One shoot day. A week of content. Both your own faces on it.
This is the whole plan for turning one recording session into a week of Reels and Stories — script prompts, technical setup, what to actually say, and the rules that keep it on-brand. Read this once before you press record.
The point of this session
Everything before this — Reel Engine, the demo ad, the 2-second diagnosis — was faceless or AI-cast. This strand isn't. It's you two, on camera, being yourselves: two Scouse brothers, naturally bubbly, a bit daft with each other, trying to help as many Liverpool businesses as you can. The personality is the content. The product and the client proof get threaded through it.
Bite the bullet
Get comfortable on camera. Introduce yourselves properly, say why you do this, let your own personalities carry it. No tricks, no engineered hooks — just be genuine. Everything else builds on this.
Add the viral-hook layer
Once you're comfortable on IG, start layering in hook-engineered reels. We measured why the last batch stalled at ~2 seconds: the payoff landed at 12–14s into a 15s clip. That's a hook problem. The rule: first 1–2 seconds is a bold, specific claim — ≤8 words, a number or price or time in it. Skip "so today I wanted to talk about…" and start on the payoff instead. Not for shoot day one — once the personality content has a base.
On camera: the direction
Energy: bubbly, light-hearted, quick — how you two actually talk to each other.
Register: Scouse warmth, not the dialect turned up for effect. Talk like you're talking to a mate who runs a shop down the road, not doing an accent for the camera. Same correction the outreach copy already runs on.
What never changes: British throughout — it's actually you, so the American-accent UGC playbook doesn't apply. Never say "AFLAI" on camera, it's internal only — say "us" or "afullerlifeai." No "voice call" or phone-system framing (PHMG restriction — chat, WhatsApp, web and forms are all fine).
Technical setup — keep it simple
- Phone on the tripod, vertical. You've got a proper camera too — use the phone for anything that needs to look self-shot and authentic (most of this), save the camera for B-roll where a bit more polish helps.
- Face a window. Natural light, soft, in front of you not behind you. If the desk setup from the LinkedIn headshot photo is still up, that's a good starting point — recognisable, on-brand, real.
- Quiet room, phone mic is fine. This is meant to sound self-recorded — that's not a compromise, it's the format.
- 2–3 takes of every scripted bit. Doesn't need to be perfect — natural energy beats a clean read — but give me options to cut between.
- Shoot Block A (talking-head) first while the light and setup are dialled in, then move to demos, proof, and B-roll once you're loose and warmed up.
- Over-shoot B-roll. It costs nothing extra and it's the thing that makes four talking-head pieces look like fourteen different reels once it's cut in.
The long-term goal is being the go-to AI partner for Liverpool businesses across every trade, not just one vertical. Say "Liverpool" out loud where it's natural — mention streets, areas, the fact you're both from here. It's not a gimmick, it's genuinely where you're starting.
Already learned this the hard way on the POV trades reels: a dramatised character claiming a result reads like a fake review. You're the founders, not pretending to be customers — lean into "we built this," never invent a client's reaction for them. Client proof (Calderstones, SMF, Hawarden, Root 69…) stays screen-recorded fact.
The bits that separate a clip from a creator
Neither of you has done this before, so here's everything a working creator does without thinking about it — camera angles, cut rhythm, sound, the small production tells, and the posting mechanics that actually move the algorithm. Skim this once, then it just becomes muscle memory.
Camera angles — mix these across the session
Don't shoot the whole thing from one spot on the tripod. The angle itself is part of the storytelling, and cutting between angles is what makes a talking-head video feel edited rather than recorded.
The Confident Default
Phone at chest-to-chin height, tilted slightly up at your face. Eye-level or just below feels warm and confident. Prop it too high and you're looking down into the lens, which comes across apologetic — keep it low.
Use for: intro, mission, explainerThe Close Hook
Closer than feels natural — top of your head just out of frame. Hold it for the first 1–2 seconds, then cut wider. The closeness is what stops a thumb before it decides to scroll past.
Use for: the opening line of any Phase 2 hookThe Walk-and-Talk
Handheld, moving — into the office, down a street. Gives the reel actual motion instead of another static talking head. Keep the wobble, it's the point.
Use for: one piece per batch, not everythingThe Two-Shot
Both of you in frame, side by side or across the desk. This is where the brother dynamic actually shows — save it for banter, skip it on solo explainers.
Use for: intro, banter, anything unscriptedThe Over-the-Shoulder Demo
Camera behind or beside whoever's driving the concierge or quote tool — screen and face both in frame. Looks like you were caught doing it, not narrating a screen recording after the fact.
Use for: every product demo shotThe Punch-In
Same shot, zoomed in slightly on the cut. A free second angle even off one static tripod — the cheapest tool going when there's only one camera set up.
Use for: I'll apply this one in the editWhere you look
- Look at the lens, not the preview. Everyone checks their own face on the first take — set the framing, then ignore the screen once you're rolling.
- On a two-shot, look at each other, not the lens. That's what keeps the banter real instead of performed.
- Peak energy in the first frame. A bit of movement before you even speak — a gesture, walking in, leaning toward camera — stops the video freeze-framing as a static person sat still.
Cut density — the actual fix for what we measured
The Virality Predictor read on the last batch scored raw visual stimulation at 27–42% — genuinely low. A static angle held for 12+ seconds barely registers. The fix isn't more energy in delivery, it's a cut roughly every 1.5–3 seconds — an angle change, a punch-in, a B-roll insert. You don't need to think about this while filming. It's why over-shooting angles and B-roll matters: it's the raw material for a fast edit.
On-screen text
Big, bold hook text for the first line only, then it clears. A caption running the whole video looks like a corporate ad; one punchy line that appears and disappears looks like a creator's video. Bottom captions carry the rest, timed to your actual speech — I'll build both in the edit. Just talk naturally, don't script for it.
Sound
- Trending audio, low under your voice, genuinely helps discovery — Instagram's algorithm favours reels built on trending sounds. Spend two minutes in the Reels tab before a shoot checking what's trending, save anything usable for a B-roll-heavy cut. Keep it off the talking pieces, it fights your own voice for attention.
- A £15–20 clip-on lav mic is the one upgrade worth it, if you want it — search "wireless lav mic iPhone." Won't undercut the self-shot look; viewers judge audio and picture quality separately.
The small tells that make 5 clips look like 5 different days
- Change one visible thing between talking-head pieces — a different spot in the office, jacket on or off, sitting vs standing. Doesn't need a full outfit change.
- Shoot each piece's B-roll in the same sitting as its talking-head clip where you can — the cutaways need to match that piece's light and clothes.
Posting mechanics — the small things that move the needle
- Tag the location — Liverpool, or the specific area — on every post. Local discovery is real and most businesses never bother using it.
- Tag the client as a collaborator on proof pieces, if they've got an IG page and are happy to — puts you in front of their followers too.
- End on a genuine question to camera. Real questions get real comments, and comments are the heaviest signal the algorithm rewards in the first hour.
- The first 30–60 minutes after posting matters most. If you can both be free to reply to the first few comments live, that reply activity boosts how far it spreads.
- Don't delete a quiet post. A flop is data — the algorithm needs a body of posts to learn who to show you to, and deleting resets that learning.
The shot list
Tick things off live as you go — this updates for both of you. Five blocks, in the order to shoot them. Each one's tagged with the angle to shoot it in — see Camera & Craft for what each means.
Session progress
0 / 0 shotGetting footage to me for editing
You're the director and the cast — I'm doing the edit (cuts, captions, the demo/proof overlays, the exports for Reels vs Stories). Here's the only bit that needs to be tidy: how the raw footage lands.
Drop raw clips here
Keep every take — I'll pick the best one, and having options to cut between within one talking-head block is what turns 5 scripted pieces into a properly varied week. AirDrop to a laptop then drag into the Drive folder, or use the Google Drive app directly from your phone into that path.
What happens next
- You shoot Blocks A–E, ticking off the shot list as you go.
- Raw clips land in the folder above — no need to rename anything, just the right subfolder.
- I cut Reels from Block A + C (talking-head + proof), Stories from Block E + the extra takes, threading B-roll (Block D) and demo clips (Block B) through both as cutaways — same crop-by-measured-pixels method already proven on the demo ad, so no UI text gets clipped on any screen-recording insert.
- Finished exports go in edited/, sized correctly for Reels (9:16) and Stories (9:16, shorter). You upload manually via the Instagram app — that's deliberate, keeps this off the automated Publora pipeline until you're happy posting your own faces.
- Once Phase 1 has a few weeks of real posts behind it and you're ready, Phase 2 hook-engineered reels reuse this same footage library — new cuts, not a new shoot.
One shoot → one week, mapped out
A rough spread so the week doesn't front-load everything on day one. Move things around freely — this is a starting shape, not a rule.
Where Phase 2 fits
Once this week's out and you're both settled being on camera, the next batch is where hook-engineered reels start appearing alongside the personality content — same footage library, same production loop, just a sharper first 2 seconds on some cuts. That doesn't replace this format, it sits next to it.