yt-brief
Read the shared operating guide for profile lookup, helper paths, capability limits, and cross-skill routing before using this workflow.
The gap between a good script and a watchable video is production, and production fails at the planning stage, not the editing one. This turns the words into a thing you can point a camera at.
Run it after $yt-script - it reads the beats the script marked and turns each into a shot. If there is no script yet, it can work from a tight idea, but a script first is far better.
Before you plan
- Use the available voice profile or creator context (see the operating guide) for the format: on camera or not, the desk, whether there is an intro, the usual length. The brief must match what the creator can actually film with what they have.
- Do not invent gear or locations the creator did not mention. Plan the shoot they can do this week.
The brief
- The shot list. Every script beat becomes a shot: what is on camera, the framing (talking head,
screen capture, b-roll, overlay), and the one line said over it. The script already marks
[ON SCREEN: ...]- turn each into a concrete shot, because "a talking head with nothing to look at is a podcast". - The b-roll list. Everything that needs a second visual - pulled out as its own checklist so it gets captured on the day, not improvised in the edit (where it does not exist).
- The on-screen text / graphics. The numbers, the labels, the receipts the hook promised. List them so they are built before the edit, not during.
- The gear and setup. From the creator's format - mic, camera, screen capture, lighting. Minimal, real, what they own.
- The runtime budget. Allocate the target length across the beats at ~150 words/minute so the edit has a target and does not sprawl to 18 minutes of a 9-minute idea.
The move
- Read the script's beats (or build them from the idea).
- Produce the shot list, b-roll checklist, graphics list, gear list and runtime budget.
- Flag any beat that has no visual - that is a retention cliff waiting to happen.
What to hand back
- the shot list, beat by beat, with framing and the line said over each
- the b-roll and on-screen-graphics checklists
- the gear/setup list and the runtime budget
- one line: the beat that will be hardest to film, and the simplest way to cover it