// preview room / labrinox
How Sri Lanka gave China a port for 99 years, the real debt math
qa passedNo render yet - stopped at qa_passed.
Cost ledger
trends$0.094
idea$0.115
hook$0.174
script$0.127
storyboard$0.374
factcheck$0.298
qa$0.092
revise$0.220
qa2$0.116
total$1.610
QA Council
8.0/10specificity
9
utility
8
technical validity
6
visual clarity
8
brand fit
9
anti slop
8
platform safety
9
- FACTUAL ERROR: script says '70-year lease'; storyboard narration correctly says 'ninety-nine-year lease'. The actual Hambantota lease is 99 years. Fix the script beats and narration to match — this is the kind of error that tanks credibility in comments.
- Numbers are real and specific throughout: $63M service, $11M revenue, $1.12B payment, 50,000 ships. This is what separates it from slop.
- Closer — 'The debt did not take the port. The arithmetic did.' — is publication-grade. Keep it exactly.
- The analytical framing (arithmetic, not conspiracy) is honest and defensible. Avoids the 'debt-trap propaganda' trap without softening the lesson.
- B-roll queries are cinematic and concrete; scene durations are well-paced. No visual overcrowding.
- CTA 'one number changes how you see the world' is tight, on-brand, earned by the content.
- Fix the 70/99 discrepancy and this clears pass threshold cleanly.
Storyboard / 31.5s
1hook_text2.5s2big_number4s3kinetic_text3.5s4big_number4.5s5image_focus5.5s6big_number4.5s7quote4s8cta3s
Script
hookA $1.4 billion loan. A port earning $11 million.
"Annual debt service: sixty-three million dollars. The port never came close."
"That gap does not shrink. It compounds."
"By 2017, Colombo had one number that closed the equation."
"A 70-year lease. China Merchants took operational control. Sri Lanka took $1.12 billion to pay other bills."
"Hambantota sits between the Suez Canal and the Strait of Malacca. Fifty thousand ships a year."
"The debt did not take the port. The arithmetic did."
Run log
stalled / polling paused
No progress for 4696m — the run looks stuck. Retry from the original idea, or dismiss it.
08:54:53Trend scan$0.094
08:55:27Idea selectedmistake fix / How Sri Lanka gave China a port for 99 years, the real debt math
08:55:49Hook chosenA $1.4 billion loan. A port earning $11 million.
08:56:31Script drafted6 narration beats
08:57:34Storyboard built8 scenes
08:59:22Fact check$0.298
08:59:35QA scored8.0/10 revise
09:05:38Packagingin progress
09:05:38Render assetqueued
09:05:38beat-sync: 113 beats; sfx: 5 cues
09:05:38b-roll: 8/8 scenes
09:04:27music: musicgen
09:00:46QA passed: 8/10
08:59:35revising (QA 8.7/10): Opening hook lands hard — two numbers in direct tension, no preamble; 6.3% rate and $63M debt service are sourced figures, not vague claims; 'The arithmetic did it' is a genuine conceptual payoff, not a rhetorical flourish
08:59:22fact-check flagged: Lease term is factually wrong: the Hambantota deal was a 99-year lease, not 70 years. The storyboard topic line itself states '99 years' while the script beat and narration both say '70-year lease' — an internal contradiction and a clear factual error. Correct to 99 years throughout.; Interest rate is oversimplified: the 6.3% rate applied to the first 2007 China Exim Bank loan only; a second major loan (2012) carried a lower rate (~2%). Presenting a single 6.3% figure implies a uniform rate across the full $1.4B and overstates the blended borrowing cost, which could mislead viewers.
08:57:34storyboard: 8 scenes, 31.5s
08:56:31script: "A $1.4 billion loan. A port earning $11 million."