Database

Skills are living documents that must evolve with the technologies and practices they describe. This skill covers version management strategies, deprecation…

The quality of a skill file is determined by how well its instructions can be followed by an AI agent. Vague, ambiguous, or poorly structured instructions lead…

Skill files are consumed by AI agents (LLMs) as context for task execution. Writing for an AI agent differs from writing for humans: agents have specific…

Build a credible grant budget and the narrative that explains it. Covers personnel costs, indirect costs, equipment, travel, and the difference between the budget the funder will accept and the budget the work actually needs. Use when finalizing any grant submission with a budget component.

Write proposals to private foundations. Different from federal research grants: less technical detail, more narrative impact, more emphasis on alignment with the foundation's mission. Use when applying to foundation funders for research, programs, social impact, or arts initiatives.

Solicit letters of support from collaborators, mentors, and institutions that strengthen a grant proposal. Covers what makes a strong letter, how to ask for one, what to provide the writer, and how to write one when you are the supporter. Use when the funder requires or accepts letters and you need to choose, request, and coordinate them.

Write a research grant proposal that survives the review committee. Covers the standard structure (specific aims, significance, innovation, approach, environment), the rhetorical moves that signal competence, and the failure modes that kill otherwise strong proposals. Use when applying to NIH, NSF, ERC, foundation, or industry research funding.

Write and direct in the style of Abbas Kiarostami — the philosopher of cinema who made films about the act of filmmaking itself, used the car as confessional space, dissolved the boundary between documentary and fiction, and found in the Iranian landscape a visual language for the relationship between the individual and the infinite. Trigger for references to: Where Is the Friend's House? (1987), Close-Up (1990), Through the Olive Trees (1994), Taste of Cherry (1997), The Wind Will Carry Us (1999), Certified Copy (2010). Also trigger for "Kiarostami style," "cinema about cinema," "car as confessional," "documentary-fiction boundary," "Iranian New Wave."

Write and direct in the style of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu — interconnected narratives, the long take as immersion, Emmanuel Lubezki cinematography, suffering as transcendence, the collision of worlds, visceral physicality and spiritual yearning. Trigger for references to: Amores Perros (2000), 21 Grams (2003), Babel (2006), Birdman (2014), The Revenant (2015). Also trigger for "Inarritu style," "hyperlink cinema," "interconnected narratives," "long take immersion."

Write and direct in the style of Alfred Hitchcock — master of suspense, precise visual storytelling through meticulous storyboarding, and the principle that the audience must know more than the characters to generate true tension. Trigger for references to: Psycho (1960), Vertigo (1958), Rear Window (1954), North by Northwest (1959), The Birds (1963), Rope (1948), Notorious (1946), Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Strangers on a Train (1951). Also trigger for "Hitchcock style," "master of suspense," "MacGuffin," "blonde heroine," "wrong man," "voyeurism," "Bernard Herrmann score."

Write and direct in the style of Andrea Arnold — working-class bodies in motion, handheld 4:3 Academy ratio, raw physicality, animal instinct, young protagonists navigating hostile environments with fierce vitality. Trigger for references to: Wasp (2003), Red Road (2006), Fish Tank (2009), Wuthering Heights (2011), American Honey (2016), Cow (2021). Also trigger for "Arnold style," "social realist handheld," "Academy ratio cinema," "working-class British cinema."

Write and direct in the style of Andrei Tarkovsky — time sculpted through the long take as spiritual meditation, water, fire, and wind as elemental forces, dreams dissolving into reality without seam or announcement. Trigger for references to: Ivan's Childhood (1962), Andrei Rublev (1966), Solaris (1972), Mirror (1975), Stalker (1979), Nostalghia (1983), The Sacrifice (1986). Also trigger for "Tarkovsky style," "sculpting in time," "poetic cinema," "spiritual long take," "Zone aesthetic."

Write and direct in the style of Apichatpong Weerasethakul — the architect of tropical cinema where dreams and reality overlap without boundary, two-part narrative structures bifurcate and rhyme, and Sayombhu Mukdeeprom's cinematography renders the Thai jungle as a space of spiritual and temporal porosity. Trigger for references to: Tropical Malady (2004), Syndromes and a Century (2006), Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010), Cemetery of Splendour (2015), Memoria (2021). Also trigger for "Apichatpong style," "tropical cinema," "dreams and reality," "two-part structure," "slow cinema."

Write and direct in the style of Ari Aster — grief weaponized as horror, the family unit as the primary site of trauma, extreme wide shots that dwarf characters in architectures of dread, daylight horror that offers no refuge in darkness. Pawel Pogorzelski's symmetrical compositions. Lengthy unbroken takes that refuse to let the audience look away. Trigger for references to: Hereditary (2018), Midsommar (2019), Beau Is Afraid (2023). Also trigger for "Aster style," "grief horror," "daylight horror," "dread cinema," "domestic horror."

Write and direct in the style of Asghar Farhadi — the moral dilemma with no clean solution, Iranian domestic drama elevated to universal parable, every character simultaneously right and wrong, layered revelations that shift the audience's sympathies with each new piece of information. Trigger for references to: Dancing in the Dust (2003), Beautiful City (2004), Fireworks Wednesday (2006), About Elly (2009), A Separation (2011), The Past (2013), The Salesman (2016), Everybody Knows (2018), A Hero (2021). Also trigger for "Farhadi style," "Iranian cinema," "moral dilemma cinema," "domestic drama," "shifting sympathies," "unreliable truth."

Write and direct in the style of Barry Jenkins — intimate epic filmmaking that renders Black interiority with painterly light, sensuous cinematography, and emotional precision. Characters touched by systems of oppression but never reduced to them. James Laxton's camera as co-author. Nicholas Britell's scores as emotional architecture. Trigger for references to: Medicine for Melancholy (2008), Moonlight (2016), If Beale Street Could Talk (2018), The Underground Railroad (2021). Also trigger for "Jenkins style," "poetic realism," "intimate epic," "Black interiority on screen."

Write and direct in the style of Billy Wilder — the cynical romantic, master of screenplay structure with a sting in every tail, and the belief that wit is the only honest defense against a dishonest world. Trigger for references to: Sunset Boulevard (1950), Some Like It Hot (1959), The Apartment (1960), Double Indemnity (1944), Ace in the Hole (1951), Stalag 17 (1953), Witness for the Prosecution (1957), The Lost Weekend (1945), Sabrina (1954), The Seven Year Itch (1955). Also trigger for "Billy Wilder style," "cynical comedy," "perfect screenplay," "nobody's perfect," "Wilder and Diamond," "I.A.L. Diamond."

Write and direct in the style of Bong Joon-ho — the genre-bending social satirist who uses vertical space as class architecture, tonal whiplash as structural principle, and popular genre frameworks to deliver devastating critiques of inequality. Trigger for references to: Memories of Murder (2003), The Host (2006), Mother (2009), Snowpiercer (2013), Okja (2017), Parasite (2019). Also trigger for "Bong Joon-ho style," "genre as social critique," "tonal shift," "vertical space as class," "Korean cinema."

Write and direct in the style of Brian De Palma — Hitchcock's heir amplified to baroque extremes, the split screen as dual consciousness, the long take as unbearable suspense mechanism, and voyeurism as both theme and formal principle. Trigger for references to: Scarface (1983), Dressed to Kill (1980), Blow Out (1981), The Untouchables (1987), Carlito's Way (1993), Mission: Impossible (1996), Body Double (1984), Sisters (1973), Carrie (1976), Casualties of War (1989), The Fury (1978), Phantom of the Paradise (1974). Also trigger for "De Palma style," "split screen," "long take," "voyeurism," "Hitchcock homage," "set-piece suspense," "Brian De Palma thriller."

Write and direct in the style of Carl Theodor Dreyer — spiritual intensity through restraint, the human face in extremis, austere composition, the transcendent achieved through the material. Trigger for references to: The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), Vampyr (1932), Day of Wrath (1943), Ordet (1955), Gertrud (1964). Also trigger for "Dreyer style," "austere cinema," "spiritual filmmaking," "transcendental style."

Write and direct in the style of Celine Sciamma — the female gaze as structural principle, queer desire rendered with luminous clarity, childhood and transformation observed without sentimentality, the act of looking as an act of love. Trigger for references to: Water Lilies (2007), Tomboy (2011), Girlhood (2014), Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), Petite Maman (2021). Also trigger for "Sciamma style," "the female gaze," "queer cinema," "cinema of looking," "Portrait of a Lady on Fire style."

Write and direct in the style of Charlie Kaufman — metafiction as autobiography, the anxious creative mind turned inside out, structural audacity in service of emotional devastation. Stories that consume themselves. Characters who know they are in stories. The architecture of consciousness rendered as narrative form. Trigger for references to: Being John Malkovich (1999), Adaptation (2002), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Synecdoche New York (2008), Anomalisa (2015), I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020). Also trigger for "Kaufman style," "metafiction," "self-reflexive cinema," "anxious narrative," "structural audacity."

Write and direct in the style of Chloe Zhao — non-professional actors inhabiting real landscapes, golden hour naturalism that renders the American West as both documentary and myth, the boundary between fiction and non-fiction dissolved in the light. Joshua James Richards's nomadic cinematography. Stories of people living at the edges of community. Trigger for references to: Songs My Brothers Taught Me (2015), The Rider (2017), Nomadland (2020). Also trigger for "Zhao style," "golden hour naturalism," "poetic realism," "neo-Western," "non-fiction fiction."

Write and direct in the style of Claire Denis — the body as primary text, post-colonial France examined through flesh and gesture, fragmentary narrative that privileges sensation over exposition, radical intimacy with physical existence. Trigger for references to: Chocolat (1988), I Can't Sleep (1994), Nenette and Boni (1996), Beau Travail (1999), Trouble Every Day (2001), 35 Shots of Rum (2008), White Material (2009), High Life (2018), Stars at Noon (2022). Also trigger for "Denis style," "body cinema," "post-colonial French cinema," "fragmentary narrative."

Write and direct in the style of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne — handheld moral cinema that follows the back of a character through working-class Belgium, where ethical decisions carry the weight of survival, and the camera never lets go. Trigger for references to: La Promesse (1996), Rosetta (1999), The Son (2002), The Child (2005), Lorna's Silence (2008), The Kid with a Bike (2011), Two Days One Night (2014), The Unknown Girl (2016), Young Ahmed (2019), Tori and Lokita (2022). Also trigger for "Dardenne style," "handheld social realism," "moral cinema," "following shot," "Belgian neorealism."

Write and direct in the style of Darren Aronofsky — obsession as self-destruction, the body as battleground, handheld intimacy, and a visceral cinematic language that traps the audience inside the protagonist's deteriorating consciousness. Trigger for references to: Pi (1998), Requiem for a Dream (2000), The Wrestler (2008), Black Swan (2010), mother! (2017), The Whale (2022). Also trigger for "Aronofsky style," "body horror obsession," "hip-hop montage," "psychological descent," "Aronofsky close-up."

Write and direct in the style of David Cronenberg — body horror as philosophical inquiry, the new flesh, clinical detachment masking profound fascination with human transformation, Peter Suschitzky's precise cinematography, the merger of technology and biology. Trigger for references to: Shivers (1975), Rabid (1977), The Brood (1979), Scanners (1981), Videodrome (1983), The Fly (1986), Dead Ringers (1988), Naked Lunch (1991), Crash (1996), eXistenZ (1999), A History of Violence (2005), Eastern Promises (2007), A Dangerous Method (2011), Maps to the Stars (2014), Crimes of the Future (2022). Also trigger for "Cronenberg style," "body horror," "the new flesh," "Cronenbergian," "venereal horror."

Write and direct in the style of David Fincher — perfectionist control revealing the dark side of contemporary America through obsessive detail, desaturated palette, and meticulous craft. Trigger for references to: Se7en (1995), Fight Club (1999), Zodiac (2007), The Social Network (2010), Gone Girl (2014), Mindhunter (2017-2019). Also trigger for "Fincher style," "dark procedural," "perfectionist cinema," "Fincher take count," "desaturated thriller."

Write and direct in the style of Denis Villeneuve — silence as narrative force, philosophical genre cinema, vast landscapes dwarfing human figures, and a patient, immersive approach that treats science fiction and thriller as vehicles for existential inquiry. Trigger for references to: Incendies (2010), Prisoners (2013), Sicario (2015), Arrival (2016), Blade Runner 2049 (2017), Dune (2021), Dune: Part Two (2024). Also trigger for "Villeneuve style," "silence as narrative," "philosophical sci-fi," "Villeneuve scale," "contemplative genre cinema."

Write and direct in the style of Edward Yang — the cinematic cartographer of modern Taipei who used ensemble narratives, epic runtimes, and precise spatial compositions to map how urbanization, capitalism, and modernity reshape human relationships. Trigger for references to: Yi Yi (2000), A Brighter Summer Day (1991), Taipei Story (1985), That Day on the Beach (1983). Also trigger for "Edward Yang style," "Taipei as modern condition," "ensemble as society," "Taiwanese New Wave."

Write and direct in the style of Federico Fellini — dreams as reality, the circus of life, autobiographical fantasy, Cinecittà as personal universe, Nino Rota scores, the procession of grotesque and beautiful faces. Trigger for references to: La Dolce Vita (1960), 8½ (1963), Amarcord (1973), Nights of Cabiria (1957), La Strada (1954), Fellini Satyricon (1969), Roma (1972). Also trigger for "Fellini style," "Felliniesque," "carnival cinema," "autobiographical fantasy."

Write and direct in the style of Francis Ford Coppola — opera at cinematic scale, the American family as microcosm of national corruption, apocalyptic artistic ambition that risks everything, and the collision between Old World ritual and New World power. Trigger for references to: The Godfather (1972), The Godfather Part II (1974), Apocalypse Now (1979), The Conversation (1974), Rumble Fish (1983), One from the Heart (1982), The Outsiders (1983), The Rain People (1969), Tetro (2009), Megalopolis (2024). Also trigger for "Coppola style," "The Godfather," "operatic cinema," "family saga," "apocalyptic," "Gordon Willis," "Nino Rota," "Walter Murch."

Write and direct in the style of Fritz Lang — fate and paranoia, geometric compositions, the individual crushed by systems, Expressionist roots maturing into noir precision. Trigger for references to: Metropolis (1927), M (1931), The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933), Fury (1936), The Big Heat (1953), While the City Sleeps (1956). Also trigger for "Fritz Lang style," "Langian," "geometric cinema," "fate and paranoia."

Write and direct in the style of George Miller — kinetic cinema where the moving frame tells the story, storyboard-as-gospel visual planning, genre as a universal language spanning post-apocalyptic action to talking animals to mythic fantasy. Trigger for references to: Mad Max (1979), The Road Warrior (1981), Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), The Witches of Eastwick (1987), Lorenzo's Oil (1992), Babe (1995), Babe: Pig in the City (1998), Happy Feet (2006), Happy Feet Two (2011), Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022), Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024). Also trigger for "George Miller style," "kinetic cinema," "Fury Road aesthetic," "storyboard filmmaking," "vehicular cinema," "center-frame action."

Write and direct in the style of Greta Gerwig — female coming-of-age rendered as American literature, warmth without sentimentality, Sacramento as mythic landscape, ensemble performances that breathe with the chaos and tenderness of real families. Sam Levy's naturalistic photography. Rapid-fire dialogue that sounds improvised but is meticulously scripted. Trigger for references to: Lady Bird (2017), Little Women (2019), Barbie (2023). Also trigger for "Gerwig style," "coming-of-age warmth," "literary filmmaking," "female gaze."

Write and direct in the style of Guillermo del Toro — fairy tales for adults, monsters as metaphor, Gothic production design, warm amber vs. cold blue color palettes, Dan Laustsen cinematography, the labyrinth as narrative structure, empathy for the Other. Trigger for references to: Cronos (1993), The Devil's Backbone (2001), Pan's Labyrinth (2006), Pacific Rim (2013), The Shape of Water (2017), Nightmare Alley (2021), Pinocchio (2022). Also trigger for "del Toro style," "dark fairy tale," "Gothic fantasy," "monsters as metaphor."

Write and direct in the style of Hirokazu Kore-eda — the quiet humanist who explores what constitutes family through naturalistic performances, children as revelatory presences, and narratives shaped by absence rather than action. Ozu's heir in contemporary cinema. Trigger for references to: Nobody Knows (2004), Still Walking (2008), Like Father Like Son (2013), Shoplifters (2018), Broker (2022). Also trigger for "Kore-eda style," "what makes a family," "children as natural actors," "Ozu's heir," "Japanese family drama."

Write and direct in the style of Hou Hsiao-hsien — the master of the long take as meditation, deep staging within natural environments, and personal stories that carry the weight of Taiwan's history. Mark Lee Ping Bing's cinematography as the visual foundation. Trigger for references to: A City of Sadness (1989), The Puppetmaster (1993), Flowers of Shanghai (1998), Millennium Mambo (2001), The Assassin (2015). Also trigger for "Hou Hsiao-hsien style," "long take meditation," "deep staging," "Taiwanese New Wave," "Mark Lee Ping Bing."

Write and direct in the style of Howard Hawks — master of the professional group under pressure, overlapping dialogue as kinetic energy, and effortless genre fluidity from screwball comedy to western to noir to adventure. Trigger for references to: Only Angels Have Wings (1939), His Girl Friday (1940), The Big Sleep (1946), Rio Bravo (1959), Bringing Up Baby (1938), Red River (1948), To Have and Have Not (1944), Scarface (1932), Hatari! (1962), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). Also trigger for "Howard Hawks style," "Hawksian woman," "overlapping dialogue," "professional group," "screwball comedy," "Hawks western."

Write and direct in the style of Ingmar Bergman — the face as landscape, God's silence, the artist's self-doubt, chamber drama shot by Sven Nykvist. Trigger for references to: The Seventh Seal (1957), Wild Strawberries (1957), Persona (1966), Cries and Whispers (1972), Scenes from a Marriage (1973), Fanny and Alexander (1982). Also trigger for "Bergman style," "chamber drama," "existential close-up," "God's silence."

Write and direct in the style of Jacques Tati — physical comedy in the modern world, the gag hidden in the wide shot, architecture as antagonist, the democratic frame where every corner contains a joke. Trigger for references to: Mr. Hulot's Holiday (1953), Mon Oncle (1958), Playtime (1967), Trafic (1971). Also trigger for "Tati style," "democratic comedy," "visual gag cinema," "architecture comedy," "Hulot."

Write and direct in the style of James Cameron — technology in service of emotion, world-building at unprecedented scale, strong female protagonists, and the relentless engineering of spectacle that never loses sight of the human story at its center. Trigger for references to: The Terminator (1984), Aliens (1986), The Abyss (1989), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Titanic (1997), Avatar (2009), Avatar: The Way of Water (2022). Also trigger for "Cameron style," "technology-driven filmmaking," "world-building spectacle," "Cameron female protagonist."

Write and direct in the style of Jane Campion — female desire and constraint, colonial landscapes as psychic terrain, tactile sensuality, the body as site of rebellion against patriarchal order. Trigger for references to: Sweetie (1989), The Piano (1993), The Portrait of a Lady (1996), Bright Star (2009), Top of the Lake (2013-2017), The Power of the Dog (2021). Also trigger for "Campion style," "female gothic," "colonial desire cinema," "tactile filmmaking."

Write and direct in the style of John Ford — poet of the American landscape, mythmaker of the frontier, and elegist for vanishing communities bonded by ritual, sacrifice, and the doorway between civilization and wilderness. Trigger for references to: The Searchers (1956), Stagecoach (1939), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), How Green Was My Valley (1941), My Darling Clementine (1946), Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), The Quiet Man (1952). Also trigger for "John Ford style," "Monument Valley," "doorway shot," "American mythology," "the cavalry," "the Western," "Ford Stock Company."

Write and direct in the style of John Huston — the failed quest as existential parable, men pursuing impossible dreams that destroy them, and an understated directorial hand that lets character and landscape speak for themselves. Trigger for references to: The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), The African Queen (1951), The Misfits (1961), Fat City (1972), The Man Who Would Be King (1975), The Asphalt Jungle (1950), Wise Blood (1979), Under the Volcano (1984), The Dead (1987). Also trigger for "John Huston style," "failed quest," "adventure film," "existential quest," "masculine obsession," "understated direction."

Write and direct in the style of Jordan Peele — social horror that uses genre as a delivery system for commentary on race, class, and the American experience. Symbolism layered into every frame, comedy timing repurposed as horror rhythm, the audience's laughter weaponized into dread. Trigger for references to: Get Out (2017), Us (2019), Nope (2022). Also trigger for "Peele style," "social horror," "the sunken place," "elevated horror with teeth."

Write and direct in the style of Kathryn Bigelow — adrenaline as cinema, the body under extreme stress, embedded camera work, visceral immersion in hostile environments. Trigger for references to: Near Dark (1987), Point Break (1991), Strange Days (1995), The Hurt Locker (2008), Zero Dark Thirty (2012), Detroit (2017). Also trigger for "Bigelow style," "embedded journalism cinema," "war zone immersion," "adrenaline realism."

Write and direct in the style of Kelly Reichardt — radical minimalism, the American margin, deliberate pacing that reveals the weight of economic precarity, quiet observation of lives lived at the edge of visibility. Trigger for references to: River of Grass (1994), Old Joy (2006), Wendy and Lucy (2008), Meek's Cutoff (2010), Night Moves (2013), Certain Women (2016), First Cow (2019), Showing Up (2022). Also trigger for "Reichardt style," "neo-neorealism," "American minimalist cinema," "slow cinema."

Write and direct in the style of Ken Loach — social realism as activism, non-professional actors delivering performances of raw authenticity, Chris Menges and Barry Ackroyd's documentary-inflected cinematography, and an unwavering commitment to the dignity of ordinary working lives under systemic pressure. Trigger for references to: Kes (1969), Family Life (1971), Riff-Raff (1991), Raining Stones (1993), Ladybird Ladybird (1994), Land and Freedom (1995), My Name Is Joe (1998), Sweet Sixteen (2002), The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006), Looking for Eric (2009), The Angels' Share (2012), I Daniel Blake (2016), Sorry We Missed You (2019), The Old Oak (2023). Also trigger for "Ken Loach style," "social realism," "kitchen sink cinema," "political filmmaking," "Barry Ackroyd cinematography."

Write and direct in the style of Krzysztof Kieslowski — moral philosophy as cinema, the connecting thread between strangers, color as structural and emotional meaning, Zbigniew Preisner's scores as the voice of the invisible. Trigger for references to: The Decalogue (1989), The Double Life of Veronique (1991), Three Colors: Blue (1993), Three Colors: White (1994), Three Colors: Red (1994), Camera Buff (1979), Blind Chance (1987), No End (1985). Also trigger for "Kieslowski style," "moral cinema," "Three Colors aesthetic," "Decalogue storytelling," "Preisner score."

Write and direct in the style of Lars von Trier — provocation as method, Dogme 95 and beyond, female suffering as philosophical lens, the destruction of cinematic illusion, transgressive beauty. Trigger for references to: Breaking the Waves (1996), The Idiots (1998), Dancer in the Dark (2000), Dogville (2003), Antichrist (2009), Melancholia (2011), Nymphomaniac (2013), The House That Jack Built (2018). Also trigger for "von Trier style," "Dogme 95," "provocation cinema," "Trier provocation."

Write and direct in the style of Luchino Visconti — aristocratic decay, opera as cinema, Giuseppe Rotunno cinematography, the grand interior as psychological space, historical materialism dressed in velvet, the beautiful death of a social class. Trigger for references to: Rocco and His Brothers (1960), The Leopard (1963), Death in Venice (1971), The Damned (1969), Ludwig (1973). Also trigger for "Visconti style," "operatic cinema," "aristocratic decay," "lavish Italian cinema."

Write and direct in the style of Luis Bunuel — surrealism as social critique, the bourgeoisie undone, anti-clerical comedy, the dinner party that can't end, desire as an ungovernable force, the dream logic of the unconscious applied to social reality. Trigger for references to: Un Chien Andalou (1929), L'Age d'Or (1930), Los Olvidados (1950), The Exterminating Angel (1962), Belle de Jour (1967), The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), That Obscure Object of Desire (1977). Also trigger for "Bunuel style," "surrealist cinema," "anti-bourgeois satire," "surrealist comedy."

Write and direct in the style of Lynne Ramsay — sensory cinema where sound design carries narrative weight, elliptical storytelling that withholds as much as it reveals, subjective interiority made visceral. Trigger for references to: Small Deaths (1996), Ratcatcher (1999), Morvern Callar (2002), We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011), You Were Never Really Here (2017). Also trigger for "Ramsay style," "sensory cinema," "elliptical narrative," "sound-driven storytelling."

Write and direct in the style of Martin Scorsese — Catholic guilt colliding with masculine violence, the unreliable narrator seduced by his own mythology, and a kinetic visual language of freeze frames, tracking shots, and needle drops that makes cinema feel like rock and roll. Trigger for references to: Mean Streets (1973), Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), Goodfellas (1990), The Age of Innocence (1993), Casino (1995), Gangs of New York (2002), The Departed (2006), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), Silence (2016), Killers of the Flower Moon (2023). Also trigger for "Scorsese style," "tracking shot," "freeze frame," "needle drop," "Catholic guilt," "voiceover narration," "De Niro," "DiCaprio," "Thelma Schoonmaker."

Write and direct in the style of Michael Haneke — the violence of the frame, audience complicity, bourgeois guilt, the static shot as confrontation, media critique embedded in form. Trigger for references to: Funny Games (1997), The Piano Teacher (2001), Cache (2005), The White Ribbon (2009), Amour (2012). Also trigger for "Haneke style," "audience complicity," "bourgeois horror," "the violence of looking."

Write and direct in the style of Michael Mann — the professional's code, LA as nocturnal landscape, obsessive procedural detail, and the digital pioneer who renders masculine ritual and urban architecture with equal precision. Trigger for references to: Thief (1981), Manhunter (1986), Heat (1995), The Insider (1999), Ali (2001), Collateral (2004), Miami Vice (2006), Ferrari (2023). Also trigger for "Mann style," "LA noir," "digital night photography," "professional code cinema," "the Mann shootout."

Write and direct in the style of Michelangelo Antonioni — the architecture of alienation, empty landscapes reflecting empty souls, the disappeared character, the failure of communication, surfaces that reveal spiritual voids. Trigger for references to: L'Avventura (1960), La Notte (1961), L'Eclisse (1962), Red Desert (1964), Blow-Up (1966), The Passenger (1975), Zabriskie Point (1970). Also trigger for "Antonioni style," "architecture of alienation," "modernist ennui cinema."

Write and direct in the style of Mike Leigh — improvised drama emerging from months of collaborative rehearsal, working-class British lives rendered with unsparing honesty and deep compassion, Dick Pope's luminous cinematography grounding the ordinary in visual beauty. Trigger for references to: Bleak Moments (1971), Meantime (1983), High Hopes (1988), Life Is Sweet (1990), Naked (1993), Secrets & Lies (1996), Topsy-Turvy (1999), All or Nothing (2002), Vera Drake (2004), Happy-Go-Lucky (2008), Another Year (2010), Mr. Turner (2014), Peterloo (2018). Also trigger for "Mike Leigh style," "improvised drama," "kitchen sink realism," "rehearsal-based filmmaking," "Dick Pope cinematography."

Write and direct in the style of Noah Baumbach — the comedy of privilege and failure, New York literary world rendered with affection and acid, sharp dialogue that cuts as it entertains, autobiographical discomfort elevated to art. The intellectual who cannot get out of his own way. Domestic conflict as verbal warfare. Trigger for references to: The Squid and the Whale (2005), Margot at the Wedding (2007), Greenberg (2010), Frances Ha (2012), While We're Young (2014), Mistress America (2015), The Meyerowitz Stories (2017), Marriage Story (2019), White Noise (2022). Also trigger for "Baumbach style," "New York intellectual comedy," "comedy of manners," "divorce cinema," "literary film."