Reviewing Phases 2–5
Each phase after Planning has its own tab on the production detail page. This guide walks through what you'll see in each, and exactly which controls are available.
All approve / reject / retry / pause / resume buttons live in the page's action bar at the top, rendered dynamically from production.available_actions. The buttons that show, and their labels, depend on the production's current state. The tabs themselves are mostly viewers — they are not where you click Approve.
How review gates work
When a phase finishes, the production sits in a Review state. The page header banner explains what's pending; the relevant phase tab fills with content. You then click the action button in the header (e.g. Approve & Start (Direction)) to advance, or Reject / Retry Phase as needed.
If Auto-Approve is on, every gate is auto-advanced. See Auto-Approve Mode. Errors still pause the production regardless.
Phase 2 — Assets review (Assets tab)
What was generated
Asset cards are grouped by type (images per scene, video clips, thumbnails, music) — each card has a thumbnail, name, scene number, and file name. Click a card to open the lightbox preview.
The voice over section is rendered separately at the bottom of the tab (always visible once Phase 2 has run). Voice-over assets show a waveform thumbnail with scene number and file name.
What you can do directly on this tab
- Click any asset to open it in the lightbox.
- Regenerate Voiceover button — at the top of the voice-over section, visible whenever the production is not currently working. Re-records all scene narration using the current scripts. Use this when you've edited scripts in the Plan tab after Phase 2 has already run.
There is no per-asset Replace or Regenerate-image button on this tab. To swap in your own media, edit the production (Edit Production modal) and re-trigger asset generation, or use the action-bar controls to reject and regenerate.
Real scenario
The voiceover sounds slightly robotic on scenes 4 and 7. The script is fine.
You open the Edit Production modal, change Excitement from 2 → 4, save. Then on the Assets tab you click Regenerate Voiceover. ~60 seconds later, all 8 scenes have fresh narration. Approve from the action bar.
Phase 3 — Visual Direction review (Direction tab)
What was generated
A header showing scene count and total duration, then a grid of scene tiles — one per scene. Each tile is an iframe-rendered preview of the styled scene layout (sandboxed, srcdoc-based, so it plays inline). Click any tile's play overlay to play that scene; click again to pause.
The grid layout adapts to the production's video format — landscape, portrait, or square — so what you see matches the final aspect ratio.
What you can do
- Play any scene tile to verify animations, layout, brand colours, and timing.
- Use the action-bar Approve / Reject buttons to advance or send back for regeneration.
Direct layout editing isn't available at this stage. To change a layout, fix it upstream (tweak Visual Direction in the Plan tab and reject from here, or re-create the production).
Phase 4 — Video review (Video tab)
What was generated
The final composited MP4 with synchronised voice-over, background music with ducking under narration, all animations and transitions, at the correct resolution and aspect ratio for your platform.
What you'll see
- Thumbnail preview at the top.
- HTML5 video player with full controls (play, pause, scrub, fullscreen, volume).
- Filename display.
- Download Video button.
- Share Review Link button — this is where the Review Portal link is generated.
- When a review link is active: Copy Review Link + Revoke buttons, with the URL displayed inline.
- A raw JSON viewer for
phase4_data(debug detail).
What you can do
- Watch the whole thing. This is your last chance to catch problems cheaply before Phase 5.
- Download the final MP4 even before approving Phase 5 — useful for offline review.
- Generate / copy / revoke a review link for client sign-off.
- Use the action-bar controls to approve, reject, or re-render.
Phase 5 — Publishing Preparation review (Publish Info tab)
What was generated
A complete metadata package — read-only display on this tab.
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| YouTube Title | Optimised title. |
| Video ID | If a YouTube ID has been set. |
| Description | Full description with chapter timestamps; rendered with preserved line breaks. |
| Tags | Comma-separated SEO tags. |
| Watch on YouTube | Link, only if youtube_url is set. |
Multi-platform metadata block
If your production targets Multi-Platform, an additional Platform Metadata section displays per-platform packages — YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, TikTok — each with its own optimised title, description, and tags.
What you can do
The Phase 5 tab on the production detail page is a viewer, not an editor — you read the metadata here, then copy/paste into your publishing workflow. Detailed platform-specific editing is not exposed in this tab. Use the action-bar Approve & Mark Complete (or equivalent label for your state) to finalise.
Heads up: earlier versions of these guides described inline editing of title/description/tags here. That's not present in the current shipped UI — Phase 5 is read-only.
Tabs cheat-sheet
| Tab | Phase | Editable here? | Where the action buttons are |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overview | — | Settings via Edit Production button (header) | Header action bar |
| Plan | 1 | Per-scene Story + Script sub-tabs editable while Plan Review | Header action bar |
| Assets | 2 | Regenerate Voiceover button (top of voice-over section) | Header action bar |
| Direction | 3 | Read-only previews | Header action bar |
| Video | 4 | Download / Share Review Link controls | Header action bar |
| Publish Info | 5 | Read-only display | Header action bar |
| Errors | any | Read-only display (only visible if errors exist) | Header action bar |
Tips & gotchas
- Auto-refresh. The page polls automatically — tab content and action buttons update without a manual reload.
- Reject feedback is the most under-used field. A specific instruction ("brighten scene 3", "drop the second paragraph of voiceover") gets you to a good result faster than re-rolling blindly.
- The Errors tab only appears when
production.has_errors()is true. If you've never seen it on a production, that production has been clean. - Storage check before Phase 1. If you're under 200 MB free at the start, Phase 1 won't fire. Free space in the Asset Library (and empty the Trash — items in trash still count).
- Manual phase jump is admin-only. End users don't see a "jump to Phase X" control; if you need recovery, use Pause/Resume or contact support.
- The Video tab houses the Share Review Link. If you couldn't find it elsewhere, that's where it lives.
See also
- Storyboard Review (Phase 1) — the most important review gate.
- Auto-Approve Mode — when you don't want to review at all.
- Pause, Resume & Errors — when something goes wrong.
- Sharing for Client Sign-Off (Review Portal) — generated from the Video tab.