CampusAI-app/campusai-video-kit

Making CampusAI videos

This is how the CampusAI team makes video with Claude. It is the method behind every film we have signed off, written down so you do not have to rediscover it. Most of the numbers in here were measured off real renders, and most of the rules exist because something broke first.

The four ideas everything else follows from

1. Idea, flow, point, then build. The idea first. Then the flow: how the video moves and what each part is hitting. Then the point: what the viewer should take away and the call to action. Only then make it, and then get feedback on it. Agree each of the first three before moving on, because changing a plan costs minutes and changing a finished video costs days. Full process: reference/01-the-process.md.

2. The product on screen is always the real product. Footage and screenshots come from the CampusAI demo, never from a mockup somebody drew. A made-up screen does not just look worse, it makes the video unpostable, because it shows a product we do not have. Redrawing a real screen from real captures and real copy is fine. Inventing a screen or inventing content is not. Where to get the real thing: reference/02-the-real-product.md.

3. Borrow over build. For most of the work, someone has already made the part, the template, the tool or the technique, often better than we would and for free. Find it and use it before making anything. Building from scratch is the exception, kept for adapting what you borrowed to CampusAI (our colours, our timing, our copy) or for the rare thing nobody has made. Where to look and how to judge it: reference/08-tools-and-parts.md and reference/11-getting-better.md.

The same goes for a film itself: it is assembled, not authored. A good film is several sources brought together, never one stretched. Motion comes from templates (Raylight's measured beat sheets). Words, structure and colour come from the product itself. How it really reads comes from captures of the live demo. The build tool (Raylight or Remotion) is where they meet, and where every beat gets looked at. Templates alone give beautiful motion around invented content. The product alone gives an accurate, flat recording. The value is in the seam. Never start a film by designing a screen.

4. Every video makes the next one better. Before a video, read the learning/ folder in the workspace: Jacob's taste, past lessons, every video made so far, and the tools already found. After each round of feedback, write down what was learned. When a lesson repeats, move it into this skill. And when you hit a cost, a limit, or are about to build something from scratch, look for a better or free option first, record what you find either way, and bring it to Jacob. How: reference/11-getting-better.md.

Which tool for which job

You are making	Reach for	Why
A product video, social cut, launch teaser, anything with camera moves and polish	Raylight	Visual editor with a connector Claude can drive. Template craft comes built in. Start here.
A film that needs exact control, many aspect ratios from one script, streaming text, data-driven beats, a loop	Remotion (the studio/ folder)	Code, so one script renders 4:5, 9:16 and 16:9, and every frame renders headlessly so it can be checked
A quick reference for timing, easing, camera	learning/raylight-guide/ in the workspace	Raylight's own craft rules and template beat sheets, fetched once and saved so they cost nothing to reread
Naming an effect you can describe but cannot name	the animation-vocabulary skill	Turns "the bouncy thing" into the word you can ask for
The hook and the first two seconds	the hook-retention-psychology skill	Scores an opening on the real levers of attention

Raylight and Remotion are not rivals. Raylight's numbers are the spec for Remotion work too: read the beat sheet, then implement it in code. Details: reference/03-raylight.md and reference/06-the-remotion-studio.md.

Where everything lives

• reference/01-the-process.md the plan-first sequence and what gets brought back when
• reference/02-the-real-product.md the demo, what is on each page, recording with Cap, the capture script, facts that are easy to get wrong
• reference/03-raylight.md setup, the free-tier budget, the working loop, templates, the craft guide
• reference/04-the-grammar.md beats, transitions, the four ways text moves, the copy
• reference/05-the-look.md palette, ground, grade, camera, easings
• reference/06-the-remotion-studio.md the studio template, its films, commands, export, render rules
• reference/07-captions-sound-voice.md word-timed captions, sound effects, voiceover and what can ship
• reference/08-tools-and-parts.md every connector and skill in this kit, GitHub as the parts shelf, licences
• reference/09-before-its-finished.md the checks before anything is called done
• reference/10-campusai.md what CampusAI is, who it is for, how it talks, and the lines that do not move
• reference/11-getting-better.md looking for better tools, and learning from every video

Read 01, 02, 10 and 11 before the first video, and the learning/ folder before every video. Read the rest when the work reaches them.

The lines that do not move

Short on purpose. Everything else in this skill is judgement.

• No em dashes in any on-screen text, caption or script. Rewrite the sentence.
• No monospace type. Inter Tight for display, Inter for everything else.
• No all-caps, wide-letter-spaced labels above headlines.
• The logo is the placed file (studio/public/brand/), never typed out.
• Never invent a number, a user count, a testimonial or a student. If a slot wants a number we do not have, the slot is wrong.
• Every screenshot and recording comes from the demo, https://campusai-demo.vercel.app (or https://campusai-stage.vercel.app, the same build). It runs on a made-up student. Never film a real student's account.
• Captions sit in a band below the product, never on top of live UI.
• Everything public is cleared by Jacob before it posts.