Video Craft

video-craft

The difference between a video that merely renders and one that's actually good. Apply these standards while scripting, storyboarding, composing, generating, and editing — and run the self-check before publishing. These are general production-craft norms; the exact numbers are starting points, adjust to the brief.

For reference-led local work, read reference-led reconstruction. For product listing or sales creative, also read ecommerce videos. Apply the production-method boundary from video-router first: one direct model video skips local creative/mastering review, while any local caption, overlay, audio, join, deterministic edit, or HTML layer receives the applicable review below.

1. The opening (hook)

• The first 1–3 seconds decide whether anyone keeps watching. Frame 1 must already carry motion or a text hook — no blank intro, no logo sting, no slow build.
• Strong hook shapes: a sharp question, a counter-intuitive claim, the promised outcome ("by the end you'll…"), the stakes, or showing the finished result first ("here's what we'll build").
• On muted autoplay the on-screen text is the hook — assume no sound for the first beat.
• Weak → strong: ✗ "In this video we'll look at caching." (slow build, no stakes) → ✓ frame 1, bold on-screen text "Your API is slow. One line fixes it." (stakes + promised outcome, readable muted).

2. Story structure

• Arc: hook → tension/gap → core idea(s) → proof/example → payoff/close (+ optional CTA). Land the first real payoff early; viewers drop off fast before they get value.
• One new idea per ~30–45 s of explainer. A 3-min video carries 4–6 ideas, no more. Cut "interesting but irrelevant" — it actively lowers comprehension.
• Connect beats with "but" / "therefore", not "and then" — force logical (not just sequential) progression.
• For teaching: show the naive idea, let it half-work, then break it and introduce the one key insight — people remember what they feel they discovered. Surfacing a common misconception first, then correcting it, beats stating the right answer cold.
• Narration cadence: explainer ~150–160 wpm, social/short ~180–200 wpm, cinematic ~140–150 wpm. Leave a 1–3 s silence after a big reveal; avoid dead air > ~1.5 s between sentences.

3. Pacing & timing

• Shot/scene holds by format: explainer ~4–8 s, short-form social ~1–3 s, cinematic/contemplative ~10–20 s. Don't hold the same length three times running — vary it.
• Cutting energy: rapid (15–30 cuts/min) = urgency; moderate (8–15) = standard teaching; slow (3–6) = documentary calm.
• A visual or audio pattern interrupt every ~20–30 s (short-form) / ~45–90 s (long-form) to re-grab attention.
• Completion drops with length (15 s clips finish far more often than 60 s) — keep it as short as the message allows; don't pad.
• Build animation timing to the narration words, not arbitrary beats. Hold a fully-built scene/chart ≥ 2–3 s before moving on.

4. Visual design

• Composition: rule-of-thirds for key elements; center for stable establishing frames. One clear focal point per frame.
• Palette: ≤ 3–5 colors on screen at once. Background is the least-saturated; foreground (largest, most saturated, central) reads first.
• Typography: 1–2 font families total. At 1080p, titles ~60–90 px, body ~40–60 px, never below ~40 px; title at least ~50% larger than body. Max ~2 lines, ~32–42 chars/line.
• Safe zones: keep text inside ~80% of the frame (~192 px margin at 1080p). For vertical, keep essential content out of the bottom ~300 px (platform UI sits there) and away from the very top.
• Contrast ≥ 4.5:1 for any text (white-on-dark is safest). Use brightness/saturation, not red-green, to distinguish elements.
• Consistency is a feeling of quality: one color grade/LUT, one type system, 2–3 transition types — for the whole video.

5. Motion & animation

• Never linear easing — it reads robotic. Default ease-in-out for moves, ease-out for entrances (settle in), ease-in for exits (accelerate away). Vary easing; don't repeat one three times.
• Restraint: one main element moves at a time; stagger multi-element reveals by ~100–200 ms. A "static" shot means truly zero motion/zoom — if it moves, name the move.
• Weak → strong: ✗ four cards fly in together, linear, all 0.3 s → ✓ stagger them ~120 ms, ease-out, each settling before the next starts (one focal point at a time).
• Entrances ~0.3–0.5 s then hold for readable dwell; exits ~0.5–1 s. Optional small overshoot (~10–15%, settle in a few frames) adds life for playful pieces.
• Kinetic type: reveal text to a readable dwell (~3 s per ~60 chars); word-by-word reveal synced to narration boosts attention.
• Transitions carry meaning: hard cut = same topic/new angle (most invisible, most professional); crossfade = gentle topic change; wipe/slide = sequential steps; zoom in/out = into detail / out to context. Pick a small set and keep them consistent.

6. Captions / on-screen text

• Most social viewing is muted — captions are mandatory and are part of the pacing, not an afterthought.
• Bold sans-serif, ≥ ~42 px, ≤ ~2 lines, ≤ ~32–42 chars/line, with a dark stroke or semi-opaque backing for legibility on any footage.
• Don't scroll text off before it can be read (~3 s per ~60 chars). Word-by-word highlighting in sync with the voice reads best.
• Lower-thirds: speaker name bold + role lighter; enter ~1–2 s, hold a few seconds, exit fast; never cover eyes/mouth.
• Don't make the viewer read on-screen text AND listen to different words at once.

7. Audio

• Pick music by energy: calm ~60–80 BPM, standard explainer ~90–110, upbeat ~110–130, high-energy ~120–140+. Use instrumental under narration (lyrics fight the voice); avoid big crescendos that bury speech.
• Levels: narration peaks loudest; duck music ~18–20 dB below speech; SFX between. Master around −14 LUFS, true-peak ≤ ~−1 dB; never clip 0 dB.
• SFX land ~10–20 ms before the visual change they accent (ears lead eyes). Keep stacked SFX in different frequency bands.
• Silence is a tool — drop music for a few seconds at a major reveal; let the moment land.

8. Platform & format

• Aspect: 9:16 (TikTok/Reels/Shorts), 16:9 (YouTube/web), 1:1 when speaker+context both matter, cinematic letterbox only when the look serves it. Don't center-crop a wide shot and call it vertical — reframe properly or downgrade to 1:1 honestly.
• Get past the 3-second threshold: hook in frame 1, change something every 1–3 s in short-form, captions always.
• The first frame is the thumbnail/promise—design it deliberately as a cover, not an accidental pre-animation state. It needs a readable promise plus concrete signals of the actual subject/result; match what the video delivers and pay it off quickly.
• Match length to platform norms; the algorithm rewards watch-time/completion, not raw length.