For By hand
No tool needed: a checklist or a technique. 28 entries.
Video generation 1
Hooks 2
A/B test hooks with campaign links: judge after a week on installs, not views
The creator-growth method: same video, different hook, one store campaign link per variant, installs per campaign read after a week. Includes the iOS ct= link shape and the noise rule.
Visual hook rules: first frame, text on screen, sound off, and how long you have
The checklist for what the viewer sees before any word is heard: first frame, text, the sound-off case, and the attention windows the creator-growth skill states (about 0.1 s, 0.5 s, 1-2 s by age).
Editing & montage 7
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.
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.
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.
Length follows the material: cut stammers and repeats, not thoughts
The decision rule for how long a film should be. A target length makes you stretch a thin day or chop a full one; the material decides, and the checklist says what may be removed.
Read the film as text before rendering: the last check that costs nothing
The cut, printed as its lines in order, read by someone who never saw the raw footage. Catches the question whose answer was cut, the name said before the person, the 'this' that points at nothing.
Scenes, not best phrases: keep the lead-in, the talk and the reaction
Why a reel of good lines confuses everyone who was not there, and the checklist for keeping a scene whole: the lead-in, the talk, the reaction, with filler trimmed only at the ends.
Take something from every clip, and list the ones you cut with a reason
A rule for cutting someone else's footage, or your own from a year ago: each clip was filmed because it mattered, so each gets a chance, and the rejects get a written reason the person can argue with.
Captions & text 3
Burned subtitles for 9:16: position, lines, characters, colour, as parameters
Settings for subtitles burned into vertical video for muted feeds: above the platform UI, two lines, about 32 characters each, white with a dark outline. Starting values, checked on a phone.
Accessible on-screen text: contrast, the bottom 20 percent, no flashing
A checklist for text that everyone can read, including people watching muted, on a small screen, in sunlight, or with photosensitivity. Eight checks, each with the parameter to test against.
Reading speed for on-screen text and speech: the parameters to check against
How long a text overlay must stay up and how many words a voice can carry per second, given as parameters you measure on yourself, with the formula and the two failure modes: unreadable, and slow.
B-roll 3
Generated b-roll or real: the decision rule
When a generated cutaway is fine (faceless, no logos, no claim about a real place or time) and when only footage from the same day will do. Five questions, in order, before you open a video model.
A mentioned object must be seen, ideally just before the line about it
The rule that turns 'X is mentioned, never shown' from a viewer complaint into a check you run on the transcript: every named thing gets a shot, placed just before or on the line.
Screen-recording b-roll for app demos: what to record, size, cursor
Rules for screen captures used as cutaways in a product video: real-looking data, output-size or 2x resolution, a slow cursor, one action per clip, and what makes a recording unusable.
Music & sound 5
Prompt for a music generator: a 30-second instrumental for a short
A brief in the shape music generation tools read: structure by seconds, BPM, three instruments, no vocals, a drop that lands on your hook cut, and an ending that stops instead of fading.
Live music in frame: one continuous audio span, picture cuts on top
When a band or a busker is in the shot, keep one unbroken stretch of that clip's audio under the whole scene and cut only the picture; cut the audio per shot and the beat restarts.
Music brief: describe the track you need before you search for it
A fill-in brief that names mood as harmony, a BPM range, genre, length and where the drop must land relative to your hook, so a library search or a composer returns something that fits the cut.
Strip other people's music before upload with Demucs and ffmpeg
Car radio, shop speakers and festival stages trigger Content ID. Split the soundtrack into stems, find the music on drums plus bass, keep the voice, replace the music, rebuild audio only.
Voice cleanup checklist: room tone, de-ess, noise gate, in that order
Six passes that turn a phone or lav recording into a usable voice track, each with the ffmpeg filter and a starting parameter to adjust by ear, in the order that keeps the gate off word endings.
Growth 7
Measurement: one store campaign link per platform and account
The iOS campaign link format with the provider token and a 40-character ct tag, the Android Play referrer, where installs show up, and the rule to judge a format after a week on installs, not views.
The creator budget gate: can you afford a paid creator yet?
A fill-in prompt that divides a creator's monthly retainer by your net revenue per sale to get payback sales per month, then says whether you are in Phase 1 (founder-led, $0) or allowed to pay.
The download ask lives in the comments, not in every video
A call to action in every video is what gets a video scrolled. Put the app name in the replies to 'what app is this?', keep the link in the bio, and write the replies before you need them.
In-app growth levers: brand credit, 9:16 output, one-tap preset
Four product changes that turn every export into UGC and make a creator's demo work in one tap. An audit prompt for the codebase that marks each lever done or next, plus the disclosure rule.
Phase 2 trigger: when to pay micro-creators, and how much
Pay nobody until one video passes a view threshold AND its campaign link shows installs. Then 3-5 micro-creators in the same niche, paid per video or per million views, no retainer yet.
Cadence: 1-2 posts a day, one vertical cut to TikTok, Reels and Shorts
The minimum posting rhythm for Phase 1 and the production habit that makes it possible: one 9:16 master per idea, three uploads, no per-platform re-edit. With the ffmpeg line for burned captions.
YouTube upload checklist: gate the file, publish private, watch on a phone
Cheap checks first, upload last: title under 100 characters, the real shooting date and chapters in the description, captions as tracks, Shorts linked both ways, a private publish watched on a phone.