }
h1 { position: absolute; left: 8%; top: 42%; margin: 0;
animation: in 0.5s cubic-bezier(.2,.9,.2,1) 0.3s both, out 0.25s ease-in 4.4s both; }
@keyframes in { from { transform: translateY(0.6em); opacity: 0 } to { transform: none; opacity: 1 } }
@keyframes out { to { transform: translateY(-0.4em); opacity: 0 } }
</style>
<h1>hello, film</h1>
<audio data-synth="pluck" data-at="0.3" data-gain="-6"></audio>The entrance is a move, not only a fade. The exit is shorter than the entrance. The cue lands with the move.
The loop
bin/vawe dev films/hello/page.html # draft: half size, 30 fps, silent
bin/vawe dev films/hello/page.html --from 2 --to 4 # only the seconds you work on
bin/vawe critique films/hello/page.html # in a fresh session
bin/vawe ship films/hello/page.html # final: 60 fps, blur, audioDraft the hardest two to four seconds first. Give the draft to a session that did not write the page. It names the shot, the frame and the fix. Fix the worst items, render only those seconds again, and critique again.
bin/vawe ship runs in the background. Run bin/vawe ship --status --wait to wait for the result.
No em dashes on screen
On-screen copy cannot contain an em dash. The validator rejects it. Use a comma, a period or a middot.