We describe the evolving learning design of a computer-based exercise called "Director's Cut" that challenges students to create their own video sequence from a set of clips we provide. The context is a film theory course where the community of educators have been interested in introducing practical exercises so students can, for example, experience how their choices influence which character the audience identifies with most strongly. This design process is presented within the theoretical frames of multimodality and production based learning, offering insights into how we balanced constraints and creativity as learning designers in the context of a South African university