Cue 01
Logline & director's statement
A reggae stage is already a three-colour flag before anybody plays a note. Pulse of Steel takes that literally: the episode is cut to the lighting rig, not to the song.
This is a live-stage document, not a concert film. There is no interview bed, no archive montage, no narration. The camera stays in the room and lets the rig do the storytelling — a red wash picks out the guitar, a green wash finds the horns through the drum shield, and the two only meet on the gold pooled across the deck at centre stage.
The dedication is the point of the whole edit. Steel Pulse built a sound out of a working city; the visual grammar here is the same trick in a different medium — cold metal, hot gels, nothing warm that wasn't warmed by a lamp.
Steel is the material. Pulse is what you do to it.
Cue 02
Key art gallery
Clean plates carry no on-image text so the title can be set live. Select a plate to open it full size, arrow between plates, and download the original from the viewer.
Plates load from public/gallery/. Copy the eleven files listed in
ASSETS.md into that folder before running the dev server.
Cue 03
Visual language
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Light is the set
The backdrop is black velvet and stays black. Every colour in frame arrives from a lamp, a gel, or a piece of cloth. Nothing is coloured in the grade that wasn't coloured on the night.
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Metal reads cold
Cymbals, truss, mic stands, brass and the perspex shield hold a neutral steel value even inside a saturated wash. Protect that separation — it is the whole title.
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Three zones, held
Stage left is red, stage right is green, the deck is gold. Never cross-cut a red-side subject against a green-side subject in the same beat; travel through gold.
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Faces stay found
A saturated par can will eat skin. Key faces off the amber spill on the deck, never off the gels.
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The crowd is a horizon
The audience appears only as a silhouetted lower edge. No reaction cutaways, no faces in the room.
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Grain, not glow
Halation is allowed on the filament highlights. Bloom is not. If it looks like a filter, it goes.
Cue 04
Colour bible
Six values. Every one of them is a real object on that stage.
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Pit black
#07080AVelvet backdrop and the house between cues -
Brushed steel
#9FA8B2Truss, cymbals, mic stands, the drum shield edge -
Gel red
#D42630Stage-left par wash -
Gel gold
#F0A81CDeck spill at centre and the band of the flag -
Gel green
#2FA84FStage-right par wash -
Filament
#FFE9B8Hot core of a lamp. Highlights only, never a fill
Working space Rec.709. Gels are graded to saturation, not to hue — the red and green must stay where the lamps put them or the three-zone rule collapses.
Cue 05
Cut breakdown
- 00:00House to zeroRoom tone. One filament on the truss.
- 00:18Red upStage left arrives alone. Guitar figure, no drums.
- 01:04Horns enterSecond par bank. Brass against the red.
- 02:11Green upStage right answers. First full-width frame.
- 03:26Gold deckCentre vocal. The zones finally meet.
- 05:02Dub dropEverything out but green and the shield. Longest hold in the cut.
- 06:40Full upAll three washes. Wide, locked, no cut for 40 seconds.
- 08:12BlackoutReverse to the room. Card. Out.
Target runtime 08:45. Timecodes are the offline; conform against the graded master.
Cue 06
Eight-shot list
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Shot 01
Blackout
Truss in silhouette against nothing. A single lamp warms without firing.
Static wide · 35mm · no gel · VFX: filament halation pass
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Shot 02
Red side
Guitar at stage left, locs and headstock cut out of the wash. Amp stack behind.
Slow push · 50mm · gel red · VFX: none
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Shot 03
Brass
Two saxophones in the red. Bell and keywork hold steel value against saturation.
Handheld · 85mm · gel red · VFX: selective desaturation on brass
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Shot 04
Through the shield
Kit seen through the perspex cage. Green refracts at every panel seam.
Static · 35mm · gel green · VFX: seam flare, glass clean-up
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Shot 05
Deck centre
Vocal at the mic, gold pooling on the boards. The only shot where a face is fully lit.
Slow track in · 50mm · gel gold · VFX: none
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Shot 06
The flag
Tricolour draped across the keyboard rig, lit from stage right. Held long.
Static · 85mm · gel green edge · VFX: cloth stabilisation
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Shot 07
Full up
All three zones at once. Whole band, whole rig, floor wedges and cabling in frame.
Locked wide · 24mm · all gels · VFX: rig-cable paint-out, house left
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Shot 08
The room
Reverse over the lip of the stage. Crowd as pure silhouette, phone screens the only light.
Static · 35mm · spill only · VFX: screen relight, no faces recoverable
Cue 07
Sound & score
The bed is the room. Audience wash, wedge bleed and stage rattle stay in the mix at a level you can feel rather than hear — if the episode ever sounds like a studio record, the take is wrong.
- MixStereo 2.0 master · −14 LUFS integrated for platform delivery
- RoomAudience and stage capture retained under the board feed throughout
- Dub passSpring reverb and tape delay on the 05:02 drop only. Nowhere else.
- SilenceCue 01 and the final card run on room tone, not on digital black
- ClearanceEvery music cue must be cleared or original before publication — see cue 08
Cue 08
Marketing kit
- Master2.39:1 · ProRes 422 HQ · graded, with and without titles
- VerticalsThree 9:16 cutdowns at 0:30 for TikTok, Reels and Shorts
- Thumbnail1280×720 from shot 07, title set in Big Shoulders over the gold deck
- Clean platesEleven .webp poster plates, no on-image text — see cue 02
- StillsEight press stills, one per shot, 3000px long edge
- CopyLogline, 50-word and 150-word synopsis, credit block
Clearance — unresolved
Steel Pulse is a live band with an active name. Before anything here is published: confirm the licence for every music cue, confirm the provenance and permission for the stage photography, and confirm whether the band's name may appear in the episode title or only in the dedication card. Nothing in this kit constitutes clearance.