Transit Map — our demo

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

Demo: 6 Kilometres 《6 公里》 (47.0 s) · transit-map.mp4 · source in demo/

In 1993 the Shanghai Metro was one 6 km section of Line 1 with five stations. On a printed schematic the network grows year by year to 21 lines and 906 km; halfway through, London and Shanghai are drawn as two lines on one time axis. No narration and so no subtitles: everything the viewer reads is printed on the sheet or on the counter, a Chinese line above an English line. Unofficial fan film, not affiliated with the operator. Line colours and station names are public facts; no operator logo or branded bullet appears, and the schematic is our own drawing. Every number and its source is in demo/FACTS.md.

Story & structure

Logline: it all started with 6 kilometres.

Arc: a train's headlights in a tunnel flare white and collapse into a red dot on the map (1993) → the pen draws the first section, five stops, the counter reads 6.0 → Line 1 reaches the railway station (1995) → the camera rides Line 2 across the city; its interchange ring falls onto People's Square; the camera drops low as the line dives under the Huangpu (1999) → a long pull-back while a decade of lines burst out at once (2000–2010, 420 km) → a glide down the sheet to a printed time-line panel: London 1863 → 402 km in 163 years, Shanghai 1993 → 420 km in 17 years, judged after a still hold → back up for a low sweep over today's network with every train running (906 km, the daily ridership record) → push back to the first section under a paper veil: "you are here", "it all started with 6 km" → end card.

Change the camera every 3–5 s and land on the first section again: a top view that only zooms is clear, but a flat picture moving; the finished 2026 network rewound to 1993 gives a first second full of small type and no place to land.

Native moves spent: the pen tip (first section, Line 2), the interchange that falls (People's Square), the tunnel under the water (Line 2), levels of detail (2000–2010 pull-back), time lines (the verdict), the odometer (throughout), the plate by the lens (the sweep), you are here (ending).

Shots

Film time in seconds; zoom in px per grid step (G). The picture is written in story time and mapped to film time by WARP in timeline.js: the 1995 beat plays at 0.4× so its counter values can be read, and the verdict holds 0.8 s longer.

# Time Shot Camera Native move / note
1 0.0–1.4 running tunnel, lamps streaking, oncoming headlights grow and light the lining; white-out from 1.1 forward rush screen-space tunnel
2 1.4–6.2 match cut: the white collapses into the red dot of Jinjiang Park; the tip draws five stops (Xinlonghua under its 1993 name), counter 0 → 6.0; printed callout "1993.5.28 · 1 號線首段 · 6 公里 · 5 站"; a train shuttles keeps the first stop and the tip both in frame, tilt 30° → 7°, zoom 260 → 130, aperture 16 → 6 signature 1: headlight → dot; hold 4.3–6.2
3 6.2–9.0 1995: Line 1 to the railway station; the counter lands 1995 / 16.1 and holds slow pull-back to the north-east, zoom 86
4 9.0–13.0 1999: Line 2 from Zhongshan Park; a capsule falls and lands on People's Square at 10.48 with shock rings; 10.75–12.05 the line runs dashed under the Huangpu rides the tip at tilt 24°, zoom 150, aim 1.6 G ahead; drops to tilt 61° (zoom 185, aperture 26) over the river, rises at Lujiazui signature 2: the interchange falls
5 13.0–14.3 2000: Line 3 along the west rise and pull back
6 14.3–21.7 2002–2010: lines burst out with bullets and years; only hub names; counter lands 420.0 at 19.9 continuous pull-back, zoom 78 → 52, tilt 12° → 0° levels of detail
7 21.7–24.95 glide down the sheet to the time-line panel; London draws 1863 → 2026, Shanghai 1993 → 2010 → 2026 in a blink slides over the paper, tilt up to 26°, eases in
8 24.95–30.5 the panel alone on paper: both lines, both start values (6 km), 402 / 420 / 906 km and the axis; 27.5 brackets "163 年 → 402 公里", 27.9 "17 年 → 420 公里" stamped in red locked top view: 2.55 s before the verdict, 3 s after signature 3: time lines
9 30.5–32.4 2011–2024 lines complete; counter lands 906.0 rises off the panel across the tilted sheet (tilt 30°, zoom 42); the table shows
10 32.4–37.1 every line runs trains; only ten hub names; a cream enamel People's Square name plate on its post stands in the lower-right corner, out of focus; ridership drums land 1339.7 萬 at 35.4 low sweep, tilt 57° → 62°, heading 26° → −14°, zoom 102, aperture 24 the plate by the lens
11 37.1–44.0 the network fades under a paper veil, the first section stays red; "you are here"; "一切從 6 公里開始 / It all started with 6 km" and the unofficial note rise to top view, push 62 → 142; hold 42.1–44.0 you are here
12 44.0–47.0 end card hard cut to the sheet's corner

Score structure

120 BPM, D major, chords D–Bm–G–A one per bar. The station chime (vibraphone A5 → F♯5 with glockenspiel an octave up) opens the map at 1.55, lands 2010 at 19.9, rings the verdict at 27.5, the ridership record at 35.4, "you are here" at 39.9 and the end card at 44.5 (film time). Grooves run in film time so the tempo never stretches with the slow 1995 beat.

Section Time Palette
Tunnel 0–1.4 brown-noise rumble rising, wheel clacks accelerating, a two-tone horn at 0.55, a band-passed riser into the flare; the music is muted until the cut
First section 1.4–6.2 the chime; a glockenspiel + marimba pluck per stop (D–E–F♯–A–B); string pad from 2.0; a harp arpeggio on the callout; shuttle clacks
1995–2000 6.3–14.3 marimba ostinato in eighths, pizzicato bass on beats, kick every bar; the falling capsule is a descending whistle, its landing a bass drum, timpani, gran cassa and a horn/trombone D chord; under the river the whole score is low-passed to 520 Hz with a water bed; clarinet answers Line 3
Burst 14.3–21.7 each new line adds one voice on the groove (glass, flute, spiccato violins, xylophone, horn, harp, trumpet, cellos, vibraphone, oboe), snare backbeat from 2007, roll into a landing hit with horns, crash and the chime
Time lines 21.7–30.5 woodblock beats, a cello rising with the London line and a pizzicato tick every 20 years it passes; a ten-note glockenspiel run for Shanghai; a thin string chord with hi-hat during the hold; 27.15–27.5 the music drops away; tubular bell and chime on the verdict, timpani and horns on the stamp
Now 30.5–37.1 snare roll and swell up the rise, then the full groove (strings, horns, spiccato, xylophone, snare) with rail clacks in eighths across the stereo field; a swish as the plate passes; ratchet ticks while the ridership drums roll
Back 37.1–44.0 the ensemble lifts away; a bowed-vibraphone pad; the chime alone; a harp under the caption
End 44.0–47.0 harp D chord, horns and strings, the chime once more, a 0.7 s fade

Mix (audio.py): music × 0.9 under the effects; 38 Hz high-pass and a −5 dB shelf under 75 Hz; bus compression (threshold 0.16, ratio 2.8); loudness loop measured with ffmpeg ebur128. The mix measures −16.0 LUFS integrated, true peak −4.9 dBTP, LRA 6.9 LU, energy below 50 Hz 17.6 dB under the full band; the master measures −13.9 LUFS.

Palette & props

End card

In the sheet's lower-right corner, inked at the end: a red line runs to a terminus ring; 6 公里 / 6 Kilometres; 地鐵線路圖 / Transit Map; LemoLab × Claude Opus 5.5; 非官方致敬片，與運營方無關 / Unofficial fan film, not affiliated with the operator. 3.0 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.

Two places where this demo is narrower than STYLE.md §4: its title 《6 公里》 is printed only on this end card (the north-west cartouche names the network, 上海地鐵 / Shanghai Metro), and its last shot is this corner of the sheet after the veiled network. A new film prints its title on the map at the start and closes on the whole network, with its end title printed in a margin of that view. The demo's data and its sources are the model for FACTS.md (STYLE.md §11): every on-screen figure with its quoted source, plus the figures checked and not used.

Build notes

demo/
  build.sh       one command: fonts, events, score + mix, picture, master, reading-time check, poster and style frame
  index.html     two canvases (WebGL plane, 2D overlay), fonts, scripts
  net.js         the Shanghai network as data: stations, 21 lines (colours, bullets, ink-on-light flags, the Maglev
                 as mode 'light'), the Huangpu and Suzhou Creek as WATER bands, expand() (octilinear bends)
  gl.js          makePlane(): paper, light, sheet edge, depth of field, vignette
  film.js        the generic engine (no network, no story): geometry, water, line forms, phases, labels, bullets,
                 the falling interchange, camera, inked region, map drawing, events, window.TEXTS
  timeline.js    this film: facts (FX), WARP, phases, camera keys, the hooks below, annotations, time-line panel,
                 counter, tunnel, plate, cues
  audio.py       score + effects + loudness loop -> mix.wav (reads events.json)
  tools/         subset.py (Noto Sans SC subset from the characters in the JS), sheet.sh (contact sheet for review)
  fonts/         Inter, the Noto Sans SC subset, OFL texts
  FACTS.md, CREDITS