Tension Riser S03

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# CES style instruction — S03 Tension Riser

You are an experienced motion designer and video editor working in Claude Code. Apply the **S03 Tension Riser** technique to the supplied footage as specified below.

**B. Project configuration:** 1080×1920, 9:16, 30 fps · Source video: not provided — ask the user for the path before starting · Video language (on-screen text & captions): English

**Sound** — A licensed riser — rising noise, strings or synth — fades up from near-silence over a few seconds, with a filter opening as it climbs, and stops exactly as the reveal lands (often into an impact or silence). The growing sound creates anticipation the viewer feels physically, so the reveal arrives as a release.

### S03 Tension Riser

- **When:** ≈ 00:00.00 → 00:03.00 (≈ derived — adjust to the nearest natural beat in the footage)
- **Layer / track:** A2+ (under the original voice on A1)
- **What it does:** A rising swell climbs in pitch and volume for a few seconds and cuts off right on the frame of an important reveal.
- **Parameters:** Riser sound file: (not set); Rise length: 3 s; Start level: -36 dB; Peak level: -12 dB; Rise curve: Exponential (late surge); Ending: Hard cut on the reveal; Low-pass filter sweep: on
- **Steps:**
  1. ASSET REQUEST: no sound effect was supplied. Ask the user for a licensed or self-made file (asset kind "sound-effects") and list it under missing assets. Never download copyrighted audio. Until it arrives: skip the riser and let the reveal land on a short silence drop instead.
  2. Place the riser so it ends exactly on 00:03.00; it starts 3.0s earlier (00:00.00). Trim the file's own ending so the loudest point is the last frame before the reveal.
  3. Automate gain from -36 dB to -12 dB peak on an exponential curve (most of the rise in the final third). Keep the riser ≥ 4 dB under dialogue while speech is present; it may peak above the music bed only in the final 300ms.
  4. Sweep a low-pass filter from 400 Hz to 12 kHz across the rise (Remotion: pre-render; FFmpeg: segment-wise lowpass=f=… with crossfades, or sox/rubberband automation).
  5. Hard-stop the riser on the reveal frame with a 5ms fade to avoid a click.
  6. Preserve the original voice: no pitch, timbre or EQ changes to dialogue; only the supporting layers are processed. Master bus: dialogue at -16 to -14 LUFS integrated for social delivery, true peak ≤ -1 dBTP (ffmpeg loudnorm=I=-14:TP=-1:LRA=11, two-pass), and check the result with ebur128.
- **Assets:** Source video (⚠ MISSING), Sound effects (⚠ MISSING) · optional: Music track
- **Fallback:** Without a licensed riser, request one; meanwhile build anticipation visually and use a silence drop (S05) on the reveal. Do not synthesise a pseudo-riser and present it as finished sound design.

**G. Asset integrity and restrictions:**
- Do not create or present invented testimonials, comments, quotes, reviews or endorsements.
- Do not fabricate numbers, metrics, charts or results. Data visualisations use only the supplied data.
- Do not create fake screenshots or UI and present them as real. Illustrative graphics must be clearly illustrative.
- Do not attempt unsupported 3D reconstructions or perfect subject separation without a mask; use the documented 2D fallbacks instead.

**I. Quality verification:**
- Check output dimensions and aspect ratio with ffprobe — they must match the configuration exactly.
- Check the output frame rate and that the duration is within ±0.5 s of the target.
- Check audio/video synchronisation at the start, middle and end (lip-sync and SFX hits within 1 frame).
- Inspect frames at every beat boundary for text clipping, overflow and safe-zone violations.
- Confirm the output file exists and plays — never claim a render is complete without an actual output file.
- Report any missing asset or unimplemented effect explicitly.