Automatic clip review is a quality step in Yeşilçam Animation: in Premium quality, every clip a video model generates is checked frame by frame by a reviewing model for major defects before it goes into your film. Only serious problems, such as a detached limb or the wrong character, trigger a regeneration, and regenerations are capped at 30% of clips. This post explains why we built it, what it looks for and why it deliberately ignores small things.
Why generated clips need reviewing
Video models have become remarkably good at movement, light and texture. They are still not reliable about the things a human notices in a single glance. A car drives smoothly in reverse while facing forward. A character’s leg lifts away from the body during a jump. An eye fades out halfway through a close-up. A hero is quietly swapped for someone in a similar coat. These are not artistic choices; they are errors, and one of them is enough to make a whole film look careless.
Before clip review, the only way to catch them was for you to watch the preview, spot the problem, and ask for the scene again. That is slow, and it puts the burden on the person least interested in spending time on it. We wanted the studio to do its own first pass.
What the reviewer looks for
The reviewer samples frames from each clip and checks them against what the scene was supposed to show and who was supposed to be in it. It is tuned for major defects only:
- Impossible motion, such as a vehicle moving backwards against its direction of travel.
- Broken anatomy, such as a detached limb or a disappearing eye.
- Identity errors, where the wrong character appears or a character is replaced mid-clip.
- Framed keyframes, where the still image a clip starts from came back with its own frame, border or letterboxing. These are detected and redrawn before animation.
Why we ignore small things
It would be easy to build a reviewer that complains about everything. A slightly soft hand, a background that shifts a little, a fold of cloth that behaves oddly for three frames. If every one of those triggered a new clip, two things would happen. Your film would take much longer, and it would cost much more, because every regeneration uses the video model again. Worse, a new clip is not guaranteed to be better; chasing perfection can trade one small flaw for another.
So the rule is strict: only major problems trigger a regeneration. A viewer would stop and say “what was that?” If they would not, the clip stays.
The 30% cap
Even with that rule, a difficult story could in theory keep regenerating. We cap regenerations at 30% of clips in a production. In a ten-clip film, at most three clips are redone. The cap protects your budget and your time, and it keeps the reviewer honest: it has to spend its regenerations where they matter most.
The cost of review is visible in the itemised Estimated cost as Frame review, alongside the director, images, narration, music and animation. As always, the estimate is a ceiling. If fewer regenerations were needed than budgeted, the difference is refunded automatically when the job finishes. How that settlement works is covered in our guide on animation cost and refunds.
A reviewer that also finds heads
Once the reviewer was looking closely at every frame, we gave it a second task: finding where each speaker’s head is. That information feeds Panelmation, our motion comic style, so that speech balloons point at the person actually speaking rather than a guess. It is a small detail that makes a comic readable, and it came almost for free from the review step. The full story is in making motion comics.
How it fits the production
- The director writes the scenes and assigns lines to characters.
- Each scene gets a keyframe; framed or letterboxed keyframes are detected and redrawn.
- The video model animates the scene into a clip.
- The reviewer checks the clip frame by frame for major defects and locates the speakers.
- Clips with major problems are regenerated, within the 30% cap.
- Voices are aligned, music is mixed and the preview is ready.
Separately, if a video provider is unavailable during this process, production switches to a backup provider automatically so the film still completes.
When to choose Premium
Clip review runs in Premium quality, which the form describes as the best story and scene craft. Professional is fast and economical and is ideal for drafts. Our advice: make a first version in Professional to check the story, cast and voices, then produce the final in Premium. That is especially true for Panelmation, for films with fast action and vehicles, and for anything where a character appears in close-up and a glitch would be obvious. It works in the eight Cinemation styles animated by a video model on the Animation page, but not in Shadowmation or Pixelmation, which are drawn by a 2.5D animation engine and produce no video-model clips to review; if you are new to them, start with our tour of the family.
Frequently asked questions
What does automatic clip review check? It checks every generated clip frame by frame for major defects, such as a vehicle moving backwards, a detached limb, a disappearing eye or the wrong character.
Does it regenerate every flawed clip? No. Only major problems trigger a regeneration, and regenerations are capped at 30% of the clips in a production.
Which quality level includes clip review? Premium quality. Professional is the faster, more economical tier for drafts.
Do I pay for regenerations that were not needed? No. The estimate is a ceiling; real usage is measured after the job and the difference is refunded automatically.