.claude/skills/video-script-production/references/stakes-and-load.md

# Stakes and load: how to use data without losing the viewer

Data is the value of the video. Unanchored data is the cost. The rule: **a number is spoken only after the viewer has a reason to want it, and only in a form that carries meaning.**

## The stake-before-data rule

For every spoken figure ask: *what is the viewer waiting to find out when this lands?* If the answer is "nothing yet", move the figure after a question, a prediction, a person or a contrast. Four ways to give a number meaning, in the order to try them:

1. **Prediction, then test.** State what the viewer should expect to see, then show the number as the result. ("Sales barely move, profit disappears. Check the year to March 2008.")
2. **Contrast pair.** Two figures that mean something only against each other: before/after, claimed/worth, plan/outcome, said/did. ("December: 'well funded'. June: asking for more time.")
3. **Human scale.** Convert to per-person, per-rupee or per-year terms and label it as derived. ("About 7 paise for every rupee claimed.") Never invent an everyday comparison you cannot compute.
4. **A person.** Put a named or concrete person on the receiving end. ("Workers say salaries began arriving late.")

A naked number (no prediction, no pair, no scale, no person) is a defect. Cut it, move it to a graphic, or anchor it.

## Number tiers

| Tier | Rule | Budget |
|---|---|---|
| **Hero** | The figure the argument turns on. Needs a declared stake line *before* it and a comparator with it. Spoken once, clearly, then reused by name ("the seven paise") not by repeating digits. | at most 7 per video |
| **Support** | Spoken only attached to a hero ("down about 5 percent"). Rounded. | fits in the load window |
| **Drop** | Everything else. Goes on screen, in the description, or in the ledger. Not spoken. | unlimited, off-voice |

Dates: a date that makes a scene or a deadline is part of the story and counts as a hero or support figure only if the viewer must remember it (the bond date does). Plain datelines do not count.

## Load windows

- **No more than four quantities in any 30 seconds** (Cowan's four chunks; each figure is a chunk, plus the thing it describes).
- **No more than one new concept per beat.** A concept is a term, mechanism or named entity the viewer has to carry forward.
- **Hook: at most one figure.**
- **Overall:** report quantities per minute; investigate anything over 5.

Heavy numeric stretches go **early in a beat after the stake line, and end on a plain-language sentence** ("That is what a treadmill looks like from the inside."). The viewer gets the meaning even if they drop the digits.

## Jargon policy

Every term of art must be (a) avoided, or (b) glossed in plain words **at its first use**, by analogy where possible. Declare each in `jargon` in the chain; the linter checks that a gloss quote sits at the first use. Prefer the analogy to the definition:

| Term | Gloss that works |
|---|---|
| Zero-coupon bond | "For about five years you owe nothing. Then everything is due on one day." |
| Corporate debt restructuring | "A formal process where lenders and the company renegotiate the loans." |
| Recast | "Ask bondholders for new terms." |
| Insolvency / liquidation | "A court process meant to find a buyer / the company is sold off in pieces." |
| Liquidation value | "What the pieces were estimated to be worth if sold off." |

Avoid acronyms (FCCB, CDR, IBC, NCLT) in voice-over unless the viewer will meet them in the wild. Put them in the on-screen text and the ledger.

## Segmenting and signaling (Mayer)

- **Segment**: one idea per beat, and the beat ends in a full stop, not a trailing list.
- **Signal**: tell the viewer which number matters ("the number to hold on to"). Use a name for the central idea ("the treadmill") and call it by that name each time, rather than varying the wording.
- **Cut for coherence**: if a fact is interesting but not on the causal chain (a second investor's exit, a political connection nobody could prove, a legal detail about notice periods), it goes in the ledger, not the script. The test is the swap test in `beat-contract.md`: if the chain does not need it, it is load.

## Using sources honestly under load

Citing a source is a cost (a few words). Spend it where a claim could be doubted: the quotes, the arithmetic ("less than a quarter"), the contested numbers. Mark derived figures ("I divided one by the other"). Never trade a verified claim for a snappier unverified one.