Working in it

A thirty-second ad, end to end

Script, voice, clips and a cut, in one sitting, with every step yours to change.

What it costs

526 credits

Your time

1.3 hr

Rendering

17 min

You end up with

12 pieces

In this order

7 steps, and none of them is “have a think”.

1. 01

   Write the thirty seconds before you render anything

   Thirty seconds is about seventy-five words. Write them first and the whole rest of the lesson is cheap; render first and you will pay twice for every change of mind.

   15 min of yoursnothing rendered

   Open the room for this step
2. 02

   Read it aloud in a voice that is yours

   Pick or build the narrator, then have it read the script. Hearing it is the fastest edit you will make -- a line that reads fine and sounds wrong is a line you rewrite now rather than after six clips exist.

   6 min of yours2 × thirty seconds of narration

   Open the room for this step
3. 03

   Shoot it shot by shot

   Six five-second shots, each one named out of the script you already wrote. Set How well to Quick on every one of them, film, and look at the order before you spend anything on quality.

   20 min of yours6 × five seconds of video

   Open the room for this step
4. 04

   Re-shoot only the three that carry it

   An ad is carried by its open, its product moment and its last frame. Set those three to Good and film again -- nothing is retyped and the other three are left where they are. The rest were fine.

   4 min of yours3 × five seconds of video

   Open the room for this step
5. 05

   Write the bed

   A minute of music to your brief -- the tempo, the instrument, what it must not do. Written here rather than in the cutting room, because the cutting room lays music in and does not make it.

   4 min of yours1 × a minute of music

   Open the room for this step
6. 06

   Cut it to the voice

   Lay the voice down first and cut the picture to it, not the other way round, with the bed underneath where it does not fight the read. Nothing is generated here, so the afternoon you spend on the timing is free.

   18 min of yoursnothing rendered

   Open the room for this step
7. 07

   Put the type and the price on

   Lower thirds, the price, the end card. Free to change as many times as you like, which is why it goes last.

   10 min of yoursnothing rendered

   Open the room for this step

Why it is done in this order

The same ad, 28% cheaper.

You will take the same number of goes at it whichever way you work — nobody gets it right first time. The only question is which lane those goes run in, and the order below is the answer.

201 credits back, every single time, for the same finished thing. Over a month that is the difference below — and it is the reason the steps are in the order they are in rather than a matter of taste.

The bill

How many times each plan pays for this.

One run of this lesson costs 526 credits. Divided into each plan’s monthly allowance, that is how many goes you get — which is the number worth knowing before you pick a tier, and the one nobody prints.

Priced from thirty seconds of narration (a natural read), five seconds of video (quick lane), five seconds of video (the good lane), a minute of music (written to your brief) — the same published prices the pricing page quotes, added up rather than estimated.