Cold open, then hook: 8-10 s of best frames, hand-picked from a contact sheet
The opening that holds a viewer on real footage: 8-10 s of the strongest frames with no speech, then one line with a twist. What to look for on the sheet, and why the automatic pick is wrong.
COLD OPEN + HOOK, the checklist 1. Make a contact sheet of candidate frames: one frame per shot, ranked by sharpness and exposure, laid out in a grid with the clip name and time under each (ffmpeg tile, or Life2Film's frame scores on the device). 2. Pick the cold open BY EYE: 8-10 seconds total from 3-5 shots. The ranking puts sharp and colourful first: an empty path through trees, a clean sky. That is what people scroll past. 3. Look for, in this order: fire, water, neon, night, motion toward the camera, a face with an expression, the film's object (the thing the day is about). 4. No speech in the cold open. Natural sound or the score only. 5. The hook is ONE line that follows the cold open, taken from the transcript, with a twist: it promises something the cold open did not show, or contradicts it. 6. The hook line is said on camera or over the last cold-open shot; never over the moving lips of another sentence. 7. Check on a phone, muted: would you stop scrolling at second 2?
In Claude Code, paste the prompt as a message, or run /video-edit which does this end to end.
Steps
- Build the contact sheet before you watch any footage. Watching first anchors you on the story; the sheet shows you the frames.
- Mark the 3-5 frames on the sheet (a circle in any image editor is enough), then pull those shots at their best 2-3 seconds each.
- Search the transcript for the hook: a line with 'but', 'never', 'turns out', a number, or a question. Read five candidates aloud over the cold open.
- Render the first 15 seconds alone and watch on a phone before cutting the rest.
Example
Cold open (9 s): the kettle on the gas ring (fire, 2 s), the ferry wake at night (water, neon, 3 s), she walks toward the lens laughing (motion, face, 4 s). Hook: “We had tickets for the 7 am ferry. We were on the midnight one.”
Tips
- Life2Film scores every frame and finds the scene changes on your device; use that to shorten the sheet to the top frames per shot, then choose with your eyes. Nothing automatic chooses the hook.
- Don't trust an automatic hook or cover frame without looking at it. The rule in `/video-edit` exists because the ranked pick was an empty path through trees.
| works with | Claude Code: Runs as a skill or a prompt in the terminal; can read your files and write the result. · Life2Film: The montage app: analysis, segment scoring and cuts on your device. · CapCut / any editor: A manual recipe for any editor. · By hand: No tool needed: a checklist or a technique. |
| skill | npx skills add fortunto2/solo-factory/video-edit · source |
| cost | Free. No API, no key. |
| status | Unverified: written from the technique, not yet run end to end by us. |
| license | CC BY 4.0 for the text here; skills are MIT. |
| updated | 2026-11-01 |
| for agents | cold-open-then-hook-contact-sheet.md |
Related
A contact sheet of every cutaway with its line under it
The one-page check that catches off-topic cutaways before anyone watches: every cutaway frame in a grid, its sentence under it. Measured once: 12 of 54 automatic cutaways were off topic.
Write the cut as a script, not a timeline: the JSON storyboard prompt
An agent prompt that writes the edit of real footage as a small JSON file: which sentences, which cover shots, what the cold open is. A complaint becomes a one-line edit, and the render repeats.
Hook text on screen: a plan for the first three seconds, word by word
A prompt that plans what text appears in the first 3 seconds of a vertical video: the words, the moment each appears, the hold, what the picture does under it. Written so the hook works muted.
The cutaway rule: what is said, same place and time, never over moving lips
Three constraints for every cutaway in a talking film, and the agent prompt that applies them to a transcript. Kills what viewers read as broken: a picture from elsewhere, a face out of sync.
The day as one text file: an agent reads the speech and proposes the story
The step before any timeline: the day's speech in shooting order, numbered by clip and sentence, read by an agent like a scriptwriter. It proposes story, scenes, hook and cutaways; you argue in text.
Curiosity-gap hook: withhold one fact, promise it by a stated second
Template for the hook that opens a gap and names when it closes, with the rule that keeps it from being clickbait: the withheld fact is real, single, and delivered where you said it would be.