Launch video

At the end of this page you have a launch filmA film is the mp4 file that the renderer makes from one page. of 9 to 40 s that shows a real product doing real things. Every screen in it is a capture of the real site or app, and every colour comes from the site.

You need the URL of the product and the one line the film must prove.

What this film needs

A launch film has one message. The brand-launch-from-url templateA template is a file in prompts/ for one type of film, with when to use it, the brief to fill in, a question bank and known mistakes. asks for the message in under 12 words and for 3 to 5 moments in the product worth showing. Each moment is one beatA beat is one part of the story with one idea, such as the hook, a feature or the end. with one real capture that proves it.

The length is 9 to 40 s (prompts/brand-launch-from-url.md). Under 9 s, use one continuous action instead. A complete launch film of 20 to 30 s follows one of the chains in prompts/moves/RECIPES.md (recipes 9 to 14).

The rhythm is a hook, then one move for each beat, then the name. Cuts are not all equal. The shot-length-varies rule asks for punchy beats of 0.8 to 1.5 s next to breathing beats of 2 to 3 s, and the payoff holds longest.

The one big moment is the spectacleThe spectacle is the second of the one big moment in a film, set by <meta name="spectacle" content="6.2">.. Put it where <meta name="spectacle"> says. Leave about 1.5 s of quiet before it: no sound, no travel, nothing arriving.

Steps

node scripts/brand/kit.mjs https://example.com mybrand --init

bin/vawe new mybrand-launch --from prompts/brand-launch-from-url.md --length 16 --aspect 16:9

bin/vawe shot https://example.com --tour steps.json --w 1280 --out films/mybrand-launch/assets/tour.mp4

bin/vawe dev films/mybrand-launch/page.html

Pitfalls from the taste digest

These rules from taste/build/DIGEST.md hit a launch film most.

• Show real things working (show-real-thing). A word in a box is not a beat. A feature you did not see on the site must not appear.
• Style, not content (style-not-content). Take a reference’s grammar and light, never its text, logos or photos.
• Read lines (readable-hold). Cap height is 6 percent of the frame or more. Kinetic type gives the hold times.
• Exits are faster than entrances (exits-shorter). Exit on EASE.launch.
• No tells (no-tells). No gradient text, glow on UI, bursts or RGB split unless the brief asks.
• The logo is prominent early and late, not only on the last beat (logo-prominence: at least 5 percent of the frame height).
• End on motion (moving-tail). The last second keeps one part moving, such as a caret.

A capture scaled below 0.6 loses its type, so crop it instead. A brand accent on a dark surface can fail contrast: the kit says which pair to use.

Common mistakes

What to read next

For the same page in other shapes, see Vertical social, UI demo and Logo sting.

From the blogProduct launch video generator from a website URL