# DIRECTION: obama-iran-aj-reel

Project: vertical Al Jazeera English style reel cut from President Obama's Weekly Address of July 18, 2015 on the Iran nuclear deal.
Route: ice-edit with the ice-remake analysis step. Mode: auto. Stage 01 questions waived by the user's own words; each open slot below took its recommended option (alternatives listed for the stage 01 summary).

## Tools (checked 2026-10-28)

- Node v25.7.0, FFmpeg (WinGet build), Python 3.12.10 with numpy, opencv, PIL, onnxruntime 1.29 (CPU), faster-whisper, rembg, playwright (python).
- No GPU. HyperFrames not installed: engine is rung C, the bundled HTML capture renderer (`ice-engines/scripts/render-html.mjs`) with the installed browser, graphics rendered with alpha and composited by FFmpeg.
- Downloaded (user allowed downloads): faster-whisper large-v3-turbo (int8, CPU) for word timestamps; RVM mobilenetv3 ONNX (Robust Video Matting, PeterL1n, GPL-3.0) for the presenter matte; Montserrat variable font (OFL, Google Fonts); NASA Blue Marble topo-bathy Aug 2004 tile C1 (public domain) for the studio map screen.

## Decisions

D-001 Route. Footage plus a style reference: ice-edit, edit type talking-head reel (one speaker to camera recomposed as a vertical reel with scenes), with the ice-remake watching and measuring passes on reference.mp4. Source: router section 2 compound rule.

D-002 Goal and takeaway (inferred, recommended). The reel explains, in Obama's own words, what the deal does (blocks every path to a bomb, inspections, sanctions relief only after compliance) and why he says it is better than the alternative (war). Alternatives: (b) a pure quote reel of his strongest lines, (c) a debate framing with critics' quotes, (d) a 60 s short.

D-003 Length (recommended): about 2:30 to 3:00, close to the reference's 3:13 and its pacing. Alternatives: 60 s short, 90 s, the full 4:20 speech.

D-004 Presenter treatment (recommended): Obama is matted (RVM) and placed in a recreated AJ studio look: dark room, a large vertical screen showing a satellite map of Iran tinted teal and dark, red light pillars at both sides, exactly like the reference's presenter shots. This also removes the WH.GOV bug. Honesty guard: a dateline "WHITE HOUSE / 18 JUL 2015" sits top right on his shots and the opening says it is his 2015 address, so no viewer reads it as a 2026 studio appearance. Alternatives: (b) his real Roosevelt Room background cropped to 9:16, (c) blurred-fill vertical, (d) split screen.

D-005 Identity as it is: the AJ logo bug (white emblem plus ALJAZEERA box, top left, 122x119 px at x 107, y 319) is lifted from reference.mp4 at 176 s; the end card is the reference's own last 3.8 s (189.3 to 193.1 s). Straps, captions and bullets are rebuilt to measured values: Montserrat; name strap #88022B text on #F1F0F3 box with a rounded top right corner; title strip white on #373238; narrator captions white Montserrat Medium about 46 px centered at y 1510 to 1600; quoted voices in pink #F2879C; progress bar track #202020, fill #858487 at y 1723 from x 133 to 947; studio pillars #860002 red glow; bullet panels: uppercase Montserrat ExtraBold with scanline texture on a dark red translucent panel with red dots.

D-006 Caption color: Obama is the narrator of this reel, so his words are white (the reference uses white for its narrator and pink for quoted outside voices). Pink is kept for any outside voice used in B-roll (for example a quote from the Vienna announcement).

D-007 B-roll sources: official only (US government public domain, EU audiovisual service, UN, IAEA under its license). Search and download delegated to a researcher; every item recorded with its license in `ice/assets/broll/SOURCES.md`.

D-008 Approach (02). Obama is the narrator and the reel keeps only his words, cut between sentences, never inside one, never sped up. Shape copies the reference: an 11 s cold open of question hooks on red halos with giant headlines ("ALL OF THE THREATS?", "NO.", "MORE THAN ANYONE", "A NUCLEAR WEAPON?", "YES."), his framing line, a grey title card ("THE IRAN DEAL / 4 DAYS ON", like "WAR ON IRAN / DAY 106"), context B-roll from Vienna and the White House, then his three rebuttals as three chapters (studio, bullets, split screen with B-roll, satellite with site pins), a low-key dark passage for "without this deal", "DIPLOMACY" as the one big word (the reference's "PEACE"), a coda on what came next (8 May 2018, US withdraws), and the reference's own end card. Length 3:09 (reference 3:13). Captions: white narrator lines, two lines, at the reference's measured size and position, with the reference's progress bar.

D-009 Paper edit (03). 35 lines, 169 s of speech from 257 s; cut list and reasons in `ice/plan/script.md`. The Q&A lines from the middle of the address (166.7-178.6 s) are moved to the top as the hook: the reference opens on its narrator's question the same way. The words are unchanged; only their order moves, between whole sentences.

D-010 B-roll mapping. Vienna 14 Jul 2015 (EU EbS, CC BY 4.0; State Department photos, public domain) for the deal; White House 14 Jul 2015 statement and Souza 15 Jul 2015 photo (public domain); IAEA "Inspecting the Nuclear Fuel Cycle" (CC BY) for material, monitoring and inspections, always with the dateline "IAEA FILE FOOTAGE / ALMELO, NETHERLANDS" because no free official footage inside Iran's sites exists; NASA Blue Marble satellite with Fordow and Arak pins for "two key nuclear facilities" (JCPOA Annex I); White House 8 May 2018 remarks for the coda. EbS sources are 480p: used where the frame is busy (stage, podium) and never for faces held long. No B-roll scene repeats.

D-011 Coda (inferred, can be removed): a 3.6 s grey card "8 MAY 2018 / US WITHDRAWS" over the official 2018 footage, so the reel does not leave a 2015 claim as if it still stood. Alternatives: end on his last line straight into the end card; a Trump soundbite in pink quote captions; a text card only.

D-012 Music (08a, stand-in). The reference runs a constant tense bed under the narration (one silence of 0.25 s or more at -50 dB in 3:13). No library track was named or approved for download, so a score is made by code (mgaudio): D minor pulse at 96 bpm, hits on the headline words, a riser into the title card and the coda, drone and heartbeat under "without this deal". Logged as a stand-in; a licensed news underscore can replace it. The end card keeps the reference's own sting.

D-013 Engine. Base picture: Python compositor (`ice/scripts/compose.py`, OpenCV and numpy) over FFmpeg; graphics: `film/overlay.html` rendered by the bundled HTML capture renderer (rung C) with alpha as VP9 WebM (disk space: C has under 5 GB free), composited by FFmpeg.

## Revision 2 (owner's notes on preview 1, relayed 2026-10-29)

D-014 Sound: no generated music or SFX at all (owner's rule). The code score (D-012) is withdrawn and deleted from the plan. Music: three recorded Pixabay tracks measured closest to the reference bed (`ice/assets/CREDITS.md`), each mixed under Obama on the first 30 s as an animatic for the owner to choose; SFX: recorded Pixabay files, one per move, quiet under speech. Mix: voice -16 LUFS, music 12 to 14 dB under the voice and ducked a further 5 dB while he speaks, master -16 LUFS, -1.5 dBTP.

D-015 Reasons before style. Every reference element was read against the reference's own words (`ice/reference/aj-iran/ELEMENTS.md`) and every appearance in this reel now carries the words that justify it (`ice/plan/storyboard.md`, "Why" column). Obama is always lit; red halos and dark portraits are only for the people and countries he names (Zarif for "threats Iran poses", the signatories for "more than anyone", Iran's flag for "Iran does not obtain", Khamenei for "Iran could move closer"). Removed: every darkened Obama, two photos without a link to his words, recap bullets.

D-016 Restored line L09b ("the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China ..."), 12 s, because it is the one place he names a cast: country cards land on each name on the studio screen behind him (the reference's portrait cards). Runtime 3:22 (reference 3:13).

D-017 Finishing measured from the reference and applied only where it appears there: defocus transitions (0.25 to 0.35 s), white flashes at chapter entries and changes of source, headline defocus-in (0.22 s), motion blur on graphic moves (overlay rendered with 3 subframes, shutter 0.5), film texture (grain about 2 levels, flicker about 2 percent, dust and scratches, lifted blacks) only on the two grey archive cards, desaturated B-roll with a light vignette, embers and smoke only on halo shots. Halftone is not in the reference and is not used.

## Build (07 to 10)

D-018 Music: the owner chose track A (AtlasAudio, "Tension Documentary", Pixabay). The 122 s track is edited to the 198 s bed (`ice/audio/music_edit_A.json`): starts after its 6 s intro, joined at the white flash at 1:49.67 with a 1.5 s equal-power crossfade, second part from 33.2 s so its own outro ends on the AJ end card. The end card keeps the reference's sting (+3 dB, limited).

D-019 Render: base picture rendered in four parallel parts cut at shot boundaries (frames 0, 1475, 2909, 4553, 6053) and joined losslessly by concat (frame counts checked: 6053); graphics rendered by the bundled HTML renderer with alpha (VP9), 2 motion-blur subframes, shutter 0.5, temp files on D because C was full; final H.264 High CRF 17, BT.709, AAC 256 kbps, +faststart.