The shape of the problem

You finished the film. Now it needs to exist as:

• The 16:9 master, full length
• A 9:16 vertical, reframed, for phones
• A 1:1 square
• A cutdown at fifteen seconds, and another at thirty
• Captions, burned in for one platform and as a sidecar for another
• A poster frame, at three sizes
• Every one of them at that platform's loudness, codec and bitrate

Eleven exports, each with a spec you will get slightly wrong at least once.

Write the spec down first

The specs live in a file, like everything else in this course. Not in your head, not in a bookmark, not in the platform's help page you will look up again next month.

delivery/
  youtube-master.md      16:9, codec, bitrate, loudness, captions sidecar
  vertical.md            9:16, safe areas, burned captions
  square.md
  cutdown-15.md          which section, and why that one

"Read the current published delivery requirements for each platform in delivery/ and tell me where my files disagree with what I have written down. Do not change my files, just report."

The reframe is the one with a trap

A 16:9 film squeezed to 9:16 is not a vertical film. It is your film with the sides cut off, and the subject is frequently in the part you cut off.

Reframe automatically, then look at every single shot. The tool makes eleven versions in minutes so that you have time to actually watch the one that matters.

Captions come free, and you already made them

You transcribed everything in Module 7.

"From the transcript, build captions: a sidecar file for the platforms that take one, and a burned-in version for the platforms that do not. Check no caption runs past its shot, and flag anything over two lines."

Then read them. Transcription is very good and not perfect, and a wrong caption is the single most visible error in a finished film, because it is the only mistake spelled out in words on screen.

The export queue

Same pattern as Modules 4, 6 and 7. By now you can write this prompt yourself.

"Export every version in delivery/ from the locked timeline, to deliverables/<spec>/, named <film>-<spec>-v<n>. Log the settings used for each. Skip anything already exported at this version. Report what failed."

Start it and go and do something else. The last mechanical week of your project happens while you are not there.

QC is a checklist, and checklists are free

The thing that separates work that looks professional from work that looks close is that somebody checked it against a list before it went out.

"QC every deliverable against its spec: duration, resolution, aspect, codec, bitrate, integrated loudness, true peak, and whether captions exist where the spec says they should. Give me a table, one row per deliverable, pass or fail per column."

A table with a fail in it is worth more than a confident all clear.

Check the artifact, not the exit code

An export can complete successfully having rendered the wrong timeline, the wrong range, a muted track or a version of the cut from Tuesday. The success message is about the process, not about the film.

Ask for evidence you can see:

"For every deliverable, give me the first frame, a frame from the middle and the last frame, at the real output resolution, in one contact sheet per version."

The archive is the deliverable you make for yourself

The film ships. In four months a platform changes a spec, or a client wants a different cutdown, or you want to remake a shot with a better model.

What you need is not the film. It is everything that made it.

"Archive this project: the bible, shots.json, every log, the paper edit, the transcript, the EDLs, the project file and the approved takes. Leave out proxies and superseded takes. Write me a manifest with a checksum for every file, and tell me the total size before you start."

Then prove you can get it back

"Restore the archive to a scratch folder, verify every file against the manifest, and tell me anything missing or changed."

Do this once, now, on a project that is finished and safe. The alternative is finding out on the project where it matters, which is always the one where it matters.

The exercise

Your cut from Module 7.

1. *"Write delivery/ spec files for every platform I am posting to, from their current published

requirements, and date each one."*

1. "Export every version from the locked timeline, log the settings, report what failed."
2. "QC everything against its spec. Table, pass or fail per column."
3. "Contact sheet, first, middle and last frame, per deliverable."
4. Look at every reframed shot. Not a sample. Every one.
5. Read every caption.
6. "Archive the project with a manifest and checksums."
7. "Now restore it to a scratch folder and verify."

Steps 5, 6 and 8 are the ones people skip, and they are the three that catch real failures.

What you should have now

• delivery/ holding every spec as a dated file you can re-verify
• deliverables/ with every version, versioned and logged
• A QC table you could hand to a client
• Contact sheets proving the exports are the film and not a confident lie
• An archive with a manifest, and a restore you have actually performed

Your film is out, in every shape it needed, and you can rebuild any of it in a year.