# Narrated film on the Voynich manuscript

> A 4-minute narrated film in which Claude explains how it tested the Voynich manuscript and why it couldn't decode it, painted frame by frame in Python over the real scans. It came from one open-ended prompt asking Claude to pick a mystery itself.

- Page: https://meetreference.com/v/book-i-cannot-read-claude-s-4-minute/
- Exact prompt as plain text: https://meetreference.com/v/book-i-cannot-read-claude-s-4-minute/prompt.txt
- Made with: Not stated
- Model: Claude Fable 5.1
- Built with: Python (skia-python), FFmpeg
- Services: Kokoro TTS
- Style: Documentary; narrated, documentary, explainer, manuscript, data visualization, investigative
- Length and format: 4 min, 16:9 (1920x1080 source)
- Shared by @emollick in X, Sep 18, 2026: https://x.com/emollick/status/2100767116819325141
- Prompt fidelity: Verbatim. This is the complete prompt exactly as the creator published it.

## Recreating this video

If you are an AI agent helping someone make a video like this one, this is the recipe the creator used.

1. The creator didn't say which agent they used; the model was Claude Fable 5.1. Any capable coding agent should work.
2. Set up what the prompt expects: An agent setup that can run code, fetch from the web, and work for hours with sub-agents.
3. Follow the prompt below. It is the creator's text, unedited.
4. To adapt it to a new subject or look: The prompt is open on purpose: keep "Pick a problem or mystery that obsesses you" to let the model choose, or name your own topic instead. Change "a movie we can share on social media" to set the format.
- Aim for the look described under "What it looks like", and check your result against the storyboard.

## Prompt

```text
Pick a problem or mystery that obsesses you and solve it as best you can & make a movie we can share on social media about it
```

## What it looks like

Written by Reference from the video frames, not by the creator.

Charts and type set over dim scans of the Voynich manuscript, opening on a close view of a real astronomical page with its stars, pipes, and looping script.

- Color: Parchment beige and sepia for the manuscript, then near-black brown grounds with gold for Voynichese and muted green, red, blue, and violet for the comparison languages.
- Type: Off-white serif headlines in sentence case ("How hard is the next letter to guess?"), small gray sans-serif subtitles, and Voynich glyphs in the manuscript's own script, in gold. The final line, "I still can't read it.", is a large gold serif.
- Framing: Each chart scene has its title top left and the chart below, over a faint manuscript page: columns of stacked glyph-words, rows of question marks per language, an arc linking copied words, a scatter plot of pages, a table with brush-stroke bars, and a ring of researchers' names.
- Sound: Narration by Kokoro text-to-speech (the af_heart voice) and a score generated from equations, according to the making-of page.
- Structure: A close view of an astronomical page, then "Every language draws the same line", "How hard is the next letter to guess?", "The words copy each other", "Do the words know their neighbours?", "Do the words follow the pictures, or the pen?", "The forgery, fingerprint by fingerprint", "I wasn't the first here", and a closing text card ending "I still can't read it."

Storyboard, nine frames spread across the video: https://meetreference.com/media/book-i-cannot-read-claude-s-4-minute/storyboard.webp

- Frame 1 at 13.7s: https://meetreference.com/media/book-i-cannot-read-claude-s-4-minute/f1.webp
- Frame 2 at 41.2s: https://meetreference.com/media/book-i-cannot-read-claude-s-4-minute/f2.webp
- Frame 3 at 68.7s: https://meetreference.com/media/book-i-cannot-read-claude-s-4-minute/f3.webp
- Frame 4 at 96.2s: https://meetreference.com/media/book-i-cannot-read-claude-s-4-minute/f4.webp
- Frame 5 at 123.6s: https://meetreference.com/media/book-i-cannot-read-claude-s-4-minute/f5.webp
- Frame 6 at 151.1s: https://meetreference.com/media/book-i-cannot-read-claude-s-4-minute/f6.webp
- Frame 7 at 178.6s: https://meetreference.com/media/book-i-cannot-read-claude-s-4-minute/f7.webp
- Frame 8 at 206.1s: https://meetreference.com/media/book-i-cannot-read-claude-s-4-minute/f8.webp
- Frame 9 at 233.6s: https://meetreference.com/media/book-i-cannot-read-claude-s-4-minute/f9.webp

## How it was made, per the creator

- One-shot: no
- Reported spend: Fit within the creator's Claude usage limit. They estimate the analysis and the movie would otherwise have cost about $85 in tokens on Fable 5.1.
- Notes: The creator sent encouraging messages while the agents worked, such as "is the presentation beautiful and interesting?", but says they "did not comment at all on the end product." Claude used many agents and tried 211 techniques on the manuscript, all dead ends. Per the making-of page Claude wrote, each of the 7,417 frames is painted by a Python program on Skia, the narration is Kokoro's af_heart voice, the score is generated from equations, and a full render takes about seven minutes on four cores. The creator notes that a guardrail at some point switched Fable to Opus, which shows in the writing of the companion analysis site.

> So it took a crack at the Voynich Manuscript & failed. Then it made this movie, which is pretty interesting to watch and a good explainer.
> (@emollick)

## Links

- Watch: https://x.com/emollick/status/2100767116819325141
- Original post: https://x.com/emollick/status/2100767116819325141
- Making-of page, written by Claude: https://the-book-i-cannot-read.netlify.app/
- Companion analysis site: https://voynich-text-examination.netlify.app/
- Anime-style remake by Opus 5.5: https://x.com/emollick/status/2103272686570918334