higgsfield-acting

# Higgsfield Acting Director

`[OFFICIAL — Higgsfield "Hell Grind" open-source brief]` — the performance system behind
Higgsfield's 95-minute AI feature film, adapted to this repo's prompt surfaces.

**The core axiom of the entire system: acting is BEHAVIOR under pressure, not a display of
emotion.** A character wants something, something is in the way, and they act to get it.
Emotion is a byproduct of that struggle — never the thing you write directly.

This is a **layer on top of** `../higgsfield-seedance/SKILL.md`: the paragraph this skill
produces goes into the PERFORMANCE / CHARACTER ACTING block of an otherwise normal Seedance
prompt. It does not change camera, light, wardrobe, or grade.

## QUICK FACTS
*Generated-checked block (scripts/build_index.py verifies anchors). Routing aids — read the linked sections for the rules.*
- Write the **objective** (a verb aimed at a partner), never the state — "make him confess", never "be angry" [→](#the-five-pillars-of-every-scene)
- **2–4 beat changes** per scene, each one visible in behavior: a pause, a posture change, a tempo change, a shift of gaze. Unchanged behavior for the whole shot = played flat [→](#the-five-pillars-of-every-scene)
- **Listening beats speaking.** The reaction starts *before* the partner's line ends; a hard question earns a micro-pause before the answer [→](#listening-and-reaction)
- The body carries the biography: **center of gravity, tempo, openness, breath** — set all four before any psychology [→](#the-body)
- **Business** — a physical task the hands are doing — kills theatricality; the strongest accent in a scene is the moment the character **stops** it [→](#the-body)
- **Distance is drama**; a change of distance *is* a beat change. Status is what you DO, and status **breaks** are the most interesting thing in a performance [→](#the-body)
- The **master profile** is 150–220 words, one paragraph, fixed block order, written once per character and then rewritten per scene — never pasted [→](#the-acting-master-profile)
- Every tic carries a **trigger**; every mask carries a **crack** — at least one "However, when X…" clause per profile [→](#the-acting-master-profile)
- **Eye life is mandatory and never optional** — saccades, blink quality, live catchlights, eyes-lead-thought. Dead eyes are the number-one tell of AI acting [→](#eye-life)
- Scene adaptation **transforms, never deletes**: a behavior that can't physically happen is displaced into another outlet, not removed [→](#scene-adaptation)
- The **voice prompt is locked** — one per character, pasted verbatim into the audio field, never adapted per scene [→](#voice-fixed-identity-never-adapted)
- **States, not transitions.** Models fail process and nail state: "mid-throw, arm extended", not "reaches in, pulls out, winds up" [→](#states-not-transitions)
- Ensemble reactions travel in a **wave, never in sync**; the strong are still and quiet, the weak fidget and shout [→](#ensemble-and-space)
- 15 named bad-acting symptoms with prompt-level fixes, and a 0–5 self-check scale — **aim every hero shot at 4+** [→](#the-atlas-of-bad-acting)

---

## Where this sits among the repo's performance tools

| Layer | Skill | What it controls |
|---|---|---|
| **Craft** — why the character does anything | **this skill** | objective, obstacle, tactics, beats, subtext, status, business |
| Muscle | `../higgsfield-facs/SKILL.md` | facial Action Unit codes (AU12, AU6…) |
| Named expressions | `../higgsfield-soul/SKILL.md` § Micro-Expressions | expression vocabulary for identity work |
| Production form | `../higgsfield-seedance/HELL-GRIND.md` § Two extra blocks | the CHARACTER ACTING block this output fills |
| Backstory | `../higgsfield-character-design/SKILL.md` | who the character is before any scene exists |

Use this skill to decide **what the body does**; use FACS to specify **which muscles** do it
in a close-up. They compose — a FACS beat schedule inside a paragraph written by these rules
is the highest-resolution performance the platform supports.

---

# Part I — The craft

## What good acting is

Truthful behavior under imaginary circumstances. Not depicted emotions, not recited text,
not "expressive faces."

| Bad acting | Good acting |
|---|---|
| Shows the emotion ("I am angry") | Pursues the objective ("I will make you return the money") — anger arises on its own |
| Waits for their cue | Listens and reacts to the partner every second |
| Body illustrates the words (gesture = word) | Body lives its own life, sometimes contradicts the words |
| All lines in one tempo and tone | Rhythm changes with every change of tactic |
| Emotion switches on at the line and off after | State is continuous — there is a life before and a life after the line |
| The face "performs" — eyebrows, grimaces | The face thinks — the thought is readable in the eyes before the words |

## The five pillars of every scene

Every character in every scene decomposes into five elements. If one is missing, the
performance falls apart.

**1. Objective.** What the character wants IN THIS SCENE, RIGHT NOW, FROM A SPECIFIC PERSON.
Always a verb aimed at the partner: *make him confess* · *beg a week's extension* ·
*convince her I'm not afraid*. Never a state ("be angry", "feel guilty") — states cannot be
played. Behind the scene objective sits a **super-objective**: what the character wants
across the whole story, with every scene objective a step toward it.

**2. Obstacle and stakes.** What prevents them — external (another character wants the
opposite; witnesses in the room; two hours to deadline) or internal (pride won't let them
beg; they don't believe their own words). Always answer *what happens if I do NOT get what I
want?* — and the answer must frighten the character. The higher the cost of failure, the
more taut the scene.

**3. Tactics.** The concrete method of pursuing the objective right now, as an action verb:
*press · charm · shame · plead · provoke · bargain · threaten · stall*. When a tactic