Launch Video & Visuals

This skill covers the creation of visual and video assets for product launches. These are the highest-impact assets you'll create — a great demo video or GIF stops the scroll, communicates value faster than words, and gets shared. A bad one can actively undermine the launch by making the product look confusing or unpolished.

The media hierarchy

For most launches, the decision of what to create follows this order:

1. Demo video — Shows the product in action with context. Best for explaining how something works.
2. Animated GIF or screen recording loop — Shorter, auto-plays inline on social. Best for showing a specific interaction.
3. Annotated screenshot — Static, fast to produce, good for showing a specific state or feature.
4. Diagram or illustration — For architecture, concepts, or things that can't be screenshotted.

In general: use video when the flow matters, GIF when a single interaction communicates the value, and screenshots when one specific state is the point.

Demo video

Length by platform

The platform hard limits aren't just technical — engagement drops sharply beyond them. A 4-minute PH video is effectively no video.

Script structure (for short-form demo)

Keep this to 5-7 beats:

1. Problem (5-10 seconds) — State the problem being solved. One sentence. Not a long setup.
2. Introduce the solution (5-10 seconds) — Name the product and the core value prop.
3. Demo: happy path (30-60 seconds) — Show the primary use case working end-to-end. This is the heart of the video.
4. Key capabilities (10-20 seconds) — 2-3 quick cuts showing secondary features. Keep it fast.
5. Proof point (5-10 seconds) — A metric, customer quote, or benchmark. One slide or voiceover line.
6. CTA (5 seconds) — One action. "Try it free at [URL]" or "Sign up at [URL]."

Avoid: long intros, animated logos (audiences click away), slow product startup screens, and anything that doesn't show the product doing something.

Recording tips

• Use a demo environment, not production. Clean data, no embarrassing customer info, reliable state.
• Slow down deliberate interactions. People follow cursor movements better when you move intentionally, not at normal working speed.
• Record at 2x your target resolution. Record at 2880×1800 or 1440×900 (Retina), then downscale for delivery. This gives you zoom room and looks sharper.
• Hide everything extraneous. Close Slack notifications, hide browser bookmarks bar, use a clean browser profile. Distractions in the recording erode trust.
• Capture more than you'll use. Record full workflows and cut in post. It's faster than re-recording because you missed a beat.

Voiceover vs. silent

Both work. The choice depends on context:

• Voiceover: Warmer, more explanatory, works better on YouTube and landing pages. Requires a clean recording environment and good audio quality. Bad audio is worse than no audio.
• Silent with text overlays: Works better on autoplay-with-mute contexts (social feeds). Faster to produce. Requires clear on-screen labels.

If you're unsure: record the demo silently, add text overlays for key moments, then decide whether to add voiceover based on the platform.

Tooling

• Screen recording: Loom (quick), Screen Studio (polished output, good for marketing), QuickTime (raw), OBS (full control)
• Video editing: CapCut (fast, easy), DaVinci Resolve (professional, free), Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere
• Motion design / logo animations: After Effects, Motion (Mac), Jitter (web-based)
• Captions/subtitles: Descript (also good for editing by transcript), Captions app, Rev
• Programmatic video: Remotion (React-based — see section below)

Programmatic video with Remotion

For teams that ship fast and don't want to wait on a motion designer for every launch, programmatic video lets you write React components and render them as MP4 files. The video is code: version-controlled, parametrized, and iteratable without a timeline editor.

When to use programmatic video

Works well for:

• Launch announcement clips (15-45 seconds) for social media
• Product walkthrough videos showing UI in action
• Feature highlight reels with text overlays and screenshots
• Data-driven videos (benchmark comparisons, growth metrics)
• Templated videos you'll reuse across launches (just swap content)

Less suited for:

• Cinematic brand videos requiring complex motion design
• Founder narrative videos with live footage
• Videos that need extensive custom illustration or 3D

For major Tier 1 launches, you might combine approaches: programmatic video for social clips and a professional motion designer for the hero video.

Remotion setup

npx create-video@latest my-launch-video
cd my-launch-video
npm start  # Opens Remotion Studio for preview

Key concepts:

• Composition: A video is a React component with a defined duration (in frames) and framerate
• useCurrentFrame(): Hook that returns the current frame number — use it to drive animations
• Sequence: Component that offsets its children in time — use it to sequence scenes
• spring(): Animation utility for natural-feeling motion (ease-in/out)
• Assets: Images, screenshots, and audio go in the public/ folder

Scene planning template

Before writing code, plan the video scene by scene:

Code patterns

Sequenced scenes:

<Sequence from={0} durationInFrames={90}>
  <HookScene />
</Sequence>
<Sequence from={90} durationInFrames={120}>
  <DemoScene />
</Sequence>
<Sequence from={210} durationInFrames={90}>
  <CTAScene />
</Sequence>

Text reveal:

const frame = useCurrentFrame();
const opacity = interpolate(frame, [0, 20], [0, 1], {
  extrapolateRight: 'clamp',
});

return <h1 style={{ opacity }}>Your primary value prop here</h1>;

Iteration workflow

1. Plan scenes using the template above
2. Collect assets — screenshots, logos, product images → public/ folder
3. Write or prompt the first draft — get the structure and content right
4. Preview in Studio — watch it through, note timing and visual issues
5. Iterate — adjust timing, animation, and content. Usually takes 2-4 rounds
6. Render — npx remotion render src/index.ts MyComposition out/video.mp4
7. Check platform specs — verify resolution and file size work for your target platform

GIFs and short loops

GIFs auto-play on most platforms and are ideal for showing a single interaction — a UI state change, a CLI command output, an API response. They're faster to produce than video and often more effective for social posts.

When to use GIF vs. video

Use GIF when:

• The entire value can be communicated in 3-8 seconds
• You're showing a single UI interaction, not a workflow
• The asset will be embedded in a tweet or README where video playback is less reliable

Use video when:

• The value requires context (problem → solution)
• The interaction takes more than 8 seconds to demonstrate
• You need audio

Recording GIFs

• Capture at 2x, downscale to target resolution
• Keep under 5MB for web performance (use palette reduction or fewer frames)
• Loop seamlessly — the start and end state should match so the loop doesn't jar
• Tool options: CleanShot X (recommended for Mac), Kap, Giphy Capture, Gifski (for converting video clips)

Optimizing GIF file size

• Reduce color palette (256 → 128 or 64 colors for many UI recordings)
• Drop frames (30fps → 15fps is rarely noticeable in UI recordings)
• Crop aggressively — show only what's changing, not the whole screen
• Convert to MP4 with autoplay/loop instead of GIF when the platform supports it (MP4 is ~10x smaller than equivalent GIF)

Screenshots

Screenshots are underused in launches. A well-composed screenshot with clear annotation communicates a feature faster than a paragraph.

Composition

• Show the product in a meaningful state — not an empty screen, not a loading state, not a screen full of dummy data that makes features hard to see
• Use a clean environment — browser without tabs, dark or light mode consistently applied, no personal data visible
• Highlight the relevant area — callout boxes, arrows, or highlights direct attention to what matters

Annotation tools

• CleanShot X (Mac) — captures, annotates, and exports in one flow
• Skitch — simple annotations
• Figma / Sketch — for more polished product shots with custom styling

Browser framing

For web products, use a browser frame to make screenshots look intentional rather than raw. Tools like Screely, Browserframe, or custom Figma templates add a browser chrome overlay.

Multiple screenshots for feature grids

Landing pages and Product Hunt galleries often need 3-5 screenshots showing different aspects of the product. Plan these as a set:

• Each screenshot shows a distinct capability
• Consistent visual treatment (same zoom level, same browser theme, same annotation style)
• Tell a progression: entry → key action → result

Asset checklist by tier

Tier 1

• Demo video (60-90 seconds, suitable for PH and landing page)
• Short social cut (30-45 seconds from the same recording)
• 3-5 annotated screenshots for landing page and PH gallery
• 1-2 GIFs for social posts (showing key interactions)
• Open Graph image for blog post and social link previews

Tier 2

• 1-2 GIFs or short screen recording
• 2-3 screenshots for landing page section
• Open Graph image

Tier 3

• 1 screenshot
• Optional: short GIF if the change is visual

Open Graph images

Every piece of content that gets shared as a link (blog post, landing page, changelog entry) should have a custom Open Graph (OG) image. The OG image is what appears when the link is pasted into Twitter, Slack, iMessage, or LinkedIn.

• Size: 1200×630px
• Content: Product name + primary value prop. Treat it like a billboard — readable at small size
• Consistency: Use a template so all your launch content has a cohesive look
• Tools: Figma template, Vercel OG (code-generated), Bannerbear (automated)

Video specs by platform

Companion skills

• launch-strategy — determines which assets are needed for the launch tier
• launch-tweet — the GIFs and videos go in the tweet (attached, not linked)
• launch-landing-page — the demo video and screenshots go on the page
• launch-distribution — per-platform format requirements