Video was the job I kept putting off.
Filming wasn't the problem. I can talk to my phone for a minute. It was everything after. Cutting the ums and the long pauses, adding captions, writing a caption for each platform, then posting it to Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and TikTok one by one. That's a couple of hours for a 40 second video, and I'd rather spend those hours with my kids.
Now I film one take, drop it in a folder, and type one command.
What happens when I run it
- It cuts the take. Pauses, false starts and the bit where the dog walks into shot come out. I can speed it up a touch if I've been slow.
- It adds captions. Word by word, timed to what I'm saying, in my brand colours and fonts.
- It adds the extras. A hook on screen in the first second, the odd GIF or screen recording, and an end card telling people what to comment.
- It checks its own work. Is my face covered by Instagram's buttons? Is the sound too loud? Anything that fails gets fixed before I see it.
- It writes the captions. One per platform, in my voice, into a Google Doc so I can read and tweak them.
- It schedules everything. When I say go, the reel goes to all four platforms at 7pm NZ time.
My job is to film, read the doc, and say go.
It did not work first time
I want to be straight about this, because a lot of AI content makes it look like you type one sentence and it's done.
The first version took weeks to get right. Videos uploaded without the video attached. Instagram rejected posts because I had too many hashtags (it's five, if you're wondering). Fonts flickered in the captions. Each time something broke, I told Claude what happened, it found the cause, and we fixed it for good. Then I wrote down what we'd learned so the next session didn't start from scratch.
That last part matters more than anything. Claude doesn't remember yesterday unless you give it notes. Mine live in a folder, and every session starts by reading them.
Was it worth it?
The first reel I made this way, "One command edits my reels", got 1,857 views in the first 24 hours. My previous best was 721. It's now past 10,000. People wanted to see the thing being built, not hear me talk about it.
More useful than the views: I post consistently now. When editing takes five minutes instead of two hours, it actually gets done.
Where to start if you want this
You don't need the whole thing on day one. I'd start with the part that eats the most of your time. For me it was editing. For you it might be captions, or posting to four places.
Pick one step, get Claude to do that step well, and write down what works. Then add the next one.
If you'd like help working out which step to start with, book a chat with me.