This week covers video: cutting the footage already sitting on your drive into finished ads, giving edit notes in plain English, and lifting the recipe from ads you admire. The skill plus a starter kit live here:

Hey all, and happy Friday,

As a reminder, I went to a wedding in North Carolina on Friday night. It was small, maybe 70 people, which meant real time with old friends and some great barbecue.

I got home Saturday and spent the afternoon with Maddie and James (easily the best part about a Friday wedding). After bedtime, Maddie and I caught up on TV, since I'd been gone Thursday and Friday. That meant RHSLC. Don't knock it until you've watched it. I've had a soft spot for Heather since day one. I know she's deep in a villain arc, and if I'd started the show this season, I'd hate her. But I can't shake it. I know. I know.

Sunday morning was James's third soccer lesson, and every single one so far has been in the rain. James started slow, but by the end he was ripping goals: we’d put the ball in front of him, goal, ball in front of him, goal. He did not get that from me. I like to ski and run, and my soccer résumé is one year of JV plus a club team with the housemates from senior year in college. We had two good players. I believe I played “defense.”

Sunday night our friends with the newborn came over. Maddie made panko Parmesan chicken, angel hair pesto pasta, and a salad, and it was great. A few years ago, I made this same couple a mushroom Bolognese that turned into brown slop. We called it slop before slop was a thing, and we still talk about it. It was less great.

James can now say the baby's name and both of his parents' names, which is very cute. (I don't name names in here, to protect everyone's privacy from my legions of stalkers.)

Speaking of: his new favorite game is listing everyone he knows: the three of us, family, his friends at school, his teacher, and, of course, Elmo. Also, when you say "James," he often answers "you." He thinks his name is You. We're working on it.

Monday was a no-school day, so we tag-teamed it: Maddie went in late, I finished early, and a babysitter covered the middle. James's friend came over for two and a half hours, and the babysitter watched them both. They were absolute chaos agents and destroyed everything in reach. She is a trooper.

Tonight we're seeing the new Elizabeth Holmes movie. The only showing we could make was at the AMC in Times Square, but we got good seats, and I'm stoked. Book club is tomorrow night, which means tonight, by the time you're reading this.

Every brand I work with owns the same hard drive. It holds hours of the founder talking in a car, one podcast appearance, and event footage nobody has watched twice. The files just sit there, because turning them into ads costs an editor a week.

That week now takes one night.

A protein brand handed us 47 minutes of vertical footage from their retail launch. The clips showed the founder and his team eating lunch, standing on a sidewalk, and driving between stores. Claude transcribed everything with timestamps, pulled the lines that echoed what was already winning in their account, and cut 10 ads overnight. I was offline, so the whole run finished without me.

Every ad features one person and one problem. The hook comes from their own mouth, and the food drops in on the exact word naming it. Each cut ships with captions, a product card, music under the voice, an end card carrying the live offer, both 9x16 and 4x5, and a Premiere timeline for an editor to pick up.

The first pass wasn't it. Ten fresh AI viewers screened v1 cold and gave most of the ads a 3 out of 5, since nobody could tell what was for sale until the end card. v2 pushed the product into the opening seconds.

People skip this part. Claude is exactly as smart as the folder it wakes up in.

We build every brand one folder: raw footage, the brand guide, the account's current winners, fonts, logo, and the music we have rights to. A one-page file sits at the top telling Claude where everything lives and which words the brand never uses.

From there, you just talk to it.

This part still feels like it shouldn't be allowed. Nothing gets re-exported. You type a note.

Below are my real notes on a video for a prenup brand, narrated by AI (disclosed on the ad itself). Every note triggered a re-render, not a re-shoot.

One of those notes requested Blender. Claude codes the 3D scene, renders it, and lands it on the right word. It built two for a supplement brand: blood flow, plus a declining chart.

I spotted Wispr Flow's live-demo ad and wanted the identical format for a PC gaming client. I fed the video to Claude. It broke the ad down into a recipe (each shot, the pacing, the caption treatment) and rebuilt it around a dad with one hour to himself after the kids go down.

Wispr Flow, if you haven't used it, is the dictation app I talk into all day. It's how most of my notes to Claude get written, including the rambling voice memo that became this week's preamble. I talk, it types, and it quietly deletes my ums. They're also sponsoring this issue, which makes this the most honest ad read I will ever do.

If you have paid time left on an individual Granola plan, we'll match it with a Wispr Flow subscription that includes Notetaker and dictation, and add bonus time, up to 12 months total. Sign in or create a Wispr account and submit proof of your plan to check eligibility.

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The room itself is generated with a bright magenta monitor, so Claude knows exactly where the screen is. It then composites the real game footage onto that screen in code and overlays the app's settings panel.

That same client also asked for the player convinced every game has gotten too easy.

If Claude Code is new to you, here is the path. It's the identical skill my team runs, just simplified.

Editors still polish the keepers. They just never start from zero anymore.

Have a great weekend,

Will

P.S. If you point the kit at your own footage, reply with what comes out. The best results get featured (with your permission) in a future issue.