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An agentic production counsel workstation.
Inspiration
In independent film production, script clearance and Errors & Omissions (E&O) insurance review are among the most stressful, expensive, and opaque phases before cameras roll. A single uncleared song playing from a car radio, an unvetted real phone number, a living person's name matching a sensitive role, or a piece of background artwork can trigger statutory copyright infringement claims, trademark dilution lawsuits, or kill a distribution deal at festival acquisition.
Filmmakers and production counsel usually rely on fragmented spreadsheets, weeks of manual legal searches, and static PDF reports that offer zero interactive remediation. When a director or writer changes a line to fix a flagged issue, nobody knows if the old legal opinion still holds or what new liabilities were just introduced.
We built ClearFrame to transform clearance from a static gatekeeping bottleneck into a high-precision, real-time forensic workstation designed specifically for production counsel, clearance coordinators, and indie filmmakers.
What it does
ClearFrame takes raw screenplays (.txt, .fdx Final Draft, or standard script text) and conducts an end-to-end multi-agent clearance analysis across 6 specialized legal departments:
🎵 Sound & Music: Evaluates composition vs. master recording terms, synchronization rights, and public domain schedules under the Music Modernization Act (MMA Title II) and 17 U.S.C. § 101 motion picture soundtrack exclusions. 📜 Script & Signage: Scans for reserved fictitious NANPA 555-0100 through 555-0199 phone numbers vs. active real dialable numbers, real URLs, and domain mentions. 📍 Locations & Sets: Flags private real properties requiring location releases, architectural works (AWCPA 17 U.S.C. § 120), and public landmarks. 🏷️ Props & Brands: Detects registered trademarks, product placement exposure, and disparaging trademark depictions. 🎭 Cast & Characters: Cross-references character names against living persons within the same profession or locality for defamation and right of publicity risks. 🎨 Camera & Visuals: Evaluates 2D/3D background artwork, photographer copyrights, Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA 17 U.S.C. § 106A), and literary quotes. Key Workstation Capabilities: Polar Radar Scope: A 360° visual liability radar categorizing exposures into green (cleared/public domain), amber (counsel review required), and red (statutory exposure). Inline Forensic Exhibit Anchors: Color-coded [EX-01], [EX-02] anchors bloom directly into the screenplay text, linking every highlighted phrase to its cited legal docket card. Interactive Word Processor & Remediation Loop: Switch into ✏️ Edit mode to modify flagged dialogue or props directly in the script. ClearFrame instantly performs provenance tracking, badging changed lines as [⚠️ SCRIPT EDITED — EVIDENCE STALE] and dimming their radar blips. Real-Time Recheck & Clean Exporter: One-click ▶ Recheck Clearance analyzes only modified deltas, followed by one-click export to clean Final Draft XML (.fdx) or formatted .txt. Live Parallel Watch Drawer: Registers persistent background web monitors to track active rights, trademark renewals, and ownership disputes during production.
How we built it
ClearFrame was built strictly in compliance with the Official Hackathon Rules: 100% Google Cloud AI and Parallel runtime integration, with zero unpermitted models or third-party agent wrappers.
[Screenplay Input (.txt / .fdx)] │ ▼ ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Google Cloud Gemini 3.1 + Google ADK Orchestration │ │ • Scene Parsing & Structure Intake │ │ • 6-Department Entity Extraction (Strict Schemas) │ └────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┘ │ ▼ ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Parallel Web Search API (Runtime Interleaved Tooling) │ │ • Live Copyright & Trademark Registry Verification │ │ • Authority Domain Ranking (loc.gov, USPTO, Copyright) │ │ • Grounded Evidentiary Basis & Confidence Scoring │ └────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┘ │ ▼ ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Deterministic Python Risk Scorer (backend/risk/) │ │ • NO MODEL-ASSIGNED RATINGS │ │ • Statutory Rules (MUS-001..004, SGN-001, LOC, PRB) │ │ • 17 U.S.C. § 101, MMA Title II, NANPA Determinism │ └────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┘ │ ▼ ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Forensic UI & Remediation Engine (Cloud Run) │ │ • Polar Radar Scope Canvas (60fps) │ │ • Inline Word Processor + Provenance Stale Tracking │ │ • Parallel Live Watch Monitor Drawer │ │ • Final Draft (.fdx) & Clean Text Exporter │ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ The Core Architectural Claim: Deterministic Rule-ID Mapping In legal technology, a language model must never assign a risk rating. Models research, extract, and cite; a pure Python rule engine in backend/risk/ determines whether an item is RED, AMBER, or GREEN. Every finding carries the immutable statutory Rule ID that produced it (e.g. MUS-001 for public domain music, SGN-001 for NANPA phone safety).
Stack: AI & Orchestration: Google Cloud ADK (google-adk), Google GenAI SDK (google-genai), Gemini 3.1 Flash. Search & Registry Intelligence: Parallel Web SDK (parallel-web) for live search queries, basis citations, and background monitors. Backend: Python 3.11, FastAPI, Pydantic v2 schemas. Data & Persistence: Google Cloud Firestore and Cloud Storage. Frontend: Vanilla HTML5, modern CSS3 with cinema dark theme, and high-performance Canvas 2D (zero bloated npm dependencies or build steps). Deployment: Containerized on Google Cloud Run with Secret Manager.
Challenges we ran into
- Eliminating Hallucinated Citations (Prohibition 4): A fabricated citation in a rights-clearance tool is catastrophic. Every citation URL rendered on a card is extracted verbatim from live Parallel Web search results with actual confidence scores.
- Deterministic Locality & Chronology Discipline: Enforcing strict Python logic over model outputs. If a search result returns an address in Chicago but the screenplay takes place in Boston, or if a modern Creative Commons re-recording is retrieved for an 1899 ragtime song, our deterministic layer prevents false matches and enforces the pre-1923 Music Modernization Act clock.
- Fail-Loud Architecture: Zero silent except Exception: pass handlers. If an API key or service is unreachable, ClearFrame fails loudly and surfaces the exact error banner rather than fabricating synthetic reports. ## Accomplishments that we're proud of
- The Gauntlet Verification Suite: Authored a brutal 3-scene stress script (seed/gauntlet_script.txt) testing prompt injection attacks, ambiguous addresses, public domain compositions with modern master recordings, disparaged brands, and NANPA reserved lines.
- Zero Hardcoded Domain Literals (Prohibition 3): Verified with automated regression checks (python scripts/poke.py compliance) ensuring 0 hardcoded terms across the entire backend.
- Full Remediation Workflow: Building an actual word processor inside the docket so production teams can edit, track stale legal evidence in real-time, re-scan, and export directly to industry-standard .fdx Final Draft files.
- Production Cinema Aesthetic: Created a bespoke, high-contrast dark theme featuring a 35mm Hollywood clapper slate, laser scanline loading, a 60fps polar radar scope, and custom spinning film reel cursor. ## What we learned Building agentic workflows for entertainment law revealed that the most valuable agent systems aren't autonomous black boxes, but deterministic human-in-the-loop accelerators. AI excels at extracting entities across hundred-page scripts in seconds, but production counsel demands mathematical determinism, source transparency, and explicit boundaries where automated analysis ends and human legal counsel begins. ## What's next for ClearFrame -Automated Fair Use Defensibility Packets: One-click generation of four-factor transformative use memorandums for documentary filmmakers. -Direct Guild & Union Rate Card Integrations: Real-time SAG-AFTRA, AFM, and ASCAP/BMI sync fee estimations. -Production Hub Integrations: Native export plugins for Final Draft 13, Movie Magic Budgeting, and StudioBinder.
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