J.A.R.E.D. director: describe the film, cinemaOS builds the cut

The J.A.R.E.D. director in cinemaOS builds a film from a request in your own words, such as "make a fun 2-minute movie of all the event footage" or "three 30-second social clips from this interview". It reads the request into a brief, maps the moments in your footage, plans the film with a reason for every pick, shows you that plan, and after one approval builds it as a new sequence beside your existing work. One Undo removes it. Everything runs on your Mac, with no upload and no cloud model.

This article explains what happens at each step, how to get a better first cut, and how to steer the result afterwards.

What you can ask for

There are no templates to pick from. The director is built for free-form requests like these:

• "Make a fun 2-minute movie of all the event footage."
• "A moody teaser of the trip, no talking."
• "A thank-you video with everyone in it."
• "Three 30-second social clips from this interview."

Open J.A.R.E.D. with ⌘J or the chip at the top centre of the window, type the request and press Return. You can ask in any of the interface languages.

Step 1: the brief

First, your sentence becomes a brief. The brief holds the length, how many films you want (up to five), the shape (landscape, vertical or square), the tone (fun, moody, warm, epic, calm, nostalgic or energetic), the pacing, what to do with music and dialogue, what must be included, what to avoid, whether everyone should appear, a look, and any title text.

Two rules keep the brief honest:

• Numbers come only from your words. If you say two minutes, the film is two minutes. A number the language model suggests on its own is ignored.
• Names and must-haves must be words you typed. If the model invents a person or a moment you never mentioned, it is dropped.

When something you asked for cannot be found, the director asks at most one question instead of guessing.

Step 2: the moment map

Next, the director reads your project as a list of moments. It uses what cinemaOS already knows about your footage: transcripts, the visual index (how many people, shot type, subjects, mood), exposure and focus, scene markers, the energy of the sound, and the beats in your music.

It only reads analyses that already exist. It never starts a transcription or a visual pass by itself, because those stay your choice. So the best preparation is simple: transcribe and index your footage before you ask. Without that information the plan leans on variety and chronology, and says which signals were missing.

One honest limit: there is no face recognition. People are known by transcript speaker names, subject tags and file names. If you want "more of grandma", name her somewhere the director can read.

Step 3: the plan you approve

The plan is made by cinemaOS itself, not by the language model. It is the same every time for the same footage and the same request. A film gets an arc of hook, build, peak and ending, and the plan follows a few craft rules:

• The peak holds the strongest moment in the footage.
• No moment is used twice, and separate social clips share no moment.
• Cuts land on the beats of the music.
• When you ask for everyone, every named person appears.
• "No talking" keeps no dialogue audio.

Before you see it, a critic checks the plan once and fixes what it finds. Then the preview shows the arc, the sections, every pick with its reason, the music, the look and any titles. Titles only ever use words you typed.

Step 4: one approval, then the build

You approve the plan once. cinemaOS then builds it in a short series of steps: it assembles the cuts on a new sequence (picture, dialogue and music on their own tracks), fits the music to the length, ducks it under dialogue, applies one of the seven cinemaOS looks when the tone calls for it, adds transitions where the tone wants dissolves, places your titles and fades out the ending.

Each step is checked against the real result before the next one starts. At the end you get a receipt that says what was done and why. If a step cannot run on your material, the build stops there, the steps already done keep their receipts, and the receipt says what was skipped.

Your existing sequences and bins are never changed. The director's cut is a new sequence, and one Undo removes it.

Step 5: redirect instead of starting over

The first cut is a starting point. Type a direction and only the affected sections are planned again:

• "Shorter."
• "More of grandma."
• "End on the toast."
• "No talking."

Each redirect builds a new version beside the old one, so you can compare them and keep the one that works.

How much control J.A.R.E.D. has

The switch on J.A.R.E.D.'s context line has two positions. Always ask makes every change wait for Go ahead. Auto-approve lets small, reversible single edits run at once. In both modes, J.A.R.E.D. always stops to confirm before deleting clips, writing a file or starting anything that cannot be undone. For the director, the single plan approval covers the build steps, which are all undoable and never delete anything.

Why it runs on your Mac

The director is on-device only. A small language model bundled with cinemaOS reads your sentence into the brief, and that is all it does: it never names a tool, never changes the project and never reaches the network. The plan, the picks and the build are cinemaOS code. If the model is cold or slow, the director reads length, tone, people and words to avoid straight from your sentence and carries on. For more on why this matters, see on-device AI video editing and privacy.

FAQ

Does the director upload my footage?

No. The moment map, the language model, the plan and the build all run on your Mac. There is no network step.

Will it change my current edit?

No. It always builds a new sequence and leaves existing sequences and bins untouched. One Undo removes the director's cut.

Can it make vertical clips for social media?

Yes. Ask for up to five films and say the shape, for example "three vertical 30-second clips from this interview". Each film uses different moments.

What if the result is not what I meant?

Redirect it in plain words, such as "shorter" or "end on the toast". Only the sections that need to change are planned again, and the new version sits beside the old one. The QC checklist for an AI-generated edit is a good way to review either version.

Try it on your own footage

The fastest way to judge the director is to give it a real day of footage. cinemaOS has a 14-day free trial with no card required. Import a shoot, transcribe it, press ⌘J and describe the film you want.