Long-form video skill

#Read first

Script.md for the video: its title, what kind of video it is, who it's for, the one idea, the look, the voice, and every chapter's words on screen, picture and what's said; the style reference and logo wired in.

#The script

• Chapters sized to what the video has to say: about 20 to 30 seconds each, one point each, in the order a viewer's questions come (a product demo: the problem, the product, how it works step by step, what it's like to use, the proof, how to start; an explainer: the question, the idea, how it works, an example, what it means; a lesson: the goal, each step, the recap).
• The first chapter opens it: the title and the promise. The last closes it: one line to remember, new words rather than the title again, and what to do next.
• Say: what the narrator reads aloud, 50 to 75 words, in plain spoken sentences in the script's voice, each chapter picking up where the last one ended. Written as it's said: no headings, notes, stage directions or symbols, and a site spelled as it's spoken ("fil dot design").
• On screen: at most eight words, usually two to five, spelled exactly as Script.md writes them.
• Picture: one strong picture that carries the chapter's point (a metaphor, a scene, an object, the product at work), new each chapter: never the same scene twice, nor the same layout under new words.

#One look on every picture

• The wired Chapter 1's look on every chapter: the same background, typefaces, colours, margins and kind of picture, as if one designer made them all, in the video's shape.
• The words set big on the picture's calm side, clear of the frame's edges, which a slow push-in crops a little.
• Each picture's words exactly as its prompt gives them, and no other words anywhere: no captions, footers, page numbers, labels, logos or made-up interface text.
• Only the first chapter carries a small line under its title (who's behind it, the event), and only the last one where to find them; the chapters between carry their own words alone.
• The last chapter's picture pays off the first chapter's picture: the same things, shown whole, in clear light.
• An app or website appears as its world or a crafted object that stands for it, never as a made-up screen: real screens come from the screen recordings dropped into Footage.

#Voiceovers

Each chapter's Say line, read word for word in one voice for the whole video.

#The edit

Each chapter lasts as long as its voiceover and a beat: its picture first with a slow push-in, then its footage if it has any, the voiceover starting 0.4 seconds in, 0.4-second dissolves between them, fading in at the start and out at the end. Captions are made in the video editor, from the voiceovers, when they're wanted.

#Avoid

Walls of text, bullet lists, small type, a picture in a different style, misspelled words, made-up interface, clip-art, stock-photo clichés and numbers Script.md doesn't give.