comment-bait-reel

A lead-magnet reel that converts a scroll into a comment, then a comment into a DM. The on-screen video is only half the system — the other half is the keyword funnel that delivers the promised links.

The format (decoded from the viral reference)

[B-ROLL + POV caption]  →  [BLACK + "Watch this" + real YouTube card]   ×3
                                                                         ↓
                              [CTA: Comment "KEYWORD" / it's free]

• Each beat is short: b-roll ~1.6–1.8s, card ~2.0s, CTA ~3.3s. Total ~14s.
• B-roll = the creator (face/desk), graded, with a top dark bar + white

"POV: you want X" caption. First b-roll is the HOOK — highest-stakes line, most cinematic frame. The hook frame decides reach; spend the most effort here.

• Card = pure black, big "Watch this", a real YouTube thumbnail framed white,

real title + real channel name. NO invented stats (see hard rules).

• CTA = black, "Comment \"KEYWORD\"" + a punchy 2-word promise ("It's free") +

one subline + a pulsing "comment below" nudge near the bottom.

• Cuts are hard, each segment opens with a 0.07s white flash (flash-cut) and

cards get a slow zoom-in. That reads as "transitions" without fragile xfades.

Inputs you need before building

1. Creator clips — 1–2 clean, caption-free vertical windows of the creator

(a tight intense close-up = best hook; a talking-head or desk shot = body). Probe with cropdetect (see gotchas) to find caption-free seconds. Letter- boxed clips with burned captions: crop the clean video band and blur-fill.

1. 3 real YouTube tutorials on the topic — get real video_ids (research

agent). Thumbnail = https://i.ytimg.com/vi/<id>/maxresdefault.jpg (fallback hqdefault.jpg). VERIFY each id resolves and the thumb downloads (>3KB). Reject dead/private/tiny.

1. Keyword + lead magnet — the exact comment word (keep it the topic, e.g.

CLAUDE) and what gets DM'd. Wire the DM via ManyChat keyword or GHL.

Build

The engine is assets/build.template.sh. Copy it into a working dir next to the source clips, edit the 3 b-roll blocks (clip path + -ss/-t + POV text), the 3 make_card lines (thumb + title + channel), and the CTA keyword. Then:

bash build.sh        # writes reel.mp4, regenerates everything idempotently

It builds 7 segments → concats with the concat demuxer (stream-copy, instant). Output is silent by design — add trending platform audio at upload (boosts reach + you avoid shipping unlicensed music).

HARD RULES (learned the hard way)

• No fake stats. Do NOT put invented view counts / "X weeks ago" / durations

on the cards. The videos are real but the numbers aren't — fabricating stats about real third-party channels is a no-fake-claims violation AND collapses credibility the moment a viewer clicks through. Card = real title + real channel name only. (This was the #1 critic ship-blocker.)

• Hook is the whole ballgame. A bright low-effort selfie as frame 1 = scrolled.

Lead with the most cinematic/intense creator frame + a high-stakes caption ("POV: you're scared AI will replace you" > "POV: you want to learn X").

• Keyword = the topic. The comment word should match what's delivered

(CLAUDE for Claude links). One unambiguous word.

• Real thumbnails > designed cards. Real recs look like genuine tips. Verify

each thumbnail visually before building (Read the jpg).

• Creator continuity. Carry at least the first two b-roll beats with the

actual creator, not a stranger/stock — continuity sells the "I'll send you MY list" promise.

ffmpeg gotchas on Windows (gyan build)

• Font path colon breaks the filtergraph. C\:/Windows/Fonts/... does NOT

escape on this build, and fontconfig has no default config. FIX: copy the TTFs to a relative, colon-free dir (fonts/arialbd.ttf) and reference that. assets/fonts/ ships arial / arialbd / ariblk.

• Colons inside `text=` break parsing even when single-quoted. "POV:" / clock

values die. FIX: escape the colon as \: inside the text value.

• `zoompan` `d` is frames-PER-input-frame. Feeding a looped image with -t 2

(=60 input frames) × d=60 = 3600 frames = a 2-MINUTE clip. FIX: feed ONE frame (-loop 1 ... -frames:v 60) and let d=60 generate the 2s.

• concat demuxer paths are relative to the list file. If list.txt lives in

segments/, entries must be s1.mp4, NOT segments/s1.mp4.

• Always pass `-y` (engine bakes it into $ENC + does a clean rm first) or

ffmpeg blocks on the overwrite prompt in non-interactive shells.

• Find the clean video band in a caption-burned letterboxed clip:

ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -vf cropdetect=20:2:0 -f null - (run at default loglevel — -v error HIDES cropdetect output). Note: burned caption text counts as content, so the reported top edge includes the caption; the clean video is the lower sub-band — eyeball a frame to split them, then blur-fill the band.

Ship checklist

1. Build → extract a frame per beat → Read them (visual QA).
2. Independent critic pass (no self-grading): hook strength, card realism,

caption legibility, CTA pull, topic coherence, no-fake-claims. Threshold 80.

1. Wire the keyword funnel (ManyChat/GHL) BEFORE posting — the DM must fire.
2. Post silent; add trending audio in-app. Pin a first comment with the keyword.