One promo video

<!-- page: Let AI write a 60-second script -->

**Get ready:** This lesson has two sittings. **The first** (25 minutes): write the script and film it with your phone. **The second** (about 35 minutes): hand your clips to Claude on your computer, let it edit them and add captions, while you watch and give feedback. The whole video, from script to editing, is done by AI. You don't need to learn any editing software.

What you need: your three-minute introduction from Quick Start Lesson 10, your first tester's exact words, and the one-page plan and free mini-resource from Lesson 1. They are all in the "My Website" project. If you didn't save your three-minute introduction, just paste it into the chat.

**First, ask your tester one question:** "I'd like to quote what you said in a video, without your name. Is that OK?" Only use it if they say yes.

```
Please use the materials in this project to write a 60-second vertical short video script. These are the words I will say to my phone camera.
The viewers are [the people I want to help] who are seeing me for the first time and don't know me yet.
My three-minute introduction: [paste]
One thing my first tester said: [their exact words]
Split it into four parts, numbered 1, 2, 3, 4:
1. (3 seconds) The first sentence says straight away what the viewer gets: time saved, less worry, or less money wasted. Do not introduce me first.
2. (15 seconds) The problem they have right now, told like it's part of their own day.
3. (30 seconds) Teach one tip they can use right away, picked from my free mini-resource. You may use my tester's words, without the name.
4. (10 seconds) Invite them to get the full free mini-resource. Just say: "I put the full [resource name] in the text below this video."
Rules: no more than 150 words in total; short sentences that sound like how I normally talk; don't say things a first-time viewer won't understand, like "last episode" or "my course"; use only the facts I gave you; do not make anything up; do not promise results.
Last, give me 3 other choices for the first sentence, and tell me what each one gives the viewer.
```

**Choose your first sentence.** People scrolling past decide in one second whether to stay. Check it with this one question: **If you take out every "I," does the viewer still feel "this is about me"?** For example, "Can't get your kid to sit still for a book? Try this first 5 minutes tonight" works better than "I'm Mingde Chen, a retired teacher."

**Read it out loud.** Use your phone's timer and read it once. If it's over 60 seconds, ask Claude to cut it down. Then check it again with trick C from Quick Start Lesson 5 (check whether AI made things up): anything invented for you? Any "guaranteed" or "always"? Finally, copy the final version. You will need it in the second sitting.

<!-- page: Film with your phone, move it to your computer -->

**No need to buy gear. One phone is enough.** Spend 3 minutes getting ready before you film:

1. **Hold it upright.** Stand the phone up and use the camera's **Video** mode. Using the front camera lets you see yourself, which feels easier.
2. **Steady and level.** Prop the phone on a stack of books or a phone stand. The lens is at eye level, an arm's length away, and the picture shows you from the top of your head to your chest. Leave a little room above your head. The big opening text goes there.
3. **Face the light.** Sit facing a window so the light comes from in front of you. Don't sit with your back to the window.
4. **Quiet.** Turn off the TV and the fan, and put your phone on **Do Not Disturb** so a call doesn't cut in halfway. Wipe the lens.
5. **Clean background, nothing private.** Behind you there should be no family photos, house numbers, or envelopes with your address. **Family members stay out of the shot.** If someone really must be in it, only from behind, with no face showing.
6. **iPhone users, turn off HDR video before filming:** **Settings → Camera → Record Video**, and turn off **HDR Video**. If you don't, the colors may come out gray or too bright after editing.

**Filming part by part is easier than doing it all in one go.** Your script has four parts. Film each part as its own clip: press record, wait 1 second, look at the **lens** (not the screen) and say that part, wait 1 more second, press stop. Film each part twice. If you make a mistake, don't stop. Just say it again. The AI will cut the mistake out when editing.

You can print the script in big letters and tape it next to your phone. Glance at it before you speak, and look at the lens while you talk. **The first part matters most**: eyes open, a little smile, and open with that sentence about "what the viewer gets."

When you're done, watch the clips once in your phone's photo library. If you can hear clearly and see your face clearly, you're fine.

**Move them to your computer.** On your computer, make a new folder in **Documents** called **My Short Videos**, and inside it another folder called **Footage**. Then put the 8 clips you filmed into **Footage**:

- **iPhone + Mac:** In Photos, select the clips, tap Share, choose **AirDrop**, and choose your Mac. The files land in the Mac's Downloads folder. Drag them into **Footage**.
- **iPhone + Windows:** Connect the phone to the computer with the charging cable, tap "Trust" on the phone, then open the **Photos** app on the computer and click **Import** [to verify: button name].
- **Android + Windows:** Connect with the cable, choose **File transfer** on the phone, open the phone's DCIM folder on the computer, and copy the videos out [to verify].

**Don't send them by text message or email.** Those shrink the video and make the picture blurry.

<!-- page: Let Claude edit: cut pauses, add captions, make the cover -->

**Second sitting · Let Claude on your computer be your video editor.** This course uses Claude Pro ($20/month). Pro includes the **Code** tab in the desktop app: it can open a folder on your computer, install tools in it, and work on the files. That is what we use to edit video.

1. **Install the desktop app (only once):** In your browser, open **claude.com/download**. On a Mac click **Download for macOS**; on Windows click **Download**. Install it and sign in with your Claude account.
2. **Open the Code tab:** Click **Code** at the top of the left sidebar. If it asks you to upgrade, this account is not on Pro yet.
3. **Choose the folder:** In the row under the input box, set the first box to **Local** (work on your own computer). Click the second box, choose **Open folder…**, and pick **My Short Videos**.
4. **Choose the model:** Toward the right of that row, click the model and choose **Opus 5.5**.
5. **Choose permissions:** Set the permission box to **Accept edits** (some versions call it **Edit automatically**). This lets it create and change files in this folder without asking you, but it will still ask before installing software or running editing commands.

Then paste this in:

```
I'm a beginner. I can't write code and I don't know editing software. Please be my video editor.
The "Footage" folder has vertical videos I filmed on my phone: my script has 4 parts, and I filmed each part twice.
My script: [paste the final version, marked 1, 2, 3, 4]
Please edit them into one vertical short video for YouTube Shorts and Xiaohongshu (RedNote):
1. For each part, pick the take where I said it all with no mistakes, and tell me which file you picked; join them in order 1, 2, 3, 4;
2. Cut the empty bits at the start and end, the places where I made a mistake and started over, and pauses that are too long in the middle of a sentence, but do not cut any sentence I said;
3. Vertical frame, 1080×1920. Don't cut off my head;
4. Add English captions. Fix any misheard words to match my script. Make the letters big enough to read at a glance on a phone, no more than 4 words per line. Place them at chest height so they don't cover my mouth;
5. The first frame is the cover: put "[opening big text, two lines, no more than 3 words each]" in big letters in the top half of the picture, showing from second 0 for about 2 seconds;
6. Set the sound to a good level for phones (around -14 LUFS), with no distortion;
7. Export it as "final-v1.mp4" and save it in this folder. Do not change or delete any of the original videos in "Footage".
If you need to install tools (like ffmpeg for video editing, or a speech-to-text tool to turn my words into text), first tell me what you want to install, about how big it is, and where it goes. Only install after I say OK. Prefer ways to install that don't need my computer password.
You don't need to look at the video frame by frame. A few screenshots are enough.
Before you start, tell me in plain words how you plan to do it. When you're done, tell me: how long the video is, which files you picked, what you cut, which caption words you fixed, and save the first frame as a picture for me to look at.
```

**It will ask "is this OK?" as it goes.** The buttons that pop up are **Allow once** (OK this time), **Always allow** (OK from now on), and **Deny** (no). Choose by these three rules:

- **Installing the editing tool or the speech-to-text tool, or working on videos inside "My Short Videos":** choose **Always allow**, so it doesn't ask you the same thing a dozen times.
- **Deleting videos in "Footage," or touching any other folder:** choose **Deny**, then ask it: "Why do you want to do that?"
- **Asking you to type your computer password into the chat:** never type it. A system window that your computer itself pops up (the Mac's "install developer tools," or Windows' "Do you want to allow this app to make changes to your device?") is your own computer asking, and you can click Install or Yes [to verify: which windows pop up the first time tools are installed].

**How long will it take?** The first time, it has to install tools, which takes about 10 to 20 minutes and downloads a few hundred MB to over 1 GB [to verify]. Once the tools are installed, editing a 60-second video takes a few minutes [to verify]. You don't have to watch while you wait. It stops when it needs to ask you something.

**Things that can go wrong. Just say this:**

- **The captions spell words wrong or skip punctuation:** speech-to-text tools often do this. Tell it: "Fix all the captions to match my script word for word."
- **The captions show up as boxes:** the computer is missing the font. Tell it: "The captions are boxes. Use a font that's already on my computer."
- **It says a tool won't install, or it wants your computer password:** Tell it: "Use another way that doesn't need my computer password." It will try another way to install.
- **The colors look gray or too bright:** most likely it's iPhone HDR video. Tell it: "This is HDR video from an iPhone and the colors are off. Please convert it to normal color." Remember to turn off HDR before you film next time.
- **It says you've reached your usage limit:** Pro has a usage limit every 5 hours, and video editing uses more than chatting. Come back to the same chat in a few hours and say "keep going" [to verify: about how much one 60-second video uses].

<!-- page: Be the first viewer, and ask for changes in plain words -->

**It saying "done" doesn't count. Open it yourself.** In the **My Short Videos** folder, double-click **final-v1.mp4**. Then move it to your phone (the reverse of how you moved the footage), and **watch it on your phone from start to finish**, like a stranger seeing it for the first time. Ask yourself five questions:

1. In the first second, do I know "what I get from watching"? Does the opening big text cover my face?
2. Can I read the captions on a phone? Any misheard words?
3. Was half a sentence cut off? Are there still long pauses or "um"s in the middle?
4. Is it over 60 seconds? Is the sound too quiet, or too loud and crackly?
5. Is there any family member's face, an address, or a house number in the picture?

**If something's wrong, tell it in plain words, like talking to an editor:**

```
I watched the video. Please change these things:
1. At second [which], [for example: there's still an "um" / the pause is too long / you cut off the half sentence "they're more willing to sit and listen"];
2. At second [which], the caption "[wrong word]" should be "[right word]";
3. [for example: make the opening big text a bit bigger and move it up a bit / make the captions a bit bigger / make the sound a bit louder].
When you're done, export it as "final-v2.mp4". Keep the last version, don't delete it.
```

Once all five questions pass, the video is ready to post. In Lesson 3 you'll post it on YouTube and Xiaohongshu (RedNote). One or two rounds of changes are usually enough.

**Save how you did it.** When you're happy, say one more thing: "Please write this editing request as a CLAUDE.md file in this folder." This is the folder's "job manual." Lesson 4 explains it in detail. Next time you film a new video, put it in a new folder called **Footage2**, start a new chat, and say "Edit Footage2 following CLAUDE.md." You won't need to paste the long request again.

**Stuck?** Take a screenshot, paste it in, and ask: "I'm a beginner. What should I click for this step?"