A Painted History of Money
A three-minute code-animated music film turns monetary history into brushy, glowing visual metaphors and beat-matched scenes.
Starter prompt / by Refs
The creator shared no short prompt. This is ours for making a film like it with Claude.
Read my notes in {NOTES_FOLDER} on {TOPIC} and turn them into a three-minute vertical music video at 1080×1920, with every frame drawn in code. Write lyrics from the notes, voice them with {MUSIC_TOOL} or use {AUDIO_FILE}, and storyboard around 70 short shots that cut on the beat. Paint scenes in a brushy canvas style of deep blues with warm glowing highlights, give people properly jointed rigs rather than stick figures, and weave in green falling-glyph rain as a motif. Render headlessly and encode with ffmpeg.Field notes / why it works
The near-black opening reveals a warm point of light within 0.85 seconds, and the first vocal at 2.88 seconds makes that visual mystery an origin story. Across 74 shots, stone, gold, paper, institutions, and glowing blocks make the dense chronology tangible; brisk 0.6–1.3-second cut clusters at 0:32 and 1:57 renew the energy. Refrains near 0:54 and 1:57 return before the island image and original object recur at 2:48–3:17.
Plate 01 / The format in one breath
A portrait music film turns an abstract history into a sequence of tangible objects and places. Rhythmic, nearly continuous sung or rapped narration advances the chronology while brush-textured code animation makes each noun visible; a repeated refrain gives the long reel a return point. The opening implies an origin story by 0:08, when a tiny glow becomes a stone-like ring among dark blue forms.
Why it works
- A tiny luminous point in a dark, quiet first frame expands into an image before the first vocal at 0:02.9; the first picture change is at 0:00.85.
- The scene track follows the lyric's concrete nouns: island stones around 0:13–0:24, gold and scales around 0:38–0:47, paper and printing around 1:15–2:05, then blocks and a crowd around 2:11–2:57.
- The recurring sung refrain returns near 0:54, 1:57, and 3:03, while the image returns to the opening island idea at 2:48 and 3:11. That ties a 3:22 film together (inferred).
Plate 02 / Format card
| Platform · aspect · length | X · 9:16 · 720×1280, 30 fps · 202.7 s |
| Pace | 74 shots; 73 measured cuts, 21.6/min. Allowing uncertain flashes/moves: 21.6–35.2 cuts/min. 11 internal steps; 24.9 measured picture changes/min. Mean 2.74 s, median 2.17 s. |
| Script | 526 transcribed words; 163 wpm overall, 194 wpm during vocals. ASR transcribes some sung words imperfectly. |
| Voice | One animated medium-register, rhythmic storyteller; melody and rap-like diction. |
| On screen | Effectively 100% painterly, code-rendered animation; no presenter or conventional footage visible in the sheets. |
| Captions | No persistent subtitles or kinetic lyric cards. Text appears as scene props: a decree number, bill, screen, symbols. |
| Sound | Continuous, music-forward produced song; no clearly established cut-specific effects. −11.7 LUFS integrated, −0.1 dBFS measured peak. |
| Structure | Origin → historical examples → refrain → policy/inflation escalation → refrain → digital resolution → origin callback. No explicit CTA. |
Pro / 13 plates + recipe
The first plates are open. The full dissection is Pro.
Get the timed shots, type and sound specs, and the runnable recipe.
Open the full blueprint- Plate 03 / The hook, frame by frame (first 3 seconds)Pro
- Plate 04 / Structure (beat sheet)Pro
- Plate 05 / Shot grammarPro
- Plate 06 / Visual style guidePro
- Plate 07 / Voice and deliveryPro
- Plate 08 / Sound designPro
- Plate 09 / PackagingPro
- Plate 10 / Script templatePro
- Plate 11 / Production planPro
- Plate 12 / PromptsPro
- Plate 13 / Edit recipePro
- Plate 14 / QA checklistPro
- Plate 15 / Make it yoursPro
- Recipe / runnable promptPro