Archive Light Table — our demo

One example among many. Don't reuse its story, arc, shots, props or timings.

Demo: Two Seconds Short 《差兩秒》 (40.0 s) · archive-lighttable.mp4 · source in demo/

The Wright brothers' flights of 17 December 1903 on a light table, told through five Library of Congress items: two glass negatives, a telegram, a newspaper clipping, and a third negative as a prop. It is an unofficial film about a real event, made only from public-domain scans. Chinese on screen, English narration, bilingual subtitles (Chinese line above, English below). Every fact and its source is in demo/FACTS.md.

Story & structure

Logline: the telegram said the longest flight lasted 57 seconds, and the next day's paper printed it; the glass negatives and the Library's record say 59.

Arc: the claim (the table switches on; a loupe lands on Orville's telegram; inside the lens the lines light up and "57" lifts out as a reading) → the echo (the camera rises and glides to the Dayton Herald clipping, where the same sentence is underlined and its 57 ringed) → the evidence, which is also the emotional peak (the loupe lands on the first-flight negative, the negative turns positive inside the lens, the camera falls through the lens into the photograph, and the Flyer separates from the horizon and drifts forward; 12 s, 120 ft) → the measurement (the fourth-flight negative: a ruler laid on the ground plane from the camera to the tiny machine on the horizon; 852 ft, 59 s) → the verdict (57 and 59 side by side, held still 2.7 s, then 57 is struck: "差 2 秒") → the ending (pull back to the whole table; every object's tag flies into one archive index; end card).

Native moves spent: the line lights up on the telegram and the clipping; negative to positive under the loupe and into the photograph for the first flight (the signature, at the peak); measuring on the photograph for the fourth flight; two records, held side by side for the verdict; the table becomes the index for the ending.

Shots

One continuous camera over one table; framing changes by zoom and by passing through the loupe. Times in seconds.

# Time Shot Camera Native move / note
1 0.0–1.3 the dark table flickers on (0.0, 0.17, 0.42, 0.55; steady at 0.67); the telegram fills two thirds of the frame, the clipping at the bottom edge glide toward the telegram with a 4° roll that levels it the starter clicks and hum are the first sounds
2 1.3–2.0 the loupe drops onto the telegram (scale 1.35 → 1, shadow tightening) settles glass clack on the beat
3 2.0–3.3 push into the lens: the rim passes the frame while the view inside widens to the whole message zoom 0.31 → 1.5 the date line lights at 2.67
4 3.3–9.3 inside the telegram: "Success four flights …" lights at 4.0, "… longest 57 seconds …" at 7.33, each with an underline; the rest of the paper dims; 57 is ringed at 8.0 and a reading card "電報 · 最長一次 57 秒" draws out to the right slow track along the lines, then a push onto 57 reading
5 9.3–11.3 rise out of the lens; the loupe lifts at 10.33; the card stays on screen until 11.4 zoom out and glide down-right a ring stays on the telegram's 57
6 11.3–13.3 the Dayton Herald clipping: "longest time in air was 57 seconds." lights and underlines at 12.0, its 57 ringed at 12.33; a caption plate "1903.12.18 / 代頓先驅報" held still on the right push in with a 4° roll the echo
7 13.3–14.7 glide to the first-flight negative; crop corners (the 16:9 frame the photograph will open to) glide and settle the loupe lands at 14.67
8 14.7–16.0 inside the lens the negative; a develop front from the centre turns it positive (15.0–15.8); readout "×2.5 負像 → 正像" hold
9 16.0–18.0 signature: the rim grows past the frame while the view inside widens, under a riser and the strings; at 17.6 the sound is sucked out; at 18.0 we are inside the photograph zoom 0.335 → 1.45; inside 0.84 → 0.56 px per scan px no narration through the push; the full chord lands at 18.0 and the narrator starts at 18.35
10 18.0–22.7 the photograph in depth: the Flyer (its own layer) drifts 125 px forward and up against the horizon; the sand swells under a dolly; wind over the dunes; labels "第一次飛行 / 12 秒 · 120 英尺 · 上午 10:35", "威爾伯·萊特", "快門：John T. Daniels" dolly (0.55) + lateral shift (260, −140) about the Flyer's depth near-silence from 21.3: wind only
11 22.7–24.7 rise out of the photograph; glide over the 14 December plate to the fourth-flight negative zoom out, glide right
12 24.7–26.3 the loupe lands; push in; the positive already shows (the viewer stays switched on) zoom 0.31 → 1.45
13 26.3–30.0 the ruler: from the bottom edge (the camera, the start) to the machine on the horizon, ticks every 100 ft crowding into perspective, labels 100 / 200 / 400; the reading counts 852 ft (lands 28.67) and 59 s (lands 30.0); "落地點" ringed push toward the machine (0.62 → 1.3) with a ground-plane dolly ticks on every 100 ft
14 30.0–33.3 two caption cards: the telegram's own line (a crop of the scan) "57 秒", the record's wording "852 feet covered in 59 seconds." "59 秒"; held still 2.67 s; silence from 32.8 locked comparison held before the verdict
15 33.3–35.9 57 struck in signal orange, "差 2 秒" locked, then the rise begins under the cards at 35.0 the strike lands on low D after the silence
16 35.9–40.0 pull back to the whole light table in its frame on the dark desk; five tags fly into "檔案索引" (the two 57s struck); end card at 36.33 zoom to 0.094, roll to level scale reveal

Score structure

90 BPM, 4/4; every key action on a beat or half-beat (demo/tools/cuecheck.mjs), except the two breaths (17.6, 32.8), which sit just before their downbeats by design. B minor turning to D major.

Section Time Palette Notes
Light 0–2.7 piano D5 with the light; hum and starter clicks
Telegram 2.7–10.7 felt piano broken chords in eighths, Bm–G–D–A; a paper sweep and a glass ring on each lit line; cellos D3 and violas A3 enter under the 57
Clipping 10.7–13.3 the same broken chords, quieter (Bm, G) an echo
First flight 13.3–23.6 D at the glide; strings swell from the develop (attack 1.6 s), piano climbs D4 → A5 in eighths and a noise riser rises through the push; everything is cut at 17.6; at 18.0 the full D chord (piano D2–A4, strings, contrabass D2, glass D6, a soft cymbal), then a falling line A4–F♯4–D4–E4–F♯4 wind and surf replace the hum inside the photograph
Measure 26.3–32.8 piano eighths on an A-major pedal, getting slightly louder; cellos A3 and violas E4 underneath; ticks every 100 ft; glass A5 at 852, E6 at 59 acceleration by density, not tempo
Verdict 32.8–33.3 silence (hum only)
33.3 pen stroke, piano D2/D3/A3, glass D6, soft timpani D3
End 35.7–40.0 the theme in D (F♯4–A4–D5–C♯5–A4), ticks as index rows land; the final D chord with strings and bowed vibraphone at 36.33

Mix (in mix.py): music about 11 dB under the voice before ducking, ducked a further ~5 dB while the narrator speaks; foley 9 dB under the voice, beds 24 dB under; a 38 Hz high-pass on everything but the voice; a master limiter keeps the peak-to-RMS ratio near 11.5 dB so mux.sh can reach −14 LUFS with true peak ≤ −1 dBTP.

Palette & props

End card

Over the pulled-back table, bottom left: 差兩秒 (Noto Serif SC), Two Seconds Short, a signal-orange rule, ARCHIVE LIGHT TABLE 檔案燈臺, LemoLab × Claude Opus 5.5, and in fine print the licence credit for the Salamander piano samples (CC BY 3.0); the archive index on the right. 3.7 s. The "LemoLab × Claude Opus 5.5" sign-off belongs to this library's demo only; a user's film carries no LemoLab credit and no copy of this card.

Build notes

demo/
  build.sh          one command: (FETCH) scans + textures + fonts → voice → speech check → cues → cue grid →
                    video → mix → master → .srt → subtitle widths → readcheck → poster + style frame
  index.html        two canvases (WebGL2 picture, 2D marks), fonts
  film.js           the table, camera keys, the three dives, the shader, every mark, readouts, index, end card, subtitles
  timeline.js       beats, key actions, narration, subtitle cues (single source; tools/export.mjs → out/timeline.json, out/cues.json)
  mix.py            score, foley, beds, voice, mix → out/mix.wav + out/stems/
  tools/            prep.py (masks, layers, fill), fonts.py, sru.py (LoC catalogue lookups), export.mjs,
                    cuecheck.mjs, subcheck.mjs
  sources/          the Library of Congress catalogue records (MARCXML) behind FACTS.md
  assets/           raw/ (downloads), tex/ (textures the page reads)
  FACTS.md, CREDITS, stills/styleframe.jpg