{
 "slug": "listener-acts",
 "name": "The listener acts too",
 "category": "expression",
 "group": "Direction rules",
 "media": [
  "video"
 ],
 "checked": "2026-10-13",
 "effect": "Both people in a dialogue feel alive.",
 "use_when": "Interviews, two-person ads, sketches.",
 "phrase": "while she talks he is already chuckling, his thumb turns the cap of the pen and stops when she makes her point",
 "pitfalls": [
  {
   "text": "An unwritten reaction comes back as a stare and a pause. Give the listener a reaction and one small secondary action.",
   "evidence": "practitioner",
   "source": "Rourke Heath (25 Sep 2026) via Director Chair field notes on video prompting"
  }
 ],
 "per_model": [],
 "external_refs": [],
 "licensed": [],
 "site_names": [],
 "related": [
  "late-reactions",
  "two-shot"
 ],
 "rights": "own-work",
 "evidence": "film-craft",
 "source": {
  "url": null,
  "note": "Rules from Director Chair field notes on video prompting"
 },
 "body": "",
 "shown_with": null,
 "url": "https://directorchair.ai/expression/listener-acts",
 "markdown": "https://directorchair.ai/expression/listener-acts.md",
 "prompts": {
  "seedance-2.5": "Scene: [your subject] in [your setting].\nShot 1 (0:00 to 0:05): while she talks he is already chuckling, his thumb turns the cap of the pen and stops when she makes her point",
  "seedance-2.0": "Scene: [your subject] in [your setting].\nShot 1: while she talks he is already chuckling, his thumb turns the cap of the pen and stops when she makes her point",
  "kling-3": "[your subject]. While she talks he is already chuckling, his thumb turns the cap of the pen and stops when she makes her point. The scene is [your setting].",
  "veo-3.1": "[your subject] in [your setting]. While she talks he is already chuckling, his thumb turns the cap of the pen and stops when she makes her point. Framing and subject stay as in the start image."
 },
 "licence": {
  "code": "MIT",
  "text": "CC BY 4.0",
  "third_party": "Clips and card texts inside a \"licensed\" block belong to their makers and are shown with permission and credit."
 }
}