# shanyin-director-master: a director skill that turns a script into a storyboard table

> shanyin-director-master is a single file of natural language instructions, packaged as a skill, that walks a script through tone setting, rhythm planning, script revision and shot breakdown, and outputs a nine-column storyboard spreadsheet. There is no code to run, and the whole delivery mechanism is copying text into a chat.

**Shanyin-ai/shanyin-director-master** — 专业影视导演 Agent，基于剧本完成导演定调→节奏规划→剧本微调→分镜拆解，最终输出标准九列分镜表（xlsx）； 深度融合世界顶级导演视听理论，内置数十种影片类型导演风格模板库，支持类型交叉组合； 覆盖概念超短片/短片/长片全格式，将文字剧本转化为可落地的专业拍摄方案。

- Repository: https://github.com/Shanyin-ai/shanyin-director-master
- Stars: 600 · Forks: 79
- Language: Unknown
- License: MIT
- Published: 2026-10-22 · Updated: 2026-10-22 · Language: en
- Canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/shanyin-ai-shanyin-director-master

## A skill file, not a program

The repository describes itself as a pure natural language Claude skill file for film directing, with no programming language involved and out of the box use. That description is the whole architecture. There is no runtime, no dependency, no server and no configuration file. The delivery mechanism is three steps: copy the content of the skill file, paste it into a custom skills configuration or straight into a conversation, and then give a trigger command such as asking for a storyboard breakdown or for a script to be turned into a storyboard table. The top level of the repository holds a skill file, a README and a LICENSE, plus a directory with the same name, so the instruction set is the deliverable and the surrounding repository exists to distribute it. The primary language is recorded as unknown because there is no source code to classify. That shape has a real consequence. Everything the tool does, it does by writing instructions to a language model, so its quality depends on the model, the prompt engineering, and how much the human in the loop steers it, and none of that is a versioned artefact you can diff.

## The pipeline goes from tone through rhythm to shots

The core capabilities are described as a sequence, and the sequence is the interesting part. The pipeline covers director tone setting, rhythm planning, script revision and full storyboard breakdown, and the final output is an industrial standard nine-column storyboard table as an xlsx file that can be used directly for shooting. The order matters. Setting tone before writing shots is how a director actually works, because the visual language follows from the intent rather than the other way around, and a breakdown produced without a stated tone tends to produce competent coverage rather than a point of view. Rhythm planning sits between them, which suggests the skill treats pacing as a separate decision that can be made at the script level before it is expressed as cut lengths. Script revision in the middle is the step that separates this from a diagram generator, since the script itself can be adjusted for production reasons before the shots are locked. The claimed result is a text script turned into a workable professional shooting plan, and the framing as a pipeline rather than a feature list is what makes it usable as a process rather than a one-shot prompt.

## Style templates with crossing combinations

The library side of the project is a set of director style templates, and the README makes two claims about it. It says the tool deeply merges audiovisual theory from world-class directors, and that it has dozens of film genre style templates built in, with support for crossing combinations of them. The combination support is the feature that distinguishes a template library from a menu. A single-select style is a preset, and a preset is a constraint you fight when your film is a hybrid. If the templates are composable, then a project that is part road movie and part thriller can be described as both, and the interesting part of the skill becomes the negotiation between the two sets of conventions rather than picking one. The repository also positions itself as linking to a companion screenwriting project, forming a scriptwriting to directing flow, and the linked project is a separate repository, so the two skills are meant to be used in sequence rather than merged into one file. The limits of the claim are worth stating plainly. The templates are described in prose, and a prose description of a director's visual style is a set of tendencies rather than a set of rules, so the output quality depends on whether the model can hold those tendencies consistently across an entire storyboard table.

## Trigger vocabulary and the global strong trigger

How the skill gets invoked is documented in more detail than most similar projects, and it is the practical part of using it. The core feature list includes global strong triggering, meaning that minimal instructions are enough to call it, and there is a section listing the trigger keywords with full coverage. They cover the domain vocabulary a screenwriter would actually use, including storyboard and storyboard table, director, shot language, camera movement, composition, shot size, editing rhythm, audiovisual style, photography angle, director style, shooting plan, storyboard breakdown, and the English word storyboard, plus phrased requests such as how to shoot this scene and give me a director's plan. The presence of both Chinese and English terms in the trigger list tells you something about the intended working language, and the repository and its documentation are written in Chinese, so the skill is primarily aimed at a Chinese-speaking writer working with a Chinese-language agent. Global strong triggering is a trade-off rather than a free win, since a skill that fires on common words risks activating when you did not mean it to, and the alternative is more explicit invocation.

## The nine-column table is the actual deliverable

The output format is the thing a production team would care about, and the README is specific about it being a nine-column storyboard table exported as xlsx, with the file structure listing the skill file, the README and the licence, and the description noting that it covers concept shorts, short films and feature length formats. A storyboard table in nine columns is a known convention, and the columns in such a table typically carry the shot number, the scene or setup identifier, the shot size, the camera movement, the framing, the description of the action, the dialogue or audio, an estimate of duration, and notes. The xlsx format matters more than it might seem, because a table is something a director can hand to a producer, a cinematographer can annotate, and a production manager can turn into a shooting schedule, whereas a chat transcript of shot descriptions is none of those things. The claim that the table is directly usable for shooting is the strongest one the project makes. It is also the claim most sensitive to the model, since a shot list that reads as competent but internally inconsistent, with a continuity error in the geography or a duration that does not add up to the scene length, is worse than no table at all.

## Maintenance, licensing and the state of the repository

The project is MIT licensed, and the README states the terms in plain language, that the work can be used, modified and redistributed freely with the author's attribution retained. That is a permissive licence with no copyleft obligation, which suits a prompt file, since the file has no value beyond its text and the text is the whole point. The maintenance picture is thinner. The last push to the repository was on 2026-05-11, the repository is not archived, and there are no GitHub releases at all, so there is no version history to consult and no tag to pin to. The primary language is unknown, which is consistent with a repository that contains markdown and a skill file rather than source code. What the project does carry is a good deal of credibility signal from the author, who describes themselves as an AIGC artist, independent director, screenwriter and writer, and lists awards and selections at festivals, a top ten annual AIGC figure list for 2025, and view counts for several short films, plus platform creator roles. Whether that translates into a good prompt file is a separate question, but for a project whose entire value is the quality of a written instruction set, having a working film director write it is the relevant qualification. The last thing to check before relying on it is the companion project, since the directing skill assumes you already have or will have a script.

## Conclusion

Adopt shanyin-director-master if you write scripts and want a structured shot breakdown with camera language, shot sizes and an editable xlsx table, and you are happy working in Chinese with an English-language agent. Skip it if you need a reproducible pipeline, since a prompt file produces different output each run and there is no code to test, and skip it if your work has to be audited for consistency across many scripts. Verify first that the model you use will follow the trigger vocabulary the file expects, and that the nine-column table layout matches what your production team already uses.

## FAQ

### What is shanyin-director-master and what does it produce?

It is a pure natural language Claude skill for film directing, with no programming language involved. It takes a script through director tone setting, rhythm planning, script revision and full storyboard breakdown, and outputs an industrial standard nine-column storyboard table as an xlsx file that can be used directly for shooting.

### How do I install and trigger the shanyin director skill?

Copy the whole content of the skill file, paste it into a custom skills configuration or directly into a conversation, then give a trigger instruction such as asking for a storyboard breakdown or for a script to be turned into a storyboard table. The README lists the trigger keywords, covering storyboard, director, camera movement, composition, shot size, editing rhythm and shooting plan among others.

### How many director style templates does the skill include and can they be combined?

The README states the tool has dozens of film genre style templates built in and supports crossing combinations of them, alongside a claim that it deeply merges audiovisual theory from world-class directors. It also links to a companion screenwriting project, forming a scriptwriting to directing flow.

## Sources

- [Issues](https://github.com/Shanyin-ai/shanyin-director-master/issues)
- [License: MIT](https://github.com/Shanyin-ai/shanyin-director-master/blob/main/LICENSE)
- [README](https://github.com/Shanyin-ai/shanyin-director-master/blob/main/README.md)
- [Shanyin-ai/shanyin-director-master on GitHub](https://github.com/Shanyin-ai/shanyin-director-master)

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Hysen Labs editorial analysis, written from the project's own repository and release notes. Cite the canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/shanyin-ai-shanyin-director-master