Commercial video prompt pack
The three prompts I use for product work — the hero shot, the product in use, and the texture b-roll — with the notes on why each one is built the way it is. Print it, keep it beside the brief.
Download PDFLearner downloads
The packs I hand out in class
Two printable prompt packs — one for commercial product work, one for UGC — and every prompt as a plain text file. Free to download and keep: copy them, use them on a client job, teach with them. Each prompt comes with a note on why it is built the way it is.
Handouts · PDF
Start with these
Printable sheets I hand out on the first day. Yours to keep, reprint and pass on to your own students.
UGC video prompt pack
The three prompts I use for UGC — the three-second hook, the talking review, and the unboxing — plus the rules that keep creator footage reading as a person rather than an advert.
Download PDF6 prompts
The prompt library
Each prompt is a download, not a wall of text — take the ones you need.
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Commercial Download .txt
Commercial — the hero shot
A pack shot lives or dies on the label being legible and identical to the real product. Naming Image 1 as the pack shot — rather than as inspiration — is the only thing that stops the model inventing its own typeface, and the typeface is the brand.
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Commercial Download .txt
Commercial — product in use
In-use footage is where continuity breaks: the label changes shape, the sleeve colour shifts, a second hand appears. Pinning the talent sheet as Image 2 and naming it as a lock is what keeps one take looking like one take.
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Commercial Download .txt
Commercial — texture b-roll
B-roll is what makes a fifteen-second commercial feel like a thirty-second one. Asking for six discrete shots that cut on motion gives an editor something to build a cut from, instead of one long clip they have to chop up themselves.
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UGC Download .txt
UGC — the first three seconds
UGC fails in the first second far more often than in the last. Starting mid-sentence and banning the smile-to-camera is what stops it looking like an advert pretending to be a person.
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UGC Download .txt
UGC — the talking review
The uncut take is the credibility. Every jump cut is a place where a viewer decides this was edited by a brand, and the moment they decide that, the review stops working as a review.
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UGC Download .txt
UGC — unboxing and first use
Unboxing is the cheapest UGC format to shoot and the easiest to fake badly. Naming the packaging as a lock is what keeps it honest, and the one-cut-on-first-sight rule gives the edit a real beat to land on.
Download both packs (.zip)
Or take the printable version, with the notes beside every prompt.
How to use them
The four rules behind all of them
01
Point at the attachment
Open by naming what is attached and in what order. A reference that isn't addressed by position is treated as loose inspiration, not a lock.
02
Name what can't change
Faces, wardrobe, colour, materials. Say it plainly, once, and repeat it in every shot of the project.
03
One thing per paragraph
The frame, then the motion, then the sound. Tangled into one paragraph, a model will trade one off against the others.
04
Keep a negative sheet
One running list of your recurring failures, pasted in unchanged. Your mistakes stop repeating.
Work on your own shots
Bring me a story, a product, or a team
The downloads are the theory. The courses are where you use it on your own shots and get told honestly what isn't working.